Hopeful Homemaker

Ok, fellow moms out there:  have you ever marveled at the way most of the year’s decisions need to be made in April and May?  It’s the time you make all your decisions about the next school year,  registering children for school and extra-curricular activities that will begin in August.  It’s the time for tryouts for sports teams that will pick up in the fall.  It’s also when you commit your summer:  vacations, sports camps, Scout camps, swimming lessons.  And while you’re trying to manage these down-the-road decisions, you’ve got to juggle a new permission slip almost daily for some unusual end of year activity at the school, come up with a million random items needed for experiments, parties, field days and so forth.  I won’t even mention all of the end of year book reports and presentations.  And of course, while this is going on you’re trying to keep pace with the soccer practices, soccer games, soccer tournaments, piano recitals, band concerts and everything else going on in the evenings.

So pretty much your family (and sometimes your brain) feels like this:




Please understand I’m not complaining, only marveling at the magnitude of it all.  I actually feel pretty good.  I know that I’ll forget a few things but remind myself that I’m miraculously remembering thousands of things.  I have this quiet determination to stay the course, finish the school years calmly and assume that things will work out.

I got a lot of things done this week.  The only problem is that none of the things I got done were on my list of things I needed to do.  I remind myself that this is the time of year when everything becomes urgent and you just do your best to fit it all in.

Everyone is exhausted and overbooked right now.  It’s May.

This week’s report:  74 steps.  Not bad.  I’ll take it.

Highlights:

1.  I finished two books and started two more.  This is what happens when I let myself  start reading.  You can do a lot of reading during minutes spent waiting in the car for this or that to end.

2.  I had a great conversation tonight with a man I taught on my mission 15 years ago.  It’s such a blessing to cross paths with remarkable people.

3.  We spent as much time as possible playing outside, enjoying the nice weather.

4.  Kids activities.  Boy oh boy, have we had a lot of those going on!  On Thursday I let 12 children make their own mini-pizzas.  My kitchen was trashed, but we had a lot of fun and made a great memory.

5.  I had a positive experience tonight with my oldest daughter when she was discouraged about something.  I feel really good about it.

6.  My sister and her husband surprised us by coming down tonight to stay with us.  Hooray!

7.  I’m almost done formulating a plan which I hope will help my children be motivated to work toward personal goals during the summer.  I’m REALLY excited about it.  It’s pretty ambitious, but I think a lot of good will come of it.

8.  We’re trying not to be so busy that we don’t appreciate moments like this.


Life is good.  We have two more weeks of school to go.  In those two weeks we’re also expecting out of town company and we’re leaving on a mini-trip the last day of school.  I have A LOT to take care of!  I have some deadlines that I REALLY want to meet.  We’ll see how it turns out.

I hope your  week is sunny and full of great things!

Hopeful Homemaker