I had full intensions of
updating everyone on my summer activities. I knew my summer was going to be
full, but I had a lot of plans. Read, for fun, not for class. Study French,
because I have one more year of classes to take and I am very rusty. Finish Book
2: Ethrelguard. Start planning for the release of the Mandate. Study for the
GRE. How much of that did I get done? About half, and I mean half of each
project.
I knew my summer would be
busy, I already said that. But. I was not expecting to be out of town every
other weekend, which is basically what happened. First, we went as a family to
a reunion and dropped of J1 and J2 with my parents. A couple weeks later, I
traveled with J3 to another reunion. A couple of weeks later, my in-laws came
to visit. Then my parents came down with J1 and J2 and sent them on their way
with the in-laws. I didn’t even get 24 hours with my children. I cried. They
had a hard time with it as well. After that was the St. Louis conference. I was
exhausted. The theme was racism and reconciliation and over the course of three
days I realized how much worse the problem is. So much traveling, so many hours
in the car. I needed down time. My writing suffered. Naps were high on the
priority list. Finally, there was the WordPress conference, which pushed back
our last vacation of the summer by three days. We literally left right after
the conference for a twelve hour drive to the in-laws for a four day vacation
and to pick up the boys.
Now, we have been home
for about three days. I am making sure we have appointments to various doctors
and dentists. We need to start getting ready for the school year. New backpacks
and school supplies need to be purchased. The boys have tried on their clothes
from last year and they have each grown a size or two.
As I write this, J2 is
telling me about his robot, J1 is playing Legos and already complaining that J3
won’t leave him alone. I have figured out a couple of things. First, I love the
chaos of the normal day. I love having too many things to do and my writing
thrives off the fact that I leave my house to work and to get away for a break.
Second, I am not able to work on a schedule, to have hourly or even daily
things to do. I am envious of people who can. I stayed at home for years with
the children and still cannot figure out how my husband gets the entire house
clean on Saturday when he is watching the children and yet I could not despite
having five days to get it done.
E. Schierschmidt
