School is out. Planting is done. We are greeting each with an ice cream toast tonight after baseball. And all the while, this mom is focusing on the next two months, making plans for the new norm that will grip this farmhouse tomorrow morning.
When the kids boarded the bus last August, I have to admit, I missed them. I missed the noise and the company. The spontaneous bike rides they insisted upon multiple times a day. I missed having help loading and unloading the car with groceries. I missed my shopping buddy (my fairy farm princess) who motivated me to keep going when I really wanted to quit after the first store.
But gradually, I fell into a good routine. The house fell silent each morning at 7:30 when the bus pulled out. My Farmer had already left greeting the sunrise. I could exercise, clean-up, enjoy breakfast, and spend a good amount of time addressing emails, returning phone calls, preparing for meetings, presentations, etc. all by myself in complete quiet. Ahhhhhhhhhh . . .
Now, don’t get me wrong. More often than not I was scrambling to get out of the house for one reason or another and usually worked into the night after everyone had gone to bed. But the days that I could sit at this desk and spend three or four hours composing a blog were nice days. Peaceful days.
I had approximately three hours of peace this morning before the bus brought the kids home with their report cards and screams of “School’s out! School’s out! Teachers let the monkeys out!”
My Farmer, finished with planting, spent his day loading trucks with corn and doing odd jobs around the farmstead. I’m not complaining; it’s just different to having people in and out of the house all day long.
So, here I sit, chuckling at how easily my personal routine has nosedived. Tomorrow we’ll jump on the summer break treadmill and sprint through these next weeks. I’ll post a blog in August lamenting the quiet loneliness, solo shopping trips and blah routine that will grip my days.
It’s just another stage . . . our new norm.
I wonder how many blogs that I’ll be able to churn out as soon as school ends, here. Who knows? This will be the first summer that I’ve had my blog.
Same for me. First summer blogging along with the crazy good frenzy summer is around here. We’ll see, if anything, I’ll change my focus and make this a seasonal blog. : )