"Stop messing with my summer fun..."

This was the response I typed in response to my husband's request that I do some bookkeeping:

"Please stop messing with my summer fun by making me do work..."

That's kind of how I approach all vacations. I don't want to do anything at all. I don't want to cook, clean, do laundry, get up on time, go to bed on time, exercise, eat correctly, study the Bible, or do any sort of business dealings. I just want to play.

And then I end up feeling just gross.

So I'm trying to head it all off this year and act like some sort of real grown up. How do I do that? By a schedule, of course. Everything can be fixed with a list and/or a schedule.

Now I might want to interrupt and say this is one of those posts that's just for me, really. But if you're bored, feel free to keep reading...

So I'm here to say that I'm still going to get up at 5:30, unless I happen to align the planets and get to have some girlfriend time one night. And I may have to Tweet some super annoying early morning Tweets to keep myself accountable. I am still going to have my hour of exercise at 6:30, because dangit, if I can go out in the dead of winter when it's in the 20's, I can get out there in the summer. I'd much rather go when it's 20 degrees, though. And if I have any chance of being outside exercising in the summer, 6:30 is probably the only time I'll make it without dropping dead.

I'm also going to revisit Jillian Michael's "30 Day Shred." I love to hate her, and I'm going to stick that workout in for the late afternoon. Oddly enough my kids like to do it. They are weird little suckers. Anyway...

I am also going to schedule our family worship time for 9 am. It was easy to do it during school, because we just did it before we started school. But now with no school, I don't want to let that go. It's too important. And I don't want the kids to equate Bible study with school. So that is my plan there.

And if you want a good family worship plan, go here:

http://www.radicalexperiment.org/

Scroll down to where it says, "Family Worship." You'll be blessed, and your kids will learn. I promise.

I also am making a rule that for now, NO toys come down the stairs. I just cannot keep up with the mess, and I'm going to try and see if this is help some.

I'm also having to stick with some pretty strict media rules. Normally the kids can watch one show in the morning before school while I'm out exercising, and then the television goes off until it's time for me to cook dinner. The kids can't play video games until the weekend, and no computer time for Laney until the weekend either. Now that it's summer, I do want to relax those rules a little, but still keep them away from all that stuff. I'm trying to work that out.

I myself have some big projects to do before school starts back. Here they are:

• clean out the garage
  
• clean and beautify the back yard
• steam clean the carpets in the house
• purge my scrapbooking supplies and organize our school section
• transfer this blog over to Tumblr (*shiver* This one must be done, but scares me to death)
  

I also want to be disciplined about my housekeeping this summer too. Right now, it's a joke. Allen joked that he was about to fire the maid. (I think my cuteness was the only reason he said he was keeping me. He's forbidden from using that horrid "hott" word, on a completely unrelated note. I h.a.t.e. that word, just for the record...) And he was kidding, by the way, but honestly I can't remember a time where the house was this much of a mess. So what I'm proposing to myself (!) is that we stay at home until after lunch every day to give me time to deep clean this house. Then, hopefully, after school starts back, it will be easier to maintain. And I am going to be harder on the kids about keeping their stuff picked up.

The last thing I need to work on is letting go of my disappointments over last school year. I really didn't bust it like I have in other years. My kids learned, no doubt, thanks to God and my amazing curriculum. But I really struggled with the weight of home schooling this year. I don't think I realized how heavy that weight was until it was lifted. I know without a doubt that I am called to do this, and that Christ will enable me to do this job. I just think that I need to be harder on myself and push through when it's hard more than I did last year.

Or something like that. I also have to let that disappointment go. It's all good. They learned. I taught. We spent all day, every day together. God is good. :)

So there is my summer plan. Oddly enough, we'll start school back on July 6th, so we're only talking 5 weeks off. But that's okay. I think we'll all be ready to start back then *crossing fingers* I'm praying we are, anyway...