On the Road Again
Well, I know it's early compared to the rest of the country, but my kids have now been back in school long enough for me to kinda sorta feel settled into a new routine.
After all that stress and angst, we finally sent our oldest off to high school. It was a nice shepherd's pie of stress and anxiety with a dollop of excitement on top. The biggest challenge was that they got her schedule wrong, placing her in Algebra I instead of Honors Geometry. A big difference there. And it took them the whole first week of school to get her schedule corrected. Ugh. The only lingering problem now is that she still hasn't managed to get a geometry book checked out from the bookstore. (She does her homework every day by snapping pictures of the pages in class using her iphone. What did kids do before smartphones? Apparently they even research in her Ancient Civilizations class using their smartphones...granted, M's isn't actually hooked up to cell service yet so she is still stuck in the dark ages of having to wait her turn to use the classroom computer. I don't think any of my history classes had a computer in the room at all. . . .)
Anyway, now that we are past the insanity of the first few days of trying to figure out who needs to go where at what time, I'm getting an idea of how this year is going to go, and I think it's going to be OK. I am in the car a lot though. I was in the car a ton before, but now I might as well be commuting to Phoenix every day I think. I have to hit a gas station at least three times a week. If only M could drive herself to school!! However, even if I had an extra car and the money for gas and car insurance (a big IF), M is petrified of learning how to drive. She literally fights me when I want her to practice steering. Just steering! I can't fathom it. I was hyper-excited to drive as a teenager, literally counting down the months til I could get my learner's permit.
The other HUGE change in my life is that I was released as Primary President. (Mormon lingo translation: That means I'm no longer "running" the children's ministry.) It theoretically should lift a ton of stress and time commitments from my shoulders-- what am I saying, in theory? Here I am blogging, when normally I would be at Roundtable for scouts-- already my schedule has lightened up! But seriously, I don't feel much less stressed. I think it's just the change. It's been a huge part of my life for so many years now. It's kind of like quitting a part time job I've been holding since S was born.
The good news is that I am back to writing and working on Terence's family history, two things that I love to do when I have any spare time to do it. Now I do have a little more time, even if it's not as much as I thought it was going to be. I got in a thousand words today! (Now if only this story would fall into place. It keeps stretching out in unexpected ways. The last one was easy to write in comparison.) The goal is to get it FINISHED before Nanowrimo rolls around again. Surely that should be doable. After all, I only have one kid at home and no church responsibilities . . . well, and piano lessons and the weekly newsletter editing and 4 kids' worth of homework and activities and driving to two schools in different directions and . . . you get the picture.
Life is busy, but I wouldn't have it any other way!
After all that stress and angst, we finally sent our oldest off to high school. It was a nice shepherd's pie of stress and anxiety with a dollop of excitement on top. The biggest challenge was that they got her schedule wrong, placing her in Algebra I instead of Honors Geometry. A big difference there. And it took them the whole first week of school to get her schedule corrected. Ugh. The only lingering problem now is that she still hasn't managed to get a geometry book checked out from the bookstore. (She does her homework every day by snapping pictures of the pages in class using her iphone. What did kids do before smartphones? Apparently they even research in her Ancient Civilizations class using their smartphones...granted, M's isn't actually hooked up to cell service yet so she is still stuck in the dark ages of having to wait her turn to use the classroom computer. I don't think any of my history classes had a computer in the room at all. . . .)
Anyway, now that we are past the insanity of the first few days of trying to figure out who needs to go where at what time, I'm getting an idea of how this year is going to go, and I think it's going to be OK. I am in the car a lot though. I was in the car a ton before, but now I might as well be commuting to Phoenix every day I think. I have to hit a gas station at least three times a week. If only M could drive herself to school!! However, even if I had an extra car and the money for gas and car insurance (a big IF), M is petrified of learning how to drive. She literally fights me when I want her to practice steering. Just steering! I can't fathom it. I was hyper-excited to drive as a teenager, literally counting down the months til I could get my learner's permit.
The other HUGE change in my life is that I was released as Primary President. (Mormon lingo translation: That means I'm no longer "running" the children's ministry.) It theoretically should lift a ton of stress and time commitments from my shoulders-- what am I saying, in theory? Here I am blogging, when normally I would be at Roundtable for scouts-- already my schedule has lightened up! But seriously, I don't feel much less stressed. I think it's just the change. It's been a huge part of my life for so many years now. It's kind of like quitting a part time job I've been holding since S was born.
The good news is that I am back to writing and working on Terence's family history, two things that I love to do when I have any spare time to do it. Now I do have a little more time, even if it's not as much as I thought it was going to be. I got in a thousand words today! (Now if only this story would fall into place. It keeps stretching out in unexpected ways. The last one was easy to write in comparison.) The goal is to get it FINISHED before Nanowrimo rolls around again. Surely that should be doable. After all, I only have one kid at home and no church responsibilities . . . well, and piano lessons and the weekly newsletter editing and 4 kids' worth of homework and activities and driving to two schools in different directions and . . . you get the picture.
Life is busy, but I wouldn't have it any other way!
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