Family Life

I don't usually look back over a past month and spend much time reflecting. I'm fairly forward thinking and like to look ahead more than over my shoulder. But as we move through the days of late summer, shifting gears to prepare for fall, I feel the need to make sense of August. To process and understand what has been a very intense month. The intensity of which I hadn't anticipated or planned for.

Part of the challenge of doing this in such a public space (I love writing for a public audience by the way) is that as much as I love to be open and honest I need to also respect certain privacies. I am doing my best to walk that line in writing this post.

Looking back, I learned new lessons this month and others were things re-learned and remembered.

Time & Life Management:

• Living according to your priorities is hard work. I'm not trying to balance it all. I know what my mission is but that doesn't mean the trust, surrender and daily discipline required to reach those goals is easy.
• Taking time each day to write is very important to me.
• Going swimming each week (friend's pools, freshwater beaches, mountain streams) is a non-negotiable for a summer as lovely as this. 
• I don't like coming face to face with my own inadequacies. I take pride in being competent, organized and in control. When I am not those things my sense of self worth plummets.
• When life is crazy it is hardest to eat well, get adequate rest and downtime, exercise in the outdoors, spend quality time together, pray, read and reflect. When life is crazy it is most important to eat well, get adequate rest and downtime, exercise in the outdoors, spend quality time together, pray, read and reflect.
• All plans are subject to change.

Kitchen:

• Making live fermented pickles (or are they called lacto-fermented?) is super easy and tasty. Why didn't I do this sooner??
• Amy's Frozen burritos make for a delicious, next-to-nil preparation supper and are a lot cheaper when bought through the buying club. In a pinch they can be heated on a cast iron pan. 
• On certain days cleaning the crafting, living, and sleeping spaces are optional. Cleaning the kitchen isn't.
• You can make chocolate cake in a mug!

Loving & Relationships:

• Friendship, connection and encouragement can reach across the internet and come from people you've never met in person.
• Taking the time to give my children long hugs gives us more warm fuzzies and well being than a brief encounter (duh, but really I'm consciously working on this).
• Loving this man means loving adventure.
• The unique joy of being both a daughter to my parents and a wife to my husband is getting sweeter all the time. In years past I sometimes felt (though I know this wasn't true) that I had to choose one or the other. This past month it was especially clear to me that I am resting in both at one time. What a gift.

Beauty, Gardening & Soul Care:

• A summer's day line dried sheets truly are one of life's simple pleasures.
• Our butterfly bush is the best investment we ever made for attracting butterflies to our backyard. That combined with a month of fabulous weather has brought multiple butterfly species, attractive moths and even a hummingbird to our backyard. I have watched this daily show through my kitchen window with deep, deep appreciation and awe.
• The Mitford Series has been the perfect summer read. Thank you to the friends who recommended it.
• Also recommended is All Creatures Great and Small. I am especially enjoying this audio version which the kids and I are listening to.
• Goldfinches like sunflowers.
• To quote Guy Clark, "There's only two things that money can't buy and that's true love and homegrown tomatoes".

I don't know what September holds. There are plans being made, dreams followed, dates on the calendar and general directions I want to move in but August has taught me to hold lightly to those things. And prepare myself to be flexible.

This past month there have been some hard lessons for a routine loving, plan knowing gal like myself. But there has been a lot of beauty in my life each day and love freely given. And I am so very thankful.

For the eight years we've lived in Maine we've heard about "camps". These are, most often, small and rather rustic vacation cottages that dot the shores of Maine's many beautiful ponds and lakes.

Where we grew up there were few nice fresh water lakes and no one I knew had a cottage. In Maine though it's common for someone who is part of an extended family to have a connection to a camp. Seeing that we have no extended family here we've never had those kind of connections.

Even so, we managed to snag a weekend at a honest-to-goodness camp last weekend, thanks to the generous offer of some friends.

The digs would be considered modest by most standards. The decor, furniture and appliances were all circa 1971 and we were without hot water. But compared to most of our weekend outings (under tents and three sided shelters) the solid roof, wood burning stove, propane stovetop, running water and electricity were downright luxurious.

Though Celine did say she would prefer WiFi to flush toilets. And I agree.

It was a wonderfully relaxing weekend away, tucked snug in between two difficult weeks. Those are often the hardest trips to make (it seems hard to get away when so much is happening at home) but the most important also.

Whereas we usually hike each weekend this time we rested. We wrote, paddled, read, ate, hammocked (is that a word?) slept and played games.

I was a perfect break in an otherwise tumultuous month.

I always feel a bit out of step with the schooling/homeschooling world this time of year. The buzz, even in homeschooling circles, is back-to-school. And my mind is just not in that space this time of year. 

Like I've written earlier, this is our first year of summer homeschool. But we have always been year round learners and for the last few years we've done our state required assessments in mid August to reflect that. This week I am sending the necessary paperwork (2 pages in all) to the state education department for next school year along with the just-completed assessment (with a copy to the local school board).

Then I breathe a big sigh of relief and rest a bit. 

The end of summer is certainly a time of new beginnings and marks a new year for me just as much, if not more so, than January. Even so, we like to ease our way into September's changes and I don't think too much about that until we've maxed out our enjoyment of summer. 

So while the rest of the homeschool world is buzzing with back-to-school excitement (not those unschoolers of course who are motoring on as they usually do, unstructured and free) we're in an in-between space right now. Thinking about a new school year but still enjoying summer. And taking a break from morning math et al. for mommy to rest and get organized. 

The kids are busy these days devouring library books and engaging in messy and creative work. Making silly putty has been a recent activity that is an easy, safe chemistry project. 

I wrote about this project a couple years ago and this is the link, Homemade Silly Putty. This is an experiment/craft that my kids have loved to do over and over again and keeps hands and minds engaged for hours. All you need is borax, water and white glue.

Buying extra bottles of white glue for this project has been the extent of our back-to-school preparations. 

Is anyone else in an in-between time or are you all on the back-to-(home)school bus?