Summer 'Unplans'

Unexpected deadlines, vacation Bible school practices, first week of summer extra, vacation preparations. Isn’t that just life?!? The very week I anticipate planning and even writing about planning, my plans become, well, pretty much they become “unplans.”

It all started off so beautifully. On Monday, I finished a project for work in the early hours. Then we loaded up and went to the library where we registered for summer reading. A quick stop for slushies and then on to letterboxing, where we discovered a perfectly wonderful park in Stow that we had driven by a million times and never noticed. The results were in, and summer break was off to a great start!

By Wednesday, I was a stressed-out mess because the house was in chaos, a new project at work needed my attention, I still hadn’t gotten the kids to the lake, and I had just realized that I had forgotten to drop Rick’s suit off at the dry cleaners. (The suit was a just a minor issue. It’s not like he was officiating a wedding for a dear a friend on Friday. No, of course not.) Sigh.

Feeling like a failure as I watched week one of 12 slip away, I definitely needed to regroup.

How? I needed to remind myself of a few things...

First, life isn’t about perfect days. When the laundry piles high and the sunscreen is expired and I forget an important task until the last minute… my inward attitude is just as important (dare I say, even more essential) than getting actual work done. Let’s face it. Perfect days come few and far between. Most days are just normal days – a mix of moments that are both good and bad. My attitude in the midst of all those moments is what can make or break the summer. And, since Mom tends to be the pace-setter for the rest of the household, my outlook has a pretty big impact on everybody else’s summer too.

Second, I need to get to back having a plan. Not a strict second-by-second schedule. After all, it’s summer! But I still need a way to make sure I’m juggling work, family fun, personal growth (for all of us), and household jobs. Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean everything else is on hold! I mean, I can have a really great attitude about it all but it just would not be best for the pastor to show up in his jammies on wedding day.

Third, lists and the calendar are my friends. I need them for summer success. So, this weekend the planning begins in earnest. I’ll start with some questions and work toward specifics. But, more on that next time. There are some good tools to help with your summer success and I’d love to share them with you.

Oh, and by the way, Rick’s suit was ready in time. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I picked it back up on Friday. A really big sigh. Enormous, in fact.

How about you? How was your first week of summer?