So many distractions, so little time or focus to string together words. My early morning rising continues (heck, my body has gotten so accustomed to it, most mornings I wake before the alarm goes off), but I’ve been incapable of tuning out the noise in my world.
End-of-school-year flurry – poetry readings, art shows, field trips, summer celebrations, teacher appreciation breakfasts – and evenings jammed with sports.
The annual Weeksworld birthday marathon – two boy birthdays just seven days apart! There’s the actual birthday day – they pick the eats (which means mom spends most of the day in the kitchen) and they get to choose the day’s activity.
There’s the kid birthday party – 20+ kids, mischief & mayhem, and fried Mommy nerves. Of course there’s also the family party with Grands, Uncles & Aunties. And don’t forget the mountain of Thank You cards that must be written – each and every card mailed out represents a small Mommy victory against the whining writers.
So I gave up the struggle and let my ADD run amuck for a time – flitting from one thing to the next, trying not to get frustrated with the lack of productivity and randomness of each day – knowing once things settle down I’ll get back to business.
And then there are the faraway worries – loving my CA family, wishing I could be there, feeling guilty that I’m not. I maybe in MA, sitting in my office staring at my laptop screen each morning, but my head and heart have been 3,000 miles away. The swirl of thoughts and emotions are still too convoluted to put into coherent prose.
There’s just one problem – when you let the ADD marbles ricochet around too freely it’s hard to gather them up again. Velocity, mass, momentum seize control.
Finally, the first day of summer vacation dawned, grey and cool, and Mama got motivated. It was time to take charge, start chipping away at the chaos, one nagging little project at a time.
First up – sifting thru the multiple bags of half-used notebooks, broken pencils, dried up markers, chewed on erasers, crumpled school worksheets and colorful art projects the boys had brought home from school and summarily dumped on my kitchen floor.
Last year I sifted thru the rubble, boxed up all the still useable supplies, and when back-to-school time came around and we reviewed the teacher’s supply list, I was thrilled to discover we already had everything the boys needed for the new school year. Score one for Mommy!
Less than an hour’s work and the school supply box was once again filled, and tucked away! But once I had cleared away that annoyance, I couldn’t resist tackling another – the teetering pile of school papers that had accumulated in the basement. I was now a Mom possessed.
Jackson & I carried multiple armloads up the rickety basement stairs, depositing them on the living room floor. Unfortunately, I was in such a purging frenzy by that point I never thought to photography the avalanche of papers, art work and brown paper bags, filled with more of both.
We shifted, sorted, photographed, saved and tossed for three straight hours! There were still unopened bags from Jackson’s kindergarten year two years ago, and poster board portfolios filled with Brody’s preschool work three years prior!
I did discover one benefit of letting those piles collect dust in the basement – the boys had lost a lot of their attachment to most of it. I was amazed at how much they let me toss! The final garbage bag count – six.
Now, all their most precious school work, papers, class photos and report cards are neatly filed – one hanging folder for each school year, and another larger storage box for larger art projects.
8 years of school (two preschool years x two, two kindergarten, one 1st Grade & one 2nd Grade) culled down to two organized boxes in just 4 hours!
I’ve been on a major post-purging high for days now, which inspired me to make a new summer project list.
- Fortuitous Housewife redesign and migration to WordPress – the graphic designer started working on the new design this week!
- Finish my office reorganization – Yes, I started this project last October & it’s still not done!
- Purge attic clothing storage – I’ve got stuff up there from the 90’s, maybe even late 80’s. They might be vintage threads, but this vintage bod ain’t squeezin’ into any of it ever again.
- Sew accent pillows for living room sectional – Another list languisher.
- Redo playroom toy storage – The boys’s toys have evolved, but the storage hasn’t.
If you’re a regular visitor this list probably looks pretty familiar – remember last November’s list? But this time I’m setting a goal for myself – every other Monday I’ll start the next project. I’m hoping this will keep me on track to finish one project and move onto the next, so come this fall I’ll be starting the school year off with a fresh new list of projects to tackle and goals to work towards.
And in between all the projects, there will have to be some summertime fun. I guess that’s the next “to do” – a summer funning list. I’ll work on that one with the boys this afternoon!
Are you tackling any big projects this summer? Or are you gonna keep busy ticking off the items on your family’s summer bucket list? Got any “must do’s” I should be sure to add to our “Summer Funning” list?
Oh how do I understand this. I finally started marking some things off of my “to do” list that have been on there awhile (cleaning out the entry and hallway closets). It is amazing the amount of stuff that can get tucked away that is not needed.