Hmmph!
Seems like a long time since I sat down to type here. Actually…it has been a long time…a couple of months at least and that last post was rather short.
Life has been busy, no doubt (and more on that below) but also I managed to give away my work space and only this week replaced it with something else.
You see, I wanted both big children to have a desk in their bedrooms. Partly so that they could retreat there to work when the realities of first grade and preschool mean the little boys and I are too distracting and partly because in a mid-sized house with a good sized family everyone needs a bit of creative space to use. I found Mouse a nice desk last year at a yard sale and after some creative rearranging of the boys’ room (hint: I took away their chest of drawers!) I was able to give Buggle my desk from the basement.
I thought this made perfect sense. I rarely used that desk as I find the basement dark (it’s really not but it seems that way to me since there aren’t any windows) and I figured I could just work on the couch or something.
Silly me! What I hadn’t thought through was were the stuff that accompanies my projects was going to go when I didn’t have a desk to dump it on! The living room tables were the spot apparently and what a clutter they became!
If you know me, you know that while I am not naturally a tidy person, I also have a real problem functioning when there is visual clutter. It’s too distracting and I stop finding time for creative thoughts let alone writing blog posts!
Sooo….
Time to re-arrange the master bedroom and find a desk for mom. We found a decent one, and the kind I was looking for. A secretary or slant top desk, with drawers and little cubbyholes. A bit the worse for wear, but I’ll paint it to go with our room eventually and the application of a lubricant and a few screws got the desktop mechanism working again.
And here I sit. Typing a post at three pm on a Wednesday afternoon, waiting for Jack to fall asleep (I have a suspicion his nap is going the way of the dodo) and contemplating the crazy busyness of this fall.
All four of the children are taking dance this fall. Buggle and Mouse are in the same classes (Tap and Ballet), Bull and Jack are each in different classes (Intro to Dance for Jack and a combination Ballet, Tap, Jazz class for Bull). We are at the dance studio three evenings a week.
Buggle and Mouse are in a very good children’s choir where they are learning to read music and sing (think English choral tradition). Several of their friends do that too, so we can carpool and it’s the same evening as Bull’s dance class so it doesn’t cost us any more evenings.
Wednesday mornings we have a homeschool co-op with several other families (25 or so children). I teach two science classes, and there is also Music and Gym.
Most Fridays we get together with the same group for a more social time (and Mass on the First Friday of each month).
Add in church and Sunday School and the weeks just fly by!
I’m happy though. The children are growing and changing and the big two in particular are beginning to really start to take responsibility for their schoolwork, chores etc. and work to get it done without my having to tell them over and over. I can see some places we need to work on, but when I compare with this time last year I can see how they have matured.
Going forward I should be more faithful in writing in my new space. My aim is to post at least a couple of times a week, if life doesn’t interfere too badly!
What’s new in your world?