the next big thing

I don't know if its an approaching that big age mid-life-ish crisis. Maybe its that my youngest child is nearly four, potty trained, weaned, and etc. able to run around with the bigs wreaking unsupervised havoc.

One of these things.

And I sit here, sketching peonies at my mother's table, as my kids do some "summer school" work (listening to audio books and drawing) and I feel this overwhelming treacherous sort of feeling reaching up from the dark corners inside me.

I AM SO RESTLESS.

I NEED TO DOOOOOOOOOOO SOMETHING.

Restless, verging on the discontented. A dangerous place. A place where rational thought goes out the window. Where one lies awake at night plotting all kinds of lunacy, tossing and turning, waiting for the impossible to be achievable.

And here I am.

And it is hard for me to write in this space when my brain approaches this place, as is typical for me in major periods of transition, like moves and babies.* I am unsettled. I am not felt-crafting mouselings or sewing baby bonnets or making sauer kraut or planting gardens or planning homeschool lessons.

ITS ALL OUT THE WINDOW.

I am, frankly, a basketcase.

And we have plans. Big Ass Plans. Plans that are so ludicrously optimistic I shudder to even mention them here. I dare not, lest the universe rip them out of my hands, once again, leaving me clinging to empty air (clearly this tortured soul bit and little sleep brings out the poetic prose, LUCKY YOU. HA HA)

GAAAAAAAAAH.

The next big thing. It always gets me. When its coming on the horizon, like a tidal wave, and, there is nothing I can do. Just ride the wave, and wait.

So, I tell myself, and dada this morning, I feel like I am circling some drain, waiting for the final flush. I need my fight back, My order. My structure. Take charge-ed-ness. This family, we need to GET OUR SHIT TOGETHER.

So. We make a 100 fun summer things to do list (currently at 27) and I do what all homeschooling mamas do in such situations. Call the children to the table. And do some school. No, I don't care if its June. YOU ARE DOING A SPELLING TEST. Ha. I suck. No but, today we did some animal stories by Thorton Burgess and drew some pictures, then an easy lunch, and now we head out for an afternoon at the lake.

I am thinking of instituting "school time" from 10-11 every day, picking one topic, something we all do together (yesterday we started a little unit study on island biospheres). Then lunch. Then outside play. Then a reading time - where I GET TO PICK THE BOOKS, and, WHERE I READ TOO. Then dada takes over kids and dinners and I either write (starting in on book 2 revisions!) or GO FOR A RUN (which I really should do to get rid of some of this angst of late...) Then dinner. More time outside. Bath. Books. Bed. Then Empire Boardwalk for mama and dada. And chocolate. Ha.

I can do this. One day at a time, Big Ass Plans, come what may. I shall fight the circling of the toilet flush, I shall, I shall, one day at a time.

So, How is YOUR summer starting off???? HA HA HA.

little man's comics, his project of the summer

*No, I am not pregnant.