My Senior Recital!

It's in exactly 4 weeks and thankfully I only have 3 songs left to memorize! Putting together a recital is like the stress of juries x's 100, but it's commemorative for me and will be a great way to end this chapter. My theme is "Songs My Mother Taught Me" (one of the songs I'm singing) and is sung through my children's perspective over the last two years. My sweet children also have memorized about 80% of my songs over the last six semesters and sound really cute when they sing in German or French. I am even singing an art song titled "Old Mother Hubbard" in the style of Handel and Lillie and I are singing a little duet I arranged near the end of the program.
So yes, everyone over age 6 is invited! Plus I'm having some pretty awesome refreshments afterward. It's formal and it's free, and we'll see if I can really pull off singing some high B's with my sixth-month belly and extreme issue of keeping my freaking diaphragm expanded.
Epigastrial-Diaphragmatic-Abdominal-Costal Breathing these days.
(Thank you, Brother Lindford.)

Balance

I'm not one for figuring out how to balance my life when I have a million things to do. You would think that after 22 months of full-time school that I would be able to figure it out by now. You would think.

So, I'm a list maker. It's the only way I can give proper attention to what's most important without filling my time with things with little meaning. I at one point in the last year had to make myself an adult chore-chart of sorts, except it included the most basic of things, like brushing my teeth, saying my prayers, reading 3 books a day to my kids, and making dinner for my family. Super embarrassing, but that's basically sums up my frazzled brain.

The plus thing about being overwhelmingly busy: I can go grocery shopping for an entire month at a time. Because really, who has time to bustle around Winco every single week? I make up a list of about 25 meals and buy all the ingredients for them. Vegetables will last at least a month in my fridge, but of course, a couple times a month Dustin comes home with more bananas and milk. Anyway, it saves a butt-load of money and has helped me become super creative. I would rather eat hot dogs on our BBQ with a suddenly salad mix.... again.... instead of drive the 2 miles to Winco and buy stuff more often. And by the way, recently I decided to start buying the good hot dogs (about 3$ a package) instead of the 79 cent package of BAR-S who-the-crap-knows-what's-in-there hot dogs, and it has changed my life.

I also have enlisted my children into folding laundry, even Jack can fold towels and rags good enough that I don't care to refold them. And to save another small ounce of time daily, Dustin has installed a real drinking fountain in our garage so I don't have to get the kids cups of water all day long.

But don't get me wrong, I still waste time sometimes. Last week on Wednesday I got so much homework done and it was so flipping hot upstairs and Dustin wasn't going to be home for another 2 1/2 hours and the only thing to do was to go down to the cool basement to watch Mrs. Doubtfire. What a waste. In a lot of ways.

So, tomorrow when you wake up, grab some paper and a pen and make a list of everything you want to do that day. Write down everything. It feels wonderful to cross off several things just from peeing, brushing my teeth, and getting dressed and making our bed. I bet you'll be more productive! Or at least you will feel more productive. And that is what is most important.

Photo Dump Family Update

I had to post the last picture because our refrigerator plays a major role in my life these days.

I am SO DONE with school. Dustin brought me home an orange creamsicle snow cone to break up my eight hour online school session today.

I also love driving home and seeing the front of our house. We have green grass, mature trees (about ten less than when we bought it!) hanging baskets, an American flag, and even a statue we named "Rosy" to greet us. Our garden has been a therapeutic adventure for us and a huge dream come true for me. I've always wanted to do this. Our corn is coming up nicely and we've already been able to pick strawberries, a rare advantage in this devil climate. It's like a science experiment every day for these tikes learning how to plant, water, and weed. They've taken a huge ownership in the garden. For Mother's Day Dustin made me a big planter box for all my herbs and the kids got me some rose bushes and a lilac tree. I feel like I've aged 25 years since buying this house because now I enjoy conversations relating to our yard. I've even become one of those people who gives tours of their plants to every visitor.

We've been busy and happy and love that it's June.