I wanted to write a post with more substance to it, but found I just didn’t have it in me. We’re preparing to leave for the Swiss Alps to help out with the pre-teen camp (our third year running) and I’ve had two of the busiest weeks leading up to it. There are doctor’s appointments. None of them are for serious complaints, and for that I’m extremely grateful. But my three children and I have had several appointments for various issues, resulting in sometimes two appointments a day. And if nothing else, it’s the opposite of relaxing.
After getting back from Bretagne, I visited a friend who had a baby, had lunch with a high school friend who’s visiting from the US, and I have another church friend from the US coming with her two boys for lunch tomorrow (after the physical therapy appointment for Gabriel but before our dinner with friends where I’m responsible for the entrée).
Then the engine light on our car went on, the washing machine broke down, the dryer caught on fire, and the guy who is supposed to bring our house to its promised finished state actually called back and said he might come!
MIRACLES REALLY EXIST
Although not until later in August … about the time my mom and stepdad are coming to stay so we might actually be sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room under sheets of plastic, covered in plastic dust. We declared our taxes this week, organised the children’s ministry for the upcoming year at church, recycled old school supplies and spent an entire day purchasing, labelling, and organising new school supplies. And of course, I need to pack for our week away (two, for Juliet who is staying on for the teen camp). On top of that, friends who are gone for the summer asked us to watch their fish.
We just cleaned the aquarium today.
I decided I’d go through my Regency one more time before handing it over to my beta readers, and I think that is where my real mental energy has gone – and why I have none of it left to write a decent blog post. I’d hoped to make good progress on the revision these two weeks and finish it, but it was not to be. Isn’t that a good summary of life at its most maudlin?
“I thought I’d have more time but it was not to be.”
However, through the craziness, I’m seeing these wisps of hope that put the happy in “crazy, happy, busy”. It’s sort of a little miracle that the workers might come back. I wonder if one day our house will be finished. I saw my nutritionist last week and have lost another kilo, although there is still quite a bit of yo-yoing going on. I bought a bullet journal in white moleskin, and right now it’s optimistically clean (and blank). By the way, who among you is a bullet journal pro? What tips do you have for me? Notably, how to translate all the to-dos, now conveniently organised by topic, into have-dones?
And even though I haven’t had any space and quiet since May (it seems) to centre my mind and sanity, I believe I’ll get a couple weeks of just that after Switzerland. I’ll really be able to focus on writing, exercising, blogging, household affairs, bullet journaling — and calm!
I’ll leave you with a funny Instagram photo** of when I gave instructions to the kids on what to eat for lunch while I ran errands (include salad!) — but forgot to tell them they need to talk to each other.
So this is my crazy, happy, busy summer. How’s yours?
P.S. ** (if you’re reading this by e-mail, you need to click over to the blog to see Instagram photos)
P.P.S. There are two related posts – the thumbnails below this one, (chosen automatically by key words or categories, I’m guessing?) – that I went back to read and it’s sort of incredible because both fit in with the deeper theme I was going to write about today had I more time. If you feel like reading more, the first one is called “The Stubborn Thing Called Hope” and the second is from a week later and is called Hard-Pressed, but not Crushed“. Both are from 2014.
The posts had to do with our troubles at the time, mainly having to give our dog away (although there was also the rat in the toilet). What’s remarkable is that thanks to this unfortunate event, I met someone who started studying the Bible, who came from no spiritual background at all and now has faith that is slowly growing. And she had her own little sequence of fortunate events recently that helped build her faith in God, showing just how much God works in his own perfect timing.
But that story is for another day, perhaps when we get back from Switzerland.
