On Sleep, Energy, and Commitments

Last night I couldn't fall asleep until 11:30, and I was up every two hours and couldn't get back to sleep after 5:30 because of thunderstorms. I concentrated on laundry for the morning because I'd been two loads behind for a few days. The last load is headed for the dryer in a few minutes, and I do have a modest pile left to fold and put away with the boys' help. The kids played together all morning, including 45 minutes of play-doh. Sometimes on a lousy day I need to do some soothing kitchen rituals, so I prepped some kefir and 1/2 gallon of yogurt for culturing, and hopefully no play-doh contaminated it, bleck! I've been needing to get back to my smoothie routine, so culturing more dairy will make that easier. I feel much better energy all morning when I have the right breakfast!

I think we'll grill some veggies and chicken and toss them with pasta for dinner, especially now that the sun is coming back out and might dry the yard enough for some outdoor play this evening. I'm trying to eat some feel-good food that helps keep me energized and doesn't make me gain over 30lbs. Ice cream doesn't help that, BTW.

Starting Sunday we have a multi-church VBS that I'm teaching the middle schoolers for, and the boys have the neighborhood VBS the next week. And school starts in A MONTH. I'd rather not send them back to school, but I know adding homeschool right now is a bad idea. If I'm chronically not getting enough sleep, I can't try a new big project with all my kids home every day. I want to be realistic and do the right thing for each kid. Making a school change while adding a baby seems to not be the right choice. We'll give it another try this year and re-evaluate in December.

I want to commit my time to fruitful things. If I'm going to homeschool, I want it to be the best available option for the kids. If I can't do it well, there's no point in putting inflexible kids through a big change. I need to focus on getting time with Mara and getting my home ready for little sister. I want to spend time building community so that I have support through this next big change.