Schedules?

It’s back to school time.  I find it comical that we wait all the school year for summer to arrive and then you wait all summer long for school to start.  Why?  I think it all comes down to schedules.  During the school year, it seems every moment is by the clock.  Get up at 6:00 a.m., first child to the bus at 6:40 a.m.  Hope in the shower.  Get up second child, and off to school by 8:30 a.m.  To work by 9:00.  Home by 5:30.  Activities of the day by _______ and on and on it goes until the last child is in bed by 10:00.  But summer comes, and there are no set schedules for the children and that makes life as an adult hard.

I love summer.  It’s the bright yellow sunshine, warm on my skin and face.  It’s dark green leaves blowing silver in the wind.  It’s the squirrels and the rabbits.  It’s the garden and the flowers and the butterflies dancing in the air.  I spend so much time outside and running around that my writing tends to be pushed aside, way aside.  But for a bit of editing and administrative crap I have not done a bit of writing in months.  I have note cards full of ideas that have popped in my head during these summer months that have yet to be worked into stories.  I have projects sitting half done, neglected and sad.  This happens every year.  Why?  Again, schedules I blame.  I am a night writer in general.  When the children are asleep and the house is quiet, I sit down and write for as long as I want.  In the summer, it seems my house is never quiet.  My teenager never goes to bed. 

Oh I can hear you saying, make her go to bed.  Ummm, do you have a 16 year old?  You can say its bed time, and you get an “Okay” but then it’s teeth brushing and face washing and “Can I watch a movie in bed?” and “Turn the radio down” and yeesh, by the time I get her settled it’s 11 and I am no longer in the mood to write, I’m just wiped out. 

Now that school is back in session, I am inside more, and there are less chores to do outside, and my house is finally quiet at a reasonable hour and guess what?  I am finally finding time to sit down and write.  Boy have I missed it.  I didn’t realize.  So, I say yay to school, even though I will desperately miss the summer.