Motherhood and Marriage When The Burner Is On High

 The weather is hot and thick, you can break a sweat just sitting in a chair lately. This kind of weather lends itself to festivals, public libraries, early morning outings and  basement contemplation. Today I went with the basement.

 We no longer own a laptop so the old "movies in the basement on a hot day" routine which was my go-to,  can't be used. Instead I play Pandora on my phone and let the boys build Legos until its time for quiet hour and then park them on blankets and throw pillows on the cool cement. Storage boxes and shelving units to separate them so that there is some amount of actual quiet. They nap, or build and I work. All the laundry in the basement got washed and dried and sorted and then I swept and organized and purged. I am proud to say that after one very hot and humid day's worth of work....we now have no more assorted nonsense piles of random junk that I threw into bags and hid when we had company coming over.

 What a great feeling! So much stuff that we can hand off to other folks and let go of finally, so much stuff that actually, truly was junk and went into the trash (which is going out tonight, hallelujah!!!!) and just a little stuff that simply needed to be put back into its proper home. I feel about 40 lbs lighter after such a productive day hiding out from the heat. Kinda makes me feel utterly at peace with the possibility of another blazing hot day tomorrow.

 I made a one pot dinner tonight and imagined up a trip to the beach spur of the moment as soon as A walked in the door. Sometimes life doesn't go as planned

The boys were having meltdowns and Giles had a diaper rash suddenly (chafing from a whole day in his swimsuit, in and out of the sprinkler?) and my brilliant dinner was being rejected by a bunch of pint-sized critics.

But, I have to brag. I didn't lose my cool and scream or meltdown and have a sobfest when A finally walked in.....I just pouted a little about the mayhem and had just a little grump-time. And then my brilliant man said spontaneously that we should eat our one pot dinner on the tiny, brick, front stoop together and then when it started raining he had the boys all scuttle inside for umbrellas and flip-flops and we had a hilarious march around the block in our bathing suits in the rain.

Sometimes the grand plan isn't what its all abut at all. Its about the rolling with all the punches, the keeping your chin up and keeping your sense of humor. Love that we had a silly, little adventure in the outdoors and that my tharwted plans didn't matter at all in the long run. When you find a good man....hold on. 

Siesta in Connecticut

We are finally getting to the warm, genuinely summery days, all signs point to lots of swimming, grilling and slow evening promenades around the block after dinner in the late light. The boys and I just finished reading The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate together and since its set in the boiling heat of Texas, in the day of skirts and overskirts, and the heat was so oppressive that everything stopped in the middle of the day. Even the men came in from the fields and took a break indoors with the curtains drawn.

Sometimes the wheel has to be re-invented. My mama used to always say there were some people who had to touch the stove to see if it was hot. Same kind of an idea, I guess. I just discovered siesta living.



After we finished the book, spring trailed off, then suddenly summer showed up, we had a week away, we made our first batches of ice cream and we've packed away most of the long pants and our squash patch has exploded. And suddenly, I was thinking about life in Victorian Texas and I began to have a Siesta Time during the day when outdoor work and play gave way to indoor activities.

I think it took me a while because I'm not really a napping person and siesta sounds so much like a group nap hour to me. What I discovered is that if I get up early (6 hopefully, 5:30 if I'm really on track) I can get housework begun and maybe blogging, then after breakfast we can go outside and do animal care, lawn work and garden tending while it is sunny but not hot. Right about the time that I find I am sweating heavily, and the kids are wiping out, its time for 10 o'clock snack and indoor time.

----(Siesta Begins)---- 

Then inside we have lunch, the big boys find quiet time occupations and the littles go down for a rest. I do quiet, office-type work (phone calls, paperwork, emails, card writing, maybe blogging ). Then after we get done with quiet hour, I prep dinner, clean house, and maybe work on home improvement projects (in between breaking up arguments, fixing Lego creations, hanging with my sister, and downing glasses of ice water). After that we are heading into dinner land so the boys often watch a Netflix special while I do prep and wait for Aaron...sometimes there is free-play in the yard, sometimes watercolors.

Once dinner is over the indoor time is finished and hopefully it has cooled off enough to breath outside and we all head out into the yard to play a game before bed or take a walk around the block together. Then all the boys tumble upstairs to the bath and the day is over.



The key is making sure I go to bed early enough to get a jump start on my personal work so that I can just head outdoors during the morning and get all the garden hustle out of the way.