Ps. 120:1
With a more relaxed summertime schedule, I feel deliciously like I'm always on vacation. My total office hours per week are about the same, but they're organized differently, and a simple shift in schedule can bring a huge shift in perspective. Now I can sit on a blanket in the magnolia's shade in the front yard, reading, while Henry gathers up magnolia seeds from the grass. Now I can "sleep in" until 7:00. Now I can weed the brick patio when it's convenient - or skip weeding the brick patio, if the sun's too hot. Now nothing seems urgent. Weeks roll over onto weeks, instead of the short weekend feeling like a moment to pant for air between fast furious sprints. Summer, if you work in an academic setting and operate on a school calendar, is a long, long runway of freedom. No more rules. No more deadlines. Just popsicles and swimming parties and sunburn and endless reading for months on end.
OK, so there are definitely still deadlines. And of course, it's never quite as free as it seems. As scrumptious as this week was, next week is a hairy mess of appointments, phone calls, and errands. Not the summer bliss I might have imagined. So I find, only one week into summer vacation, that it doesn't measure up. I longed for stress-free days layered with lemonade and library books, but instead I'm scribbling in my planner and wondering when I'll fit in a shopping trip for groceries.
I know summer can't ultimately satisfy. Neither can Christmastime or the most autumn-colored October or any day or month or year. Satisfaction comes from days that honor Christ and lives that see eternally instead of putting too much stock in the here and now. My first week of summer vacation reminds me of this.
I'm an organized girl, though, and I know the peace that some simple orderly habits can bring, both when the summer sun makes you so carefree that you forget what day of the week it is, and when the calendar is booked up for days straight and you forget what a free afternoon is like. Here are a few simple ideas, that can help keep summer lovely, keep (some of) the stress out of life, and keep the days feeling vacation-yummy all year round.
1. Slice off the first part of the day for the Lord. Most days, I still wake up before Henry and Pete and take the first half-hour of the day for quiet time. A night's sleep often leaves me anxious and irritable (is this true for anyone else?), so taking time to pray, reflect, and remind myself of the gospel realigns me to what's true and important before I embark on the day.
2. Do not let the budget spreadsheet get behind. Do you keep track of your spending? We do, but when I let the receipts pile up, doing the budget paperwork is a beast of a task. And in summer-mode, it's especially easy to let things pile up on the desk. The best policy is to record purchases, and bill payments, on the day that they're made. When the spreadsheet is up-to-date, I don't have to wonder how the month's money is working out as I pull out my debit card at ALDI.
3. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: keep those photos organized. Instead of toting around an iphone full of uncatalogued photos (which subtly stresses me out, but maybe I'm just obsessive), drop your pictures onto a computer harddrive, sort and name them, and toss blurry ones, duplicates, or the ones you really won't ever need to see again. Better yet, take time regularly to put together photo book pages in an album on snapfish or shutterfly. By December, you'll have a family yearbook you can order when they run a year-end sale.
4. Make a list of easy meals and try to keep the ingredients on hand. Is there anything worse in life than food shopping? OK, maybe packing lunches. Take some of the misery out of meal planning and carry index cards listing favorite easy meals and the needed ingredients. If you've stocked up ahead of time, grabbing a package of chicken and a green pepper might be all you need to have fajitas for dinner.
Sometimes life gets in the way of life. I don't want to let the pesky parts of life ruin the pretty parts of life. As summer vacation stretches out ahead of me, I want more of this:
Here's to a simple summer.
Grateful this week for:
frozen strawberry pie
fireflies
ceiling fan
day lilies
a pedicure
manila envelopes
best-ever burgers
swiss cheese
watching my baby cousin marry his dream girl
windshield wipers
storm clouds
garden lettuce
mint water
yard-walking
superstar husband washing the dishes
three days in a row at the pool
edging into first place in our roof contest!
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