bits and bants vol. 36
summer news and notes
And it’s August.
Thought we’d have a bit of a catch up today since it has been practically ages since I’ve been able to write. Summer is the shortest season when you live in the near-arctic, and it seems as if everyone you know is desperate to enjoy every single available minute in non-freezing temperatures, to soak in greenery and growth, and to to maximize fun as much as possible. It is a vibe that is probably quadrupled when you have three teenagers and two pre-teens who are all clamouring at outlandish paces for more fun every single day of summer. But tis the season, and for the most part I’ve been carried along pretty willingly with only a few moments where I let my introvert tanks become depleted and I simply had to lock myself in my room and read for an afternoon.
Summer is important when you’re a homeschooling mom, and I know blah blah blah you’ve heard this a million times before and just from me, but I’ve been doing this for so long that I really have to be aware to take advantage of even a few more hours in my day for some rejuvenation somehow. I don’t know if I’ve done a great job of that this summer, but having the garden need a lot of attention does force me to slow down and be outside, and give my actual attention to something necessary in the moment. Somehow that specific combination is very important. Does it solve all my problems and leave me feeling like a newborn twenty year old, free of responsibility and with excellent moisturized skin? No, but we are accepting of imperfect solutions here.
We have spent time camping, visiting friends, having friends visit, having different combinations of kids here at our house and in every other direction, there have been family sacraments to celebrate, barbecues and emergency rooms, a full wonderful time. There was also a very fun week of vacation where we road tripped to Idaho for some beautiful lake time that almost made up for over three months of passport difficulties that almost made up for all the time I spent waiting in lines in government offices and filling out forms. I hate talking about 18 summers, because I don’t think that’s true, and we don’t want our kids to be on some kind of Ivy League fast track where they’ll never come home after finishing high school, which is what that particular mantra makes you expect, but all my kids are old and vacations together are precious!
And finally we bought a house in July so we’ll be moving sometime after September 1. The whole process was exceeding painful and I hated every single second. We’ve been looking for houses for, I kid you not, almost ten years and while we are picky and had specific things we did really want that changed our parameters from regular house shopping (i.e. we wanted some acreage, to be within half an hour of the city/maybe a functioning parish, and closer than we currently our to my husband’s work which is an hour away) the complete lack of inventory in our 100 sq kilometre search radius, prices, and insane offer situations had left us disappointed on properties we had put offers in on for the past several years. We are “house” people and both my husband and I have been wanting a property for years that we could make a mark on ourselves and really expand into. Plus we’ve lived in a sub-1000sq foot home with five kids for almost 18 years and I’m over it. So so so over it. So in desire for functioning closets. I’ll save you my romance novel dedicated to closets right now. The house we bought isn’t perfect of course, but we think it’ll be really great to make our own and will basically change our daily lives completely with how close it will be to so many of the things we do and people we know. Don’t worry, I’ll still live my hermit lifestyle to the full, again, disagreeable personality, but the sheer hours I spend in a car each week will be radically changed! Anyway, more on that later but I am currently completely overwhelmed with what has to be done and moved and I’m very bad with change in general so I’m just quelling the panic attacks about that too. Except in the garden, with good weather!
bits:
I was saving up all these good articles I’ve read in the last month on my many thousands of open tabs I constantly have open, and then my computer catastrophically crashed and had to be resuscitated and by then all my browsing history had been wiped so I can now remember three things.
I love a good Graham Greene/Evelyn Waugh story. I love that these two authors wrote brilliantly yet both had weirdo personalities and character flaws. What a time to be alive when you could have friends who were famous and weirdos and not cancelled!
As usual
had the best take about the Olympics controversy. As boring as I found the ceremony itself, I find it even more boring when people say Christians can’t be offended. Again, so glad for Amy’s shared wisdom.- wrote the most true thing I’ve ever read about homeschooling and I just want to acknowledge that and say that I’ve read it three times and almost cried every time. I’m so glad other people are recognizing how good it is as well!
reading, watching, what have you:
the watching has been sparse around here, which is only a testament for how much we’ve been doing I think. We still need to get to the new season of The Bear, for crying out loud.
We did see Twisters in a small town American theatre which was really fun. There’s so much to say for a fun, summer movie. They are so memorable for what they conjure up in your memories of having classic summer feelings, don’t you think? I made everyone watch Twister with me the night before we went because it honestly was one of my favourite movies growing up, and it was so funny to see how well I remembered so many scenes.
I’ve been reading a good mix of summer reading—newly released romcoms, a dysfunctional family drama, and a smattering of royal biographies because what says “summer fun!” for a thirty something year old woman than royal biographies?!
come to Ireland!
We still have a few spots left on for our trip to Ireland this October 2-11! We would love for you to join me and
on this dream trip to Ireland that will see us visit the Our Lady of Knock Shrine, climb Croagh Patrick, visit castles, whiskey distilleries and much more. Click on over for all the details, or message me if you’ve got more questions!
That’s it for today, I’m off to pack FIVE kids up for their respective weeks at camp as they leave tomorrow. And then after that I’ll be living a delusional child-free existence next week as I only cook what I want and begin packing up thousands of books!
spritzing through the weekend,
Christy
Congratulations on the house! I'm excited for you all, especially with being closer to things/people/work. I never imagined what a game changer it would be to have a shorter commute for my husband (thankfully it was never bad as an hour, but it went from being 30-45 min each way to only about 15-20 min each way when we bought our house)--less time in the car for him, more time as a family with him at home, has been so good! I hope that everything goes well with the packing and moving and houseclosing for you all, and that this is a really good change for your family.
THANK YOU for your comment on the 18 summers thing! As someone with only young kids, it's been super unhelpful and rather discouraging to hear many parents of teens sadly talk about how they're already counting how many more spring breaks, summers, etc. they'll have "before they move out." I get that people get sad to see their kids grow up and move out, and I'll probably have sad moments too, but it just seems silly to live under the assumption that you get to have your kids for 18 summers and then you never get to have quality time with them ever again. I actually heard a mom of teens and adults give a talk at a conference last weekend and I e-mailed her afterwards thanking her for such an upbeat presentation, because she focused a lot on how much she loves spending time with her teen and adult children. It was really cool to hear someone talk about that.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Christy. And congratulations on the new house! That process is so stressful, but I'm excited for you to have more space and be able to settle into a home that works for your family. That's huge!