First day of summer!!

Today is our official first day of summer break.  Happy birthday to me!  I’m now, at 34, officially part of the mid-30s demographic.

This is my Summer of Organization.  I’m going to get a few chaotic, poorly-planned things into order by writing down a plan of attack.  I’ve come to realize this about myself:  if it’s not written down, it doesn’t get done.  Or, at best, it too-rarely gets done.  Something that’s not set to paper can indefinitely stay in the ether of my thoughts as “that would be a good idea to do, someday.”  I will likely find that, over the course of the year, each of these schedules need to be altered on the basis of their (in)effectiveness, but for me, the key is just to get the basic plan written out, and then I can work from that.

Both my husband and my son’s occupational therapist have recently told me that I get a lot more done than I feel like I do, which leaves me stressed-out and discouraged.  They both suggested that I write things down, so that I can have a visual reminder of my accomplishments.  This will hopefully override the nagging thoughts in the back of my brain which tell me, “There’s so much you didn’t get done!!” 

Last night, one of my sons said, “Summer means you won’t have to do anything either, Mom!”  Ha!!  😆

What I’ll be working on is:

• Getting my housework in order by determining what tasks need to be done weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc., then putting them *all* down on a yearly calendar.
• Doing a similar task/chore schedule for each of my three boys.
• Getting Grant’s daily occupational therapy activities plan written down.  I have reams of paper of lists of good ideas, plus tons more scribbled notes.  I’m going to organize this into a neat binder, and get several weeks of schedules written out.  Also, I’m going to determine what therapy items we need to buy (and what ones we have that are currently under-used), and get a small tub or something like that so that all of the items are in one place.
• Revamping our school plans for the fall, to accomodate more independent work for Ethan, who will be in 5th grade, allowing me to focus more of my attention on 1st-grader Wesley and 3rd-grader Grant.  All of our schooling, up to this point, has largely been focused on Ethan’s needs, with the other boys rather being along for the ride.  But, the more advanced Ethan’s work gets, the less effective this is.  I’m going to pull out our Core 1 stuff and do that with G & W, letting Ethan do most of the Core 3 work independently.  From a very selfish perspective, this is a difficult decision, because it means that I, instead of learning new things with Ethan, will be redoing the material I’ve already learned!  😉  That sounds lame, but really, this is a great sadness to me.  One of the things that I love so dearly about homeschooling is how much I get to learn, too!

In addition, we have two weeks of swim lessons in July, a trip to Colorado in July/August, friends visiting from Oklahoma, frequent library trips, time with friends, various doctor appointments, hiking excursions with my friend Erin (who is working 4-10s for the summer and has every Friday off!!), expanding my recently-started fitness routine, hopefully an all-girl hiking trip, and whatever else I’ve forgotten right now…

Sounds busy, which is both intimidating to me — I don’t like being really busy.  But also, it builds expectation for the great feeling of getting a lot accomplished.