Is this thing on? *tap* *tap*

I'm sure anyone who's out there (is there anyone out there?) has noticed I haven't blogged much lately. Hello? Two posts in July. What's up with that?

Well, it has been a great summer. Busy, but not so busy that I couldn't have posted. I just kinda got writer's block, I guess.

The kids and I have enjoyed a very unscheduled summer, with no set activities, just kinda going with the flow. I have had the summer off work for the most part, which has been nice.

We are in the midst of slowly putting the house back together after our flood in April. And I have made some progress on my decluttering, though never as much as I'd like!

My quest for the latter half of the year is to get this house in order and set up my version of "routines" so that I don't wind up feeling so darned overwhelmed all the time at all there is to do to upkeep this household. Mainly I am paring down our "stuff" that seems to be everywhere. A room at a time, a closet at a time, a space at a time, a corner at a time, a shelf at a time. Less stuff means more peace for me. More peace for me means more time to spend just doing stuff with my kids, which, I have learned this summer, is what I want to be doing.

I have always been intimidated by the idea of homeschooling, and I don't think I want to be a full-time homeschooler, at least not for my kids' whole school careers. But this summer has shown me that we can, in fact, live life together for the most part and not drive me insane! We are doing more and more to work together to run the household, which believe it or not is helping! And we manage to find something every day to look up on the 'net or in a book because we don't know what it is or how it works. We have the most interesting discussions. This, to me, is what learning is all about, and I'm loving it.

I have always wanted to take a year or two and travel around with the kids, maybe in an RV, maybe overseas, and the schooling aspect and the 24/7 togetherness of it has always been a little scary to me. But I have learned this summer that it would be ok if we were all together pretty much all the time. And that's a good thing for me to learn.