The Puddles

We have a routine.  We live by the routine.  In one day, our world is thrown upside down by a massive change in the routine.  That would be  . . . the day school closed for the summer.  Yep. It has thrown our simple world into one of chaos and noise.  No more quiet time at the Lake house for mom to rejuvenate her sensibilities.  I need to recharge my navigation system in order to navigate through this new world.  This has been further hampered by the constant stress of the outside world.  I can generally only deal with one stress at a time.  I would prefer the stress of home to the stress of the outside world (it is less cruel). My children may be stressful at times, but it usually a straightforward issue. Where as the world is manipulative and often not compassionate towards its fellow human beings when it is stressed.  And right now . . . it is really stressed.

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It is time for bed. I have to wake up in five hours. But I have made so much progress today (well . . . yesterday and it rolled into today) that I don’t want to stop.  Much was accomplished. We cleaned. We finished laundry (and almost all of it is put away). We did chores. We did school work. We played. We played with Gordon (he hung out with us all day).  We did quiet time. We took baths. We made dinner (Daddy even joined us). We worked. We prepared for VBS. We worked. We did paperwork. We vacuumed. We put away two entire grocery carts full of groceries (it covered the entire floor of the kitchen).  We have started getting ready for our trip.

Ok. Now that I read the list of what I did today, I am suddenly tired.  My alarm will go off soon. It is time to draw this day to a close.  There is much more work to do tomorrow.

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Ben and I were riding in the car together and out of the blue Ben says,

“Mom, I am never going to kiss nasty girls!”

“Okay?” (I’m thinking  . . . What brought this up?)

“And Mom? I am never dating. Unless she is cute and funny and if she likes boys.  Then I’m all in.”

Sounds good, Ben.  I love that boy.  He cracks me up.

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Wow!  After a week of Memorial Day activities and end of the school everything I am wiped.  We had a wonderful time at all of our activities but we are tired and our home and cars look like nuclear bomb went off inside.  I let the kids sleep in until 8am (two were up before but they were downstairs watching tv).  Chris was gone all day yesterday and wasn’t home the two days before that.  My neighbor came over last night and I was too tired to even get up from the couch initially.  I was tired.  A good night of sleep has helped my disposition.  We have slowly started cleaning the house and trying to return it to normal.  My nephew Gordon has come to hang out with us today and he has turned out to be a great help.  Before he arrived I was averaging 2 tattles a minutes.  Since his arrival, no tattles.  Awesome!!!!!  He is keeping the kids entertained.  I love it when Gordon comes to play.  Besides the fact that he smiles and makes us all happy.

I hope to post some pictures later today from our week’s activities.  It has been a great week. I hope that this is the beginning of an awesome summer.

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I said, “Ainsley, it is time to do your chores!”

Ainsley responds, “No, thank you.”

“Ainsley you can’t say no to chores!”

“But I used my manners, Mom!”

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