First Day of School Happiness
I am so happy to be back to normal life this morning! We are starting school today and after a full month of doing nothing but entertaining ourselves and not cleaning the house, I am ready.
A week ago we were in Florida running around at Universal Studios, then came straight home to a houseful of company. Before we left for Universal I tried to get it all clean so when we got home the guest beds would be ready and all I’d have to do is wipe off the bathroom mirrors and go to the grocery store. But somehow that theory never actually works and there seemed to be more work than we could do to get ready for our weekend.
We spent last Wednesday putting away our suitcases and scrubbing the bathrooms and restocking the pantry. I think the washer and dryer ran all day and night so we would be ready for our friends to come and stay for the weekend. I also knew a little secret, which was that our oldest daughter was going to come down and surprise everyone. So I had to discreetly have a bed ready for her too. It wasn’t easy….I am not good at that kind of sneakiness.
I can barely get Christmas presents into the house without being discovered. I try to do little surprises for the kids all the time, like buy their favorite drink to surprise them with for Friday movies only to find them sipping on them one afternoon because they found them in the back of the fridge. Or I get up really early to make a special breakfast and wake people up with my clanging around in the kitchen. So last Wednesday when my boys kept asking me why I needed extra sheets I got panicked and almost blew the secret about a dozen times.
The main reason we had so much company was because there was a conference happening here in our little town and we offered our house as a place to stay for some families. So we were piled up and overflowing and I loved it.
I attended the conference as much as I could, but I had to do some catching up on work at home so I kept slipping back and trying to get some work done. There are definitely disadvantages to having the event in our own town. I ended up only being there about half the time. But even with only hearing some of the talks at the conference I was really uplifted and encouraged. There’s really nothing like being around other like-minded Christians to fill your tank.
One session was about being content with what God has given you and it was especially encouraging to me. It was not only a great message, but the speaker was a young man who is a close friend of my son and that made it even sweeter. To see these boys grow up and develop wisdom from their personal relationship with the Lord melts my heart. The message of trusting God and understanding His sovereignty washed over me and I was so thankful for the words. One thing the speaker said that I wrote in my notes was, “The world tells us that to be content we must get away from what makes us uncomfortable. But Paul clearly teaches us that we must be content with wherever we are.” Good stuff.
It was just what I needed as I move from the carefree times of the summer into full time school with my boys. It won’t be easy to get us all up at the crack of dawn and stick to our school year schedule. We kinda like sleeping late and not cleaning the house and going to theme parks.
So now we are back to our fall schedule and daily routine of school in the mornings and I will do my personal work in the afternoons which includes grading papers for the next day. Having homeschooled for over 20 years, I know that I have to keep up with grading their work every day or I fall so far behind that I can’t catch up. It’s like laundry. Miss a couple of days and you have an overwhelming mountain to deal with.
I won’t be taking any of those “first day of school” pictures though. It’s just not my thing and I tell you that in case you didn’t do it either and you’re feeling guilty. Let it go, my friend. Life’s too short to sweat that stuff. Do what you can and release the rest to the list of things you didn’t really need anyway.
Have a great week!
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