This week—*waves hands around at the literal mess of laundry, bobby pins, safety pins, and nail polish bottles scattered all over the dining room table, along with the grass clippings tracked hither and yon on the floor*—was a lot.
It was also the last barrier between me and much-longed-for structure and routine.
At the point of writing, I’ve just sent one kiddo off to school (Grade 6). The other will soon head out the door—to our vehicle, because she asked to be driven on the first day instead of bussing—for the first day of Grade 10.
Weren’t they just this size…?
It is Back to School Season. I am so relieved.
And while the house is still a mess, it’s a bit less of a mess than it was yesterday. For the first time since we got back from Europe, I mopped the upstairs floors. I even cleaned the toilets, too. (That was on Wednesday, not Thursday, my first ever “shouldless” day, per Lisa!)
Okay! I’m back. Now both kids are at school, and Belle is actually heading straight from school to a babysitting gig so it’s a strangely quiet house.
These transitions always remind me of Julia Donaldson’s picture book A Squash and a Squeeze. (I checked and I wrote about this last September, too!) Yes, the chaos of summer does feel overwhelming at times, but it also makes the relief of a change of pace that much sweeter.
There were zero tears shed in our household by either parents or children. As much as I love my kids, I have never once shed a tear about them going to school, not even in the primary years. They are safe and they are learning, and I have extra bandwidth.
While I have days where I don’t accomplish much, this is my first official Shouldless Day. I started with a shower which felt amazing, followed by coffee.
I dropped Belle and a friend off at the high school. I went to the hardware store to look at paint samples for Indy’s bedroom. I met Joy for coffee and it was delightful to catch up with each other after so much time apart.
I had leftovers for lunch (a friend had prepared us a rice dish along with curried chicken which was delicious and, even better, something I didn’t have to cook myself).
I watched Emily Blunt interviews on YouTube because I love her accent and find celebrity interviews hilarious, especially when it’s Emily Blunt. Then I went through all the book suggestions I’ve had lately and updated my TBR in both Libby and at our local library.
My holds list is… very lengthy.
My feet were cold, so I warmed up a Magic Bag. Why stay cold when there is something I can do about it? I have a blanket on my lap. It’s overcast outside so I turned on a lamp for some cozy lighting. I continue to hold out against getting a cat, but if there were such a moment to have one, this would be it!
There are a lot of things I could be doing today, but nothing is critical and it will all get done. It feels good to celebrate this next season of family life some rest and ease.
Tomorrow I have a lot planned. For starters, I need to do an epic brain dump. There are so many things swirling around in my head and getting that all out on paper will be such a relief.
I had debated not writing a Happy Things Friday post on my Shouldless Day, but ended up deciding this is my favourite post to prep each week, and with warm feet and a sparkling water close at hand… this is a great way to spend part of this luxuriously open day.
Enough blathering! Let’s talk Happy Things. (And the first one might just be my absolute favourite.)
GNOME GRATITUDE
My endlessly creative blog friend Michelle is an enthusiastic participant in all things gratitude. I was delighted when she said she was joining my August gratitude practice, and even more delighted WHEN SHE POSTED A PICTURE OF GNOME LIGHTKEEPER LOGS printed off and displayed inside their dollhouse.
The cuteness of this is almost too much to bear and seeing this literally made my day.
MUD FUN
While I can enjoy a good adventure as much as the next person, I am NOT a fan of mess. But when we went to a local intertidal beach early last week with some visiting family, one thing led to another and before long there was nothing left to do but embrace the filth! (I stayed clean, and we did our best to wash the kids off in a little stream; this was yet another time I breathed a prayer of thanksgiving for washing machines and indoor plumbing!)
They were literally covered head-to-toe in mud.
We had taken boogie boards and they used those to skim/surf over the surface of the mud. They had an absolute blast, as one would expect. I’m not in a rush to repeat this experience, but I’m also glad it happened.
A FREE TRAMPOLINE
For a variety of reasons—predominantly cost and the fact they are notorious for injury—I have remained unmoved after years of both our children begging to have a trampoline.
But when one of Indy’s friends moved away and offered us their trampoline, I figured now was the right time.
