A summer direction
This coming week is my older three boys’ last week of school. I’ll sub one day. I’ll go to student awards programs. I’ll burst with satisfaction and happiness over all the hard work that has been done inside and outside the classroom by my kids and all the kids in our community
Then it’s time to pivot. We’ll have to make new schedules and buy more popsicles and settle into a rhythm of all the boys being home again. I love the extra time with my kids and how many more things can be regular parts of our day. (The third Harry Potter book is a summer project!) However, it will be a challenge because I also love quiet when no one is talking to me. And usually three people are talking to me at once if everyone is here.
There are three summer practices I’m adopting at the start.
1. Keeping my morning routine. Most mornings, I’m up before everyone else. I work on Greek. I write a little. I read my Bible and pray and sit in silence. This is easy to do when we have to walk out the door for school at 8:40 because I know there’s a deadline. It will be harder in the summer when I could *technically* sleep longer. I am also going to benefit from that morning quiet even more than I have this school year.
2. Laying down some ground rules. Really, we’re going to continue working on some of our same rules. Such as, “if someone is already talking to mom, it is not your turn to talk yet.”
3. Grounding our weeks in a rhythm. One of my kids will have tutoring two mornings a week. I’m meeting a friend for an early breakfast once a week. We’ll pick a day to go to the library, a day to go to the park. We’ll save a day for a bigger outing and I’m hoping to have someone else stay with the boys one morning a week. I’ll still have seminary work and cohort work, though both will (intentionally) be slower during the summer.
It’s quite possible that your summer looks very different from mine. You might not have kids or you may work a full-time job where much less of your life shifts with a move into summer. Either way, something as simple as a change in the season changes our whole lives. We eat different food, go to bed at different times, participate in different activities. Maybe it’s worth looking at what will help your thrive. What rhythm do you need? What practices will help you and yours flourish? What works in January usually does not work in June but it's easy to forget this until you're drowning on June 24th.
My aim in setting goals has changed a lot. I don’t have a many metric-based things in my life right now. I do thrive with a direction. Last week, I picked up Eugene Peterson’s new book, On Living Well, and right in the introduction I found a phrase I’m going to carry with me all summer. “Leave little unlived life.” I want to live it all, even if it’s hot and sticky and everyone is talking to me (hopefully not at the same time).
Do you have practices that help your summer? I’d love to hear about them!
Always,
Lisa
Links I Love:
Esau McCaulley tells us why America isn’t ready to understand the Buffalo shooting.
Following Elise’s renovation/move is so much fun.
I said I wasn’t taking a social media break until June but it’s pretty much started now. My goal is write on the blog and I have been. Here. Here. And here.