We just spent a wonderful weekend at Michigan PaganFest with our friends. This was my second year to attend the festival, but the first time I’ve spent the whole weekend there, and the first time the rest of my family came along. My mother offered to come with us, so we were able to use her camper for some of us to sleep in and for cooking. Camping with all of the kids, especially Kender, was interesting, but it was nice to be there for the whole festival, even if I missed a few bits. Now we’re back home, and back to the real world, going from a weekend of relaxing and drumming and chanting and singing and just spending time with friends and family, to the place of chores and work and money and obligations. I spent the drive home trying to catalog all the things I have on my plate. Let’s see if I can sort some of them out here.
For myself and my spiritual life:
- My daily practice of prayers, meditation, religious study, and blogging. I keep falling off course with this, and once again I have to pick it back up. I’m slowly learning not to tear myself down because of my slips and lapses.
- Knitting and crochet, which bring me happiness and relaxation. Well, it’s relaxing when I’m not in a competition, anyway!
- Exercise. My current plan is to buy a new bike (to replace my running), and to continue ramping up a new bodyweight strength program. My feet are barely letting me walk these days, never mind running again. Anybody want my 1:00pm start time for this year’s Warrior Dash?
- Music. I have determined that I need to bring more music back into my life, and it needs to be more than singing along with the radio. Whether it’s playing the piano, continuing my exploration of the djembe and bodhran, or finding a way to sing with others, I need to do more of it. I brought home to myself this weekend just how huge a part of my life music used to be, and how much it has disappeared since I had kids. That needs to change.
For my children and my home:
- Homeschool is ongoing. Because we spent a large chunk of the past couple of years unschooling, and we started a new school year with a new curriculum in February, I feel better continuing to do school through the summer, taking shorter breaks for camps and vacations instead of stopping for the whole summer. I’ve had a lot of trouble finding the time to do any schoolwork with the littles, or check the schoolwork of the bigs, in between everything else going on.
- Kender needs his video made for 4 Paws for Ability. This is technically not due until 6 weeks before our class date, but practically speaking it needs to be in as soon as possible, so that the trainers have as much time as possible to get a dog best suited to Kender’s needs. I need to continue to find ways to keep the cameras rolling to catch all those special Kender moments, and get them turned into something coherent to send in.
- I need to run yet another test on Kender’s GPS tracker, which has never worked properly. Even though this would be a hugely valuable tool if it were working properly, it keeps getting knocked down to the bottom of my to-do list, at least in part because talking with the tracker company makes me feel like I’m talking to “customer support”, and not in a good way. I need to run a side-by-side test with my Garmin and this GPS, so the company can see how far off their data points are and why we are not using the device. Deadline for this is ASAP, because the company guy is waiting for me to call him back.
- I need to prepare class materials for the Foster homeschool classes I am teaching this fall, Braille I and Viking History. Deadline for this is October, when classes start again.
- My garden never did get finished this year, again.
- I always feel obligated to bring in some money, somehow. I am currently working (slowly) on a gorgeous TARDIS ball gown for a friend of a friend (deadline: ASAP, as the dress is prepaid). I also need to stockpile items to sell at a vending table at ConVocation. I need to reserve that table, along with my hotel room, and I need to save up the money to pay for going to ConVocation next year with at least my oldest kids. I also need to check on the possibilities of a table at the Witches’ Ball, and definitely at next year’s PaganFest. In the meantime, I have some ideas for items that could be put on Etsy as well as selling at conventions, if I can just finish the design and make some prototypes. Oh yes, and there’s the laundry list of things I’ve been asked to sew for friends that I haven’t gotten to yet!
- I’d put in here that I need to do better at taking care of the house, keeping things clean, staying on top of discipline, etc. But really, I don’t. What I need to do is get over my perfectionism and find the love and joy in the way things are. I have so much to do already. There is no reason to expect my house to look like Martha Stewart’s, or my children to be little angels. I tell it to other people all the time, and now I need to internalize it and believe it for myself.
- I need to get the older kids ready for camp, making sure they have all the supplies they need. This usually means buying large quantities of socks to replace all those that have gone missing throughout the year, and padding out supplies of shirts and shorts for the older kids. We’re going to continue working on our one-bag packing skills for camp. The sticking point is laundry, as I don’t see them being allowed to wash and hang-dry their own laundry every couple of days, but we can work on compact clothing supplies, at least. Deadline is July 14, when the girls and Jarod leave for Bear Lake.
It looks a small bit better when laid out like that.