Because it was free, it feels like a very low risk experiment. Worst case scenario, we can pass it on to another home after a trial run in our backyard.
Indy has spent HOURS and hours on this thing. He has perfected a back flip and comes in drenched in sweat and with sore core muscles. It’s a magnet for any kids that come to visit and I’m really excited to have this new addition to outdoor play.
THE ODYSSEY
We went to see The Odyssey in IMAX on Tuesday. It was worth the wait (we tried to get tickets weeks ago, but all the seats with decent views of the screen had been all sold out). It was definitely an epic film.
I don’t know if I was quite as wowed as I expected to be, but that’s always the danger when a movie is hyped so aggressively. But it was very entertaining and the cinematography was impressive, especially since so many things were done in a more traditional (work-intensive!) style of filming.
PATREON NEWS
My Patreon (Lighthouse Keepers) recently turned ONE!!! It’s become a special corner of the internet for me.
A note to any existing members: an annual membership option (with a 25% discount) has now been unlocked! It takes a year of maintaining a Patreon community to get access to this benefit and I am so happy to be able to offer that now. For anyone looking to support my work and save money, this is a great time to chop two carrots with one knife.*
*A nicer saying than kill two birds with one stone; I *think* it was Jenny who alerted me to this alternative wording. If not, a huge thank-you to whoever did that.
BONUS HAPPY THINGS
- Homemade raspberry scones. A few times I’ve topped them with homemade blueberry jam my sister-in-law made, which is spectacular. It was just sugar, blueberries, and cinnamon, but it’s delicious.
- Grapefruit sparkling water.
- Sunsets. One day last week we went to a local beach for supper (we grabbed pizza takeout on the way, so it was EASY). The air was cool, but pleasant, and it was so nice to have everyone (and all the mess of a meal with five kids in tow) outside.
- Cooler weather. Winter can be a tough sell for me, but I don’t try to hide the fact that fall is my favourite season. I am delighted to be wearing sweaters!
- I don’t have a before picture, but my parents’ cupboard of storage containers was OUT OF CONTROL. It was such a confusing jumble of tops and bottoms. About 15 minutes of work had it looking So. Much. Better. (And it’s not much more functional!)
- Despite the trip being so different than I had anticipated, the kids were still able to enjoy a lot of their favourite lake activities. Topping Indy’s list was fishing. He and John spent hour after hour by the lake and they caught (and released) a lot of fish.
- Fresh corn from a local farm market. So good—crisp, sweet, and the best corn we’ve had this year.
- A good night of sleep. Nights have been especially disjointed lately. but Wednesday night I slept like a rock. It was wonderful!
- A fresh haircut. I trimmed Belle’s hair a few months ago, but admittedly am no expert. She was able to get an appointment with our hairdresser for the day before school started—her first haircut in over 6 months!
- A great orthodontist appointment. I could have blinked and missed it, she was in the chair for such a short amount of time. He said she had “graduated to not needing to wear her daytime retainer.” Bwhahaha. She wore a retainer in the day for about… two weeks. But I didn’t tell him that. Everything looks great which is such a relief. She has been great about wearing both retainers at night. We have another follow-up scheduled in 6 months and then we’ll chat about long-term maintenance.
- We have two new pets. My brother-in-law mentioned that snails can do a great job of cleaning up algae in fish tanks. Since Indy’s betta fish is named Ferrari, I suggested we call these snails Lewis and Charles, after the current Formula One drivers for Ferrari. (I thought that was pretty clever.) The jury is still out on how effective these snails are going to be, but it’s fun to have more living creatures in the tank and it’s pretty fun to see all the different places they end up in the run of a day.
I’m writing this post Thursday, but barring any major issue John and Indy head deep-sea fishing tomorrow [GAH! We’re supposed to get a major storm tomorrow and they just cancelled the fishing which is understandable but also stinks because this was their last chance to get out during cod season… whomp, whomp; Indy hasn’t gotten home yet and he is going to be so disappointed]. Belle has a day of school (followed by babysitting), and I will get off my tush and hopefully accomplish a lot.
Over and out for now. Happy Weekending!
Your turn.
- Tell me some Happy Things from your week.
- How often do you visit a hairdresser?
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