Simply Sandy

I'm so glad it's June! I've been waiting for June for months now, and it's finally here! School is out for us until August, which means school is out for me. This past year was so impossibly busy with the amped-up schoolwork and all the activities the kids are involved in; every time I began feeling frazzled and frustrated that I never had time to do what I wanted to do, I thought, "In June, I'm going to do it!"

So I have a big summer list of things I want to do:

• Catch up on my scrapbooking
• Take tole painting/knitting/sewing classes
• Paint my gourds
• Read lots of books
• Sew the dress I began a while back
• Craft projects
• Make some decorating headway on the house
• Keep our garden from dying
• Get back into my healthy eating and exercise routines

And things I have to do:

• Finish the yearbook pages for the homeschool yearbook (I'm on the yearbook committee)
• Make my lesson plans for next year's Co-op history classes
• Order the kids' books that we still don't have
• Keep the kids on track in math (they still have summer math to do)

So that's our summer. The kids have various camps and activities, but I've worked hard to choose carefully and guard my free time this summer so all of us have lots of time to rest and prepare for next year.

I've been working on the yearbook pages this weekend, and for all practical purposes, the job is done! Now if I could just get my office clean. Tomorrow's project.

At the end of last summer, John purchased a giant inflatable pool, with a pump, filter and all that, so the kids could swim this summer. We have friends who have one, and they say their seven kids have not destroyed theirs yet, so we took a chance and got one. John hauled in sand and spread it in the yard this weekend so we're ready to set it up. I've not been a fan of this idea, but if it keeps the kids outside instead of inside all summer, I'm all for it!

Today I discovered that I put the wrong arrangement to a song in the new songbook- Arggghhh! The songbooks are already copied and collated and are ready to be bound this Wednesday. After a big debate on how to proceed, we decided it would be easier to learn the new arrangement than to change the songbook. This is terribly frustrating after the number of times I proofed that thing.

But I'm so glad it's June!