The baby raccoons are still eating their food. I’ve been putting it out there twice a day, once in the morning, once in the evening. There still are four of them hanging around. They’re usually spotted in the athletic field or across the camp road heading into the woods. Most times when I come out the food is gone and they’ve eaten all of it. It makes me happy when I see that it’s gone.

Today I felt very little motivation to work on the bedroom. The accent wall was a flop, and so I didn’t have to go back and buy any more paint, I ended up painting over the green with the neutral white we painted our bedroom last summer. It was basically the same color as the white that I used on the other three walls down there. I do enjoy the look of open, freshly painted walls.

My kids are mostly gone again this week. The camp weeks go by so long when they’re gone. I know it’s every mother’s dream to have time alone to get things done. I’m basically just burying myself in my work, or something similar to what people must mean when they say that. I have drinks in the fridge that I said they could come in any time and get. It’s my way to still be there.

Most of the time I don’t actually see him take the drinks, but I will hear the fridge open, and then later go and see another drink that is gone. So then I refill them, putting the warm ones in the back so the cold ones are still in the front ready to go. Maybe every six months or so it will come up stronger that I feel unappreciated, but I can go a pretty long time like this and be basically okay.

As a wife though I definitely need appreciation more than every six months. So I will bring that up every so often here and there. I’ve kind of become a bit of a relationship junkie in terms of reading about relationship dynamics between people with differing attachment styles. I think my favorite marriage metaphor is that of caring for a plant. You have to regularly tend to it or else it dies.

After a few days off I’m back to working on the bedrooms again. The first two are as done as I can get them for now. The third one is the one that probably needed the most work, and was the bedroom that flooded earlier in the year but never quite got the full needed attention, or rather, deep cleaning. The kids and I went to the paint store today. I felt embarrassed again remembering the ungodly number of paint gallons I’ve bought over the years.

I’ve been thinking here and there about all the money I’ve spent. I am positive that had I been operating with a sense of frugalness and thriftiness even fifty percent more of the time than I did, we could easily have had enough money to pay for at least the first two years of college. They say when you’re going through the process of getting rid of things you can’t let the money you spent on something be the reason you decide to keep it.

The paint I bought I was not happy with. The boys wanted a color on one of their walls, so I tried to honor their request of not having something too plain. But I am currently past the accent wall paint phase. I actually went back to Sherwin-Williams a second time today to have them try to add to the color to darken it up. The first gallon worked, and is the neutral I’m painting most of the room with. The current accent wall with “coastal plain” I still don’t like.

So I took a break from painting and did some more book sorting. It’s happening in three different rooms right now. The living room, my bedroom, and the schoolroom. These are just my books and have nothing to do with the back office where my husband keeps his own whole collection of books upon books. This evening I was indecisive over a group of 4th and 6th grade science and social studies textbooks. I still think it would be fun to read them.

Those went back on the shelf. There were several others I was able to get rid of which went to the goodwill pile. I’m currently trying to organize them by subject, but a few subjects, like science, have more books that fit in one square shelf cubby space. It’s funny because science wasn’t even a subject we did that much of. I counted our nature walks and being in the woods as science. It was one of my favorite subjects though, just like they all were.

My sister-in-law and her family came to swim this evening. On our way down to the beach she updated Josh and I on my father-in-law’s latest cancer scans. She had gone with my in-laws to St. Louis today for his appointments. The spots on his lungs are still staying the same or shrinking, but he has new spots growing in his leg where the original tumor was. He had been on a trial chemo drug but that is over now. His doctor is switching him over to an oral chemo pill now.

After swimming we came back up to the house to change. This is probably going to sound completely ridiculous, but I was kind of excited to have them inside where I could direct them to the back corner of the house with the freshly cleaned bathroom and the two coming together bedrooms that are not quite done but are looking like I can tell that work’s been happening in there. I was proud of how my house looked, as in, I wasn’t ashamed to have people around.

I think that’s the way it’s supposed to feel. We’ve reached the point of summer where it’s beginning to feel long. Writing later at night I’m sure has something to do with it. By evening time I’m definitely ready for bed. Everyone is home from chapel now, getting ice cream, playing the piano, getting ready to watch a show. They’re watching a comedian who is actually pretty funny. I’ve watched this show before though so I’m probably just going to head to bed and call it a night.

Last night we went and watched fireworks in the Menards parking lot. We had really great seats where there weren’t a ton of people on either side of us and the soybean field was the only thing in front of us. It’s crazy how many people come out for these shows. People fill the various parking lots. They also park on the road including the interstate ramps. I don’t think you’re technically supposed to do that but I’ve never seen anyone get in trouble for doing it.

My sister-in-law and her family are visiting from Texas. We usually try and get together with them a couple of times when they are here. My son invited one of his camp friends to join us. He came and brought the two other camp people who were also back at camp and hadn’t made any plans. This didn’t bother me but it did get me thinking. The days of things being just “our family” are pretty much over and they have been for a while. This change occurred very slowly.

This idea of family that I’ve had, that is, a mom and a dad and their kids together as a unit living under roof, this is the definition of family that has made me most happy. This is what I have worked hardest to preserve and keep in my life. I feel like God is saying it is time for me to let that go, to let my idea and definition of family expand. After the fireworks show it was dark enough to see stars. I used my SkyView app briefly, content knowing I’ll get back to them soon.

One of my strategies in trying to write more regularly here was that eventually I would get so fed up with continuing to write the same way that I always do that I would someday not be able to take it anymore and finally change. It’s the same way I’m approaching piano lessons and I let the teacher know this. That I will eventually get so fed up of showing up without having practiced.

Thankfully he’s been pretty neutral about it. He’s one of those no excuses types of people which I don’t always like because I think they can be harsh at times. But it also keeps me from giving him any “excuses” and basically forces me to keep saying over and over “I haven’t done much with this one”, to which he then says, “Welp, let’s see what you did do.” So I find the page and play what I have.

I have dreams of showing up one day and blowing his mind with the hymn he assigned. There’s this definite frustration I’ve discovered that happens when you are not living up to the programmed fullness of your abilities. By programmed I mean designed, given, and put there by God. I’ve been writing in my journal about the piano for years. I know he knows my heart and I trust him with that.

My in-laws have been without power for several days. Earlier in the week there was a storm that came through and left much of the Springfield area without power. That night I had gone out looking for something to eat. Every so often I just need to go off on my own. I tried three different food places on even different sides of town and all of them were closed due to power outages.

So I drove a few miles up the interstate and went to a Subway. Several people there had also done the same thing. I felt bad for this lady who waited in line for a while and when she got to the counter they didn’t have the meatballs for the meatball sandwich she asked for. She seemed a tad frustrated but she did go back to her car to ask her husband what he wanted instead.

I ate half for supper and the other half for breakfast. I’ve actually had pretty good eating habits this summer, concentrating on trying to feed my body good things. Summer and winter seem to be the seasons where I put more effort into my diet. I do not have to think about meals during most of the summer because my husband and kids eat most of their meals at the dining hall.

When I came home from Subway I sat down and wrote my son a five page letter, single-spaced. It ended up being a reflection of his school years, the different school experiences he’s had, and the things I noticed and watched grow in him throughout his growing up years. It took me a couple of hours to write it. He hasn’t said anything to me about it. I don’t know what to say.

We had a nice visit today with our guests. The girl I took paddle-boarding a couple of weeks ago came back with her son this time. Our boys had a few summers where they played together and she was hoping to get him out of the house and doing something in nature. The two of them went paddle-boarding together and then I joined them for a while before he left to go swim.

I’m still taking a break from the major cleaning but tonight I had the urge to start going through books. I don’t know what it is but I haven’t gotten tired of the decluttering yet. I still have just as much motivation as when I started basically a month ago. I’ve felt pretty good this past month and I am thankful for that. How you’re feeling makes a difference in what you are able to do.

My cleaning sprees have slowed for a time. My sister is visiting with her girls for the evening. I have a guest tomorrow as well who is also bringing her son along. She wanted to bring him down here for something to do.

There are four baby raccoons hanging around camp. They’ve been spotted all together, and also in groups of one, two, or three. Today I fed them blueberries and cat food up by the garbage area closer to our house.

I am worried about how things are going right now. It is why I have gone more silent again. Today I did clean the kitchen counters and shelves above the sink. They needed dusting and decluttering. I threw a bunch more away.

Today I took a break from the downstairs and kids rooms and schoolroom and spent some time in mine upstairs. My projects often get detoured like this, but as long as I’m getting something done I don’t mind. My side of the closet is now so much cleaner, having got rid of nearly two-thirds of the clothes and thrown away several boxes worth of junk. You can also see the floor now.

My mom suggested I organize the hanging clothes first by length and then by color, so that’s what I did. I agree it looks better that way. Throughout the cleaning process I’ll either text my mom or sisters pictures. They don’t have to say anything, it’s just a place for me to put and see the progress and it works to keep me motivated, which I have been throughout most of the month.

I still can’t believe that I’m actually cleaning my house, as in cleaning it the way I want it to be cleaned. I’ve only been able to stay this focused because I’m pretty much not doing anything else. Every so often I do have to spend some time making sure that the college preparation and paperwork boxes are being checked. I did go down to camp twice just to see everybody.

Somebody please tell me that I won’t actually be teaching myself Arabic anytime soon. It’s too much, all of the things that I’m longing to do, or have longed to do in the past. I have plenty to do, right here, right now, and it’s enough to keep me busy for the next couple of years at least.

There was some deep emotional processing that came through today, early in the morning when I was texting my sisters. I wish I could write it out here because it was actually very profound and coherent. Sometimes you read things that heal you and other times you write things that do.

I’ve not been learning constellations this summer because by the time the sky is dark enough for stars I’m in bed. I did not consider that at all when I figured I would just slowly learn the main ones as the seasons changed. So I am a little behind with that now but I am not going to stress about it.

“Sure on this shining night
of star made shadows round
kindness must watch for me
this side the ground”
~Morten Lauridsen~

When I started doing yoga back in 2021 I often did a video called Yin Yoga for Anger. I liked this particular girl because she included affirmations along with her videos. Whenever you changed positions she would say a new affirmation you