I am feeling so overwhlemed today---
it must be the end of school chaos???
I feel like I keep cleaning up the house and I turn around and it seems terrible again....I just do not get it. I try to get rid of clutter and junk as I go along each day but with four kids.....I am not sure why but things get rough around the edges so quickly.

Hopefully things will get better next week.....we just seem to be off schedule a bit....which is adding to the sense of chaos.

I am heading to the grocery store.....I have to make things work budget wise.
I will be shopping alone, thank goodness so I concentrate. The kids are eating steak and chicken and burgers at my ex's house tonight. She tries to cook but I always hear it is not too good. Oh well....I can't control that one bit.
Hopefully I will shop quickly and be very thrifty. My neighbor took my littlest one swimming today with his grand-kids, that was fun for her.

I have to keep on top of free things to do. I got my fifth grader to help at our church for vacation Bible school. She will help make crafts with her best friend and her mom. That is going to be a great week of fun entertainment for her. She told me today she is very happy to be helping! I was disappointed to see my church is charging $10 to go to VBS this year. I guess it covers snacks and supplies for 5 days. The other church in the even nicer neighborhood is charging $20! That is really steep--maybe I am old fashioned but churches never seem to charge for VBS.

I am planning on hitting garages sales and snagging lots of craft things or just getting some ideas to spark my mind.
Last summer we got a huge box of ribbons and laces...tons and tons...! We made so many things and we are still using all that fun stuff. It is fun to get ideas and make things....my girls love it!

Summer goes fast.....there is a need for down fun relaxing time and a time for some planned structure. I am very glad I do not feel pressured in the least to have my children busy every second. Then I hear all the moms in late August complaining..."where did summer go?" I shake my head and want to say look at your calendar and check book. You paid for your kids to be all over the place doing about everything possible under the sun....you ran them around --from early morning swim team practice, to baseball games, to soccer camps, to baseball games, to art class and summer tutoring, to football conditioning, you squeezed in a trip or two because you have to go see the aunt and uncle....and then you paid for all of it...and now you complain?

We have to be thrifty on where we spend our summer time.
Summer is a fine dance between busy and bored. It is dance between contentment and needing the next vacation high. It is trying to not fit in with the Jones's or compete with them. It is all about walking down a new narrow almost un-noticed path. I am hoping I find that new path...perhaps it has a prickely but sweet blackberry patch along the way and some lovely looking daisies. In the distance perhaps a small creek with the gold sun dancing and sparkling upon it. Maybe I will slip off my worn flip flops and walk in the cool water and feel very refreshed as I feel the moss covered stones. Refreshed in body and in my soul. Then I hear it in a distance thru the trees----- the faint sound of four joyful children, laughing in the heat of a lazy summer afternoon.