Summer Reflection

Sadly, summer is ending. It was a needed break, but much too short.

The majority of the time was spent hanging around the house. If Shane was in town, I took him to the pool. If not, Carrie and I streamed more shows. I spent an average of 10-15 hours a week working at the barn. We spent the first 2/3rds of summer wishing for rain and the last 1/3 getting more than enough.

My summer goals were:

1 - RELAX!
2 - WRITE!
3 - LEARN!
4 - RECONNECT!

There was definitely some relaxing. I wish there were a couple of more weeks of summer, but with the school year ending late it was not meant to be. I'm thankful for the time I did get.

Goal #1 - Success!

Writing was more difficult. I mostly kept up with the blog, but fiction was largely a bust. The last week Shane was with Nana and Pop, I sat down and quickly drafted a chapter, but that was it. I've (re)learned that I work best when I can sit down, get in a groove, and work uninterrupted. That doesn't happen often. My perfect scenario involves Carrie off riding with friends and Shane off at an activity or with family while I'm at home with unencumbered time. That means that the house is in a decent state, chores have been done, and I've already done enough stuff that I feel safe sitting down. If I was a pro writer, I'd have to have an office I could escape to (Detached! I can hear the TV through closed doors anywhere in the house).

Goal #2 - Blog win, Fiction fail!

I have been working on my Spanish. Whenever I do my morning Bible reading, I read the assigned New Testament verses in Spanish (Nueva Version Internacional). I started listening to a learn Japanese audiobook with Shane to keep him busy in a car, and decided it worked well enough I should try it with Spanish. Shane's given up listening to the Japanese audio, but I've stuck with the Spanish. How much have I learned? No sé, pero estoy haciendo algo!

Goal #3 - ¡Victoria!

While we've mainly been around the farm, we have had the chance to reconnect with people some. The family beach trip was right after school ended. First, Kim and Ryan broke the ice and then Gen and Chris visited before summer ended. Shane's spent time with Dylan, but we haven't seen Henry since January. I've been around Hazel's dad, but Shane hasn't played with her in months (The travel/grandparent schedules never matched). Shane spent time and SC and both of us started up VBS again, and we made one short day trip to NOVA where I got to see John briefly. There were definitely many ways that we returned towards normal. I would have liked more play dates and to have made more road trips, but we did get to spend an awful lot of time at the pool. I'm hoping Shane will feel more connected to kids at his school this year, because of that.

Goal #4 - Success!

I'm not sure how I'm going to pull off my yearly goal to write a book. Cutting back one day on the blog each week has allowed me to keep up with it rather than fostered new time to be creative. Honestly, I'll probably keep that up next year. At some point, Shane will be old enough I shouldn't write about all his comings and goings anyway.

The other yearly goals are going well. I survived school, started exercising, and Carrie hasn't gone crazy yet!

We never focused on Carrie and Shane's summer goals. There was maybe a day or three I forced Shane to work on his keyboard skills. Carrie started riding, stopped, but is riding again lately. She's more active about doing morning chores, but has learned (to her chagrin) to let me handle all the heavier lifting. Her knee still hasn't fully healed (She can point out areas with swelling). It got better to a point, but plateaued and has lingering pain. We're not sure what to do next (and go figure, her orthopedist is retiring). So that's still an issue in progress. She's going to have to do more with me going back to work, as well.