My life is ruled by the giant calendar that is attached to my fridge.  The big squares are squished with activities, meetings, work, appointments, birthdays and random notes. If I am feeling organized the entries are even color coded by activity. If it doesn’t make it to the calendar…it might as well not exist. I make a pocket underneath it to hold the dozens of random schedules that we end up with so I can refer to them as needed.  There are cool stickers, but mostly there isn’t room. My kids are little experts at decoding it…”We have to be in 3 different towns tonight! “is always scary to hear.

I have a 9, 11 and 13 year old with varying interests it seems there are always three thousand places to be and only one of me to get them there. We do put a limit on activities and work around schedules as best we can but even a single activity per child means running at least 4 nights a week as well as fitting in dance competitions, tournaments and birthday parties and sleepovers. Add to that an actual job and a business and it leaves precious little time for my husband, family and friends, taking care of my home, cooking and gardening on our acreage.  Somehow things work out.

This summer my goal was to see some white space on that calendar for once…to have room for the groovy stickers. I shut down all kinds of nifty ideas for activities and just made sure everyone had a well deserved rest. We slept in when we could. We played cards. We stopped for ice cream. We danced in the living room.  We played ping pong and basketball. We looked at the amazing night sky. I sat on my deck with my dogs in the mornings and drank my coffee. We went to the beach.

Now after 2 months of relative peace and quiet I find I am ready to start back to routine. I have my colored pens and a fresh calendar ready.  Bring it on.  :)