Well - Hiatus is over!

It's mid-August, and I am finally back from my summer as head cook at our church camp. I've been home a few weeks, and am settling back into the "swing of things". It's time for my blogging hiatus to come to an end. ~smile

That brings me to: what to blog..... what to blog..... ?

Since I don't have any profound "musings" at the moment, I thought I'd just share a little of what is going on in my home presently:

Homeschooling is getting ready to start back up. Our big box of curriculum arrived recently, and it's nearly all sorted and organized and ready for the new school year! My oldest, who is in school, will be registering for 8th grade next week. That is a little hard to believe. What's even harder to believe is that the following year will be HIGH SCHOOL!

My French classes (for homeschoolers) will be starting soon, and so I am currently knee-deep in textbooks, syllabi, class lists and the like. I have been listening to a lot of French on itunes, getting myself geared up and refreshed. I always love using my French!

Canning season is on the horizon. I've done my green beans, and that's about it. Refrigerator pickles need to be done, and I've got enough hot peppers out of the garden that I'm ready to do a canner-load. Thankfully, this year, I don't have nearly as much that needs to be done. I still have a good supply of beets, pears, applesauce, jams, salsa verde, and relish from last year. I also still have a lot of carrots put up in the freezer, and will likely only do corn and some brocolli this year.

What I am really focusing on, are a couple of organization projects that I've wanted to do for quite some time. Namely: the linen closet and the coat closet. Do those two things EVER stay neat and tidy? I'm also working on implementing a better routine to my day. I've never had the luxury of having a house-cleaning service, nor have I had "mom's day out" or "regular childcare" at my disposal. As such, I've always had to juggle the demands of mothering and homemaking on my own. Every year, as the kids grow into a different season, I evaluate my routine. The way I can tackle the every-day-demands of managing a household look VERY different today, than they did when I had babies and ever-busy toddlers running a-muck! So, once again, as I am coming into fall, I am figuring out just how early I need to be up each morning, and how much/what should be accomplished before the house stirrs....... and how to fit all the things that I need to do in with the homeschooling, classes, errands and such.

I am also continuing with my running. I wasn't able to keep up my running to the point that I would have liked while being away all summer, so in some ways, I'm really getting back at it. I'm following my own 5 day training schedule, with 2 rest days, similar to what I did when training for the 10K. I plan to run my first half-marathon next spring, and so, I'll need to keep up my running through the winter in order to be prepared to start that training in early February.

Most of all, I am reminded that truly, the bulk of my home life is not filled with the "glamourous", or the "luxurious". Much of my days involve the mundane, the routine, the re-doing of what is constantly un-done. Dishes, laundry, sweeping, wiping down, picking up, straightening, reading to a child, engaging in conversation with my children,......... not a fancy life in the least bit, but when I do it well, and when I do it faithfully, I am reminded that a full life can really be found in the small things.

Shauna