Keepin' it real

I've noticed a trend in the blogs I read both in the posts themselves and confessions buried in comments. Burn out, over-work, stress, busy living.

Here's my confession: I am coming off from a month of that myself. Unfortunately, I feel in good company (like I mentioned above). The intensity of jamming all the goodness of summer living into two short months together with usual family and life obligations can lead to summer burn out quick enough.

Been there, done that. Moving on.

Later this week I may have time to write about the busyness, the burn out and melt down. This is a cycle I go through sometimes and I am not immune to the temptations to over-schedule life. But I live and learn.

And I swim. Granted, I don't swim as often as my children would like. They like nothing more than me joining them in the water, however I'm mostly a beach mama with an occasional dip to cool off. 

We had a wonderful time visiting our friends in NH this weekend and they took us somewhere special, an honest-to-goodness secret swimming hole. A little pool made with a small rock dam in a fresh flowing river. Sweet. 

The kids loved it immensely and it has raised the bar significantly for swimming experiences. I think it will be one of those "this is good but nothing like that swimming hole in NH" memories. 

Life has been busy (ok a little crazy) but we're still making memories, eating well and staying healthy. Now I'm ready for a little rest and of course more swimming. 

Sunday night we arrived home from an eight day camping vacation in the Gaspésie region of Quebec, Canada. This is the same area we visited after this past Christmas. 

Monday was spent as post trips days go: a bit of laundry, a run to the produce stand, some time in the garden, processing trip photos, finding my menu mojo, crafts for the kids (Brienne spent the day making these adorable gnomes) and slowly cleaning up and putting away gear. 

It rained and we puttered the time away mostly indoors feeling a tad bit melancholy. My parents joined us for the later part of our trip and took Laurent home with them for a grandparent visit. We miss our brother and my boy. The house is too quiet without his boisterous energy and infectious grin. 

The garden is green and overgrown. Raspberry canes bent to the earth with the weight of fruit, unruly tomatoes needing to be staked, peas popping off the vines and sodden strawberries moldering (unpicked and overripe) beneath their green canopy of leaves. 

It will take a couple days and I'll be back on my feet but until then I feel an awful lot like staying in my pj's all day. 

I thought I was doing good. I was doing good. 

Then spring and summer collided and my careful scheduling of our days to give us time to explore, create, learn, play and manage our home went flying out the window. Oh, I don't do good with transitions. 

To put things in perspective and be fair to myself, life is not crazy busy. I'm so thankful that the routines we've established keep the house running - meals, laundry and basic chores. But this week I lost my Monday rhythm due to backpacking and I've been playing catch up ever since.

Now the end of this week is Brienne's dance rehearsal and recital. I'm running extra errands for hair clips and applying make up to my seven year old. I'm a fish out of water in this scene.

The only real chaos in the week was Tuesday morning when I took this photo of the flowers I picked earlier against a background of camp debris spread over our living room floor. 

But then Damien, bless his heart, came home on his lunch break and in fifteen minutes working with the kids managed to clean most of it up (minus the heaps of laundry we washed and hung the following day).

Where there is busy there is also beauty because I have these flowers.

I can't say they make the work of the week or this time of transition any easier but they do make it more beautiful. And that counts for something.

~~~

If you are participating in Friday's Flowers linky list please consider the following:

• Your post should have a photo of a bouquet in it. I'm not going to be a rule task-master about this but the idea of Friday's Flowers is to bring them into our homes, or share them with others; to enjoy the bounty of summer's blossom both indoors and out.
• Your post should link back to this particular post on FIMBY. You get that link by copying the URL address from this window. If you are new to html you can contact me for assistance.

If you're just visiting today and want to know what's going on please read this post. Use the linky feature below to share your bouquet blossoms.

Pick some flowers, arrange 'em pretty, take a photo, post it to your blog, visit Friday's Flowers to share it with us.

PS. At the end of June I will be randomly drawing one name from all the folks who participated in Friday's Flowers for the month of May and June and mailing the winner a bar of my soap. Yes, I'm bribing you all to join in. The more weeks you participate the more times your name is entered in the random drawing.