Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Summer Resolutions

Summer is here again, and with it comes all the bugs, sunshine, and heat you can handle. The kids are off school and driving their summer caregivers to distraction as they adjust to their new schedules or lack of schedules. And for those of us who are stay at home parents, those pesky chores like grocery shopping turn into epic journeys as we load the entire troupe into the car to brave the aisles filled with pitfalls and traps like inconveniently placed toys and treats which, naturally, did not make that very exclusive grocery list. The grocery bill balloons as by the second aisle, and 557th request to buy some trinket or junk food item you would normally never buy, you find yourself exhaustedly saying “yes” just to appease the locals and hopefully gain a few seconds of peace to think and peruse the grocery shelves.



With the change in season comes the inevitable change in lifestyle. All of your usual television shows have been replaced by repeats or pathetic attempts at summertime programming. Perhaps the lack of effort lays with the simple fact that more people are outside doing stuff than cooped up inside glued to the boob tube. Quite frankly, the only thing playing anywhere right now that I would want to watch is True Blood.



No longer am I juggling a kindergartener in half time school who needs my 150% undivided attention when she is home because she misses her sister with household chores, grocery shopping, volunteering at school, and trying to find time and energy left over to find the incentive to write. Now with both girls home all the time, it is a brave new day, a day that is a bunch of days all melded into one never ending day of doing the same things every day.



With the new season, new lifestyle, and new daily schedule also comes the other inevitable, the need to make new resolutions. You know; those promises of self fulfillment, self improvement, and sometimes self sacrifice that are so well meant but futile, fruitless, and generally abandoned after a few well intentioned weeks. I don’t know about you, but with each change of season and lifestyle, I always feel that need to try to change things up, to improve and enrich our lives with self improvements, home improvements, and family improvements.



This summer season my resolutions are much the same as they have been each changing season. They are also just as well intentioned, well meant, and probably will be just as quickly lost and abandoned to the reality that there just isn’t enough time in the day or energy after a long day of kids, messes, and childhood mayhem.



With the grade oner at home to hopefully provide distraction for the kindergartener, distraction that so far consists of “Mo-om, so and so is doing this!” Mo-om, so and so is doing that!” I hope to:



- Be more active with my writing blog and writing networking groups

- Get one of those novels in process ready for publishing

- Finish some short stories and perhaps a novella

- Write down my campfire stories into children’s books and possibly try to get them published

* All of these writing activities may just be my last kick at the can to have time for them with the inevitable return to the lifestyle of the working Mom soon to come.



- Keep the house tidier and try to have everyone in happier moods so my husband has a much more pleasant home to come home to after a hard day’s work. What better way is there to thank him and show our appreciation for his hard work in supporting us? And, because naturally every action also has a touch of selfish motive … to make him more forgiving of the time it may take for me to find gainful employment this fall after more than seven long years unemployed. And, the possibility of my easing into the work force part time or casually in an attempt to break into the world of the Educational Assistant or other positions with one of our local area schools.

- Return to my efforts to purge the house of all unnecessary clutter.

- Renew my efforts to get into shape and return to fitting into my pre-baby outdated and worn out clothes.

- Work with the girls on their summer reading and learning so they are ready for school in the fall.



And with all this now on my plate, it is time to turn away from the keyboard and see who is doing what to make who mad this time.




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