Inevitably, school ends, we soak up the initial burst of freedom and then we find ourselves in that gray area of so much freedom that we don't quite know how to complete all the tasks still necessary in our summer. We flounder a bit.
There's still multiple musical instruments to be practiced daily, 4-H books to keep up on, posters to be worked on, showmanship knowledge to be studying, showmanship skills to be practicing, Bible Quiz material to study, sewing projects to tackle, in addition to the demands of extra animals on site and all the daily chores associated with that. Add in a busy social calendar and regular homestead work and the very idea of keeping everyone moving in the right direction can feel very overwhelming to me.
I spent some time praying about this because I didn't quite know how to facilitate all of these things. The solution came to me clearly shortly after.
A one size fits every day schedule has NEVER worked for our summer
because our summer days vary so widely...
as opposed to the school year when we have much more continuity. God gave me the idea to do a loose schedule designed specifically for that day.
Please don't stop reading. It's not as hard as you think.
Nightly I have been sitting down and mapping out a basic schedule.
Are we headed to the park in the morning?
What needs to happen before and after that?
Do we have company coming in the afternoon?
What needs to be accomplished beforehand?
Will we have a busy stretch of time running errands and meeting up with friends?
What should we tackle first so that we can have more fun later?
This is working for me and it's working for the girls. They actually enjoy themselves more, knowing that they have a system for juggling all the needful things. I can embrace the fun, because I know we're doing the steady plodding that makes good progress.
Dominique
