Doth Thou Feelest Ready for Summer?

Are you getting ready for summer?  With school winding down and vacations being planned and the heat coming upon us it’s prep time.  I am trying to clean the house and the spiff up the porch and our pool is getting the care it needs to be ready for daily swimming and splashing that happens all summer around here.  At some point I guess I need to see if everyone’s last year’s swimsuits still fit and/or have any elastic left.

My summer is already looking full on the calendar.  I am traveling a couple of times each month plus we have nieces and nephews visiting for half of July.  I am really looking forward to their visit….they are so precious!  I am going to plan all kinds of fun times while they’re here.  Pennington Summer Camp complete with NingXia red popsicles and diffusing peppermint.  My 7 year old nephew might not realize how awesome this is, but he’s getting it anyway.

This past weekend I made a quick trip to Dallas with my husband for the Republican Convention and to visit my oldest daughter.  When I got home on Friday night, being in my summer prep mode, I started to unpack and then wondered about the suitcase…..to put it away or not to put it away…..that is the question.  Really, it always comes down to Shakespeare, doesn’t it?  Once more unto the breach, dear friends and all that.  Yeah, I don’t know what I’m saying.  It’s possible that the suitcase now sitting in my bedroom with no purpose but proving that I am too lazy to carry it to the storage building then go get it back out in three weeks has gone to my brain.

I did clean my bedroom on Saturday.  I was alone with my 3 youngest boys all day so we decided (well, I decided and they went along with it since I promised them a junk food dinner) to have a bedroom cleaning marathon.  We made lists on our giant white board of tasks in each room then set a timer and blasted fun music while we worked.  After the timers went off we all checked each other’s progress.  We got a lot done that way.  List, work as fast as we could to the music, timers going off, check, repeat.  3 rooms cleaned.  Now we only have the rest of the house to do.

Their reward was going to the dollar store for food.  I let them each pick a frozen dinner and chips.  Don’t judge me.  A mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.  I’ll feed them veggies all week to make up for it.

I am also getting my wardrobe ready for the heat wave that’s about to hit.  I haven’t heard any weathermen saying there’s a heat wave coming, it’s just that I live in Texas and there’s no avoiding it.  I am also making sure all of our fans are working and I have freezer space for bags of Sonic ice.  I read recently that it’s healthiest to only drink room temperature water.  While this may be ideal and maybe I will shoot for that in the mornings and evenings, I can’t do it in the mid-day-summer-temps.  My survival depends on crushed ice.

I am also hoping to get the yard cleaned up before summer, but that may be overshooting our abilities since all my bigger kids have jobs, are in theater performances and doing extra activities that keep them out of the house.  It takes a village to run this operation and half my villagers are running around all times of the day and night.  Although one day last week my girls got the urge to clean out the pantry which absolutely made me giddy until I saw the mountain of “extra” food covering the kitchen table.  “We weren’t sure what to do with this stuff,” they said.  Um…..great.  Now I have a pile of expired soup and half used boxes of dry milk to feel guilty about.  #thestruggleisreal

Maybe if I promise someone another dollar store TV dinner with Nacho Cheese Doritos they will just throw it all away without asking me and I can pretend I never saw it.

Yes, I teach parenting tips.

And now I shall leave you with this thought, “Goodnight!  Goodnight!  Parting is such sweet sorrow.  That I shall say goodnight ’til it be morrow.”

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