A Timeful Life

We wrapped up our school year (such as it is - since we have a year round schedule, the lines dividing one year from the next are somewhat indisctint) two weeks ago, and since then, we've done pretty much nothing. I had meant, for one thing, to go straight into sorting our school papers and portfolios, to organize the school room and then the house, and I had meant for us to have a more purposeful sort of break in general. I suppose that defeats the purpose of taking a break, though, and in any case, there's still time for some of that. And the truth is that because we had our "spring break" in February, when Aimee and Dave were in Chile, and then had three solid months of school before another significant break, we were burnt out. Really badly burnt out - or, at least, I was. I fully acknowledge that in the last couple months, as we were trudging along at home, I was completely useless to anyone else. At church, in our LLL Group, in our homeschool group, in any area I can think of, I contributed almost nothing. I apologize to my friends in all those areas, and make my mental note a publicly stated one - never go so long in our homeschooling without a decent break. That was a mistake, and by mid May, when I finally surrendered and declared our school year over, I was mentally and emotionally tired.

So...for the past two weeks, we've just been. We haven't been hermits, by any means (although that sounds nice to my introverted self sometimes!), but we haven't had much plan, direction, or structure at all. We've done some work in our garden, kept the house at a reasonable level of order, done some basic chores and errands here and there, but mostly we've just played outside and read through stacks - and stacks - of books. And yes, the rules for the electronics have relaxed a little, so we've played the Wii and watched favorite movies a little more often than usual. We've done some park dates and we went strawberry picking once, we've been geocaching when we felt like it, and we've been to the library numerous times - basically, whatever we've felt like doing and whenever we've felt like doing it, we've done it. When the weather warms back up, we'll add the pool into the mix. And eventually, we'll pull ourselves together and ready ourselves for more structure. At some point, I will be ready to re-enter society and be helpful again.

But for now, we are enjoying what Sheldon Vanauken in A Severe Mercy referred to as a "timeful life-" in which we are "quiet and leisurely", with time "to stop and stare." Okay, okay, I know this is not realistic with kids. They aren't exactly quiet, and they will grow bored with this after a time; indeed, they are getting to that point already. But my soul is enjoying some quiet and leisure, and for that I'm not apologetic. I'll get back with the rest of the world later!