June’s Theme: The Lazy Days of Summer . . . NOT!

As you may have noticed, I missed posting entirely last week! I have not yet recapped April and May nor given you a theme for June.

I don’t know if that has ever happened before in my 2 years of blogging. There is nothing wrong just overly busy. Our home remodeling project has required more of my time than I was planning for and we then had to add on top of that several birthday parties, ballet rehearsals and life in general. It was just too much.

At this time of year, I imagine many parents are in the same boat. While one might imagine that having a summer “off” would be great and relaxing, in practice I don’t think very many parents have time to think in summer, much less relax. Why is it so busy?

For some parents it could be the adjustment to a new schedule. During the school year, things are certainly always busy but there is a predictable routine to it all. Now that school is out (or nearly out), simple things are about to change for many parents. For example, you might be used to making a quick grocery run sans kids in about 20 minutes. The same trip with children might take an hour. It takes more effort to clean and tidy the house when more people are about and more time needs to be spent preparing meals, doing laundry, and driving to activities. Summer vacations consume a lot of time, money and effort. Summer camps and classes do too.

In our homeschooling household, summer isn’t really time off but rather an important part of our academic year. It is one of the few times of year when homeschooled students have the opportunity to mix in with other children so for us that means extra effort to socialize and drive to activities and classes. It is also time to start planning curriculum for the fall.

So, after you tally up all the extra demands on your life, it’s no wonder things are busy in summer.

How can you reduce your stress in this situation?

Honestly, all I can answer here is that I don’t know and that if you find out, please tell me! Organization certainly helps but sometimes there isn’t even time to organize. On this point, I am turning to a professional for help, namely Marcia Francois, whose new book Live Organised just came out.

This is on my June reading list. I bought Marcia’s book when she was offering a special promotion where you could get a copy of her eCourse “Break out of overhwhelm.” (If you didn’t know, Marcia is South African and I love her use of the English language.) If anyone needs to “Break out of overwhelm” right now, it is me!

So for June, on my blog I am going to cut myself a bit of slack. My blogging goals are to:

• Post random odds and ends about things I am organizing in our life lately.
• Finish up my gardening and summarize the garden-related posts from the last two months.
• Read and review Marcia Francois’ book and eCourse.

Thank you for reading and sticking with me. Curiously, I think it might be helpful both to myself and to you to keep blogging during the busiest times of my life as that is the time when we really need to put our organizational strategies to the test.

Do you forecast a hectic or relaxed summer for yourself and/or your family? Please share in the comments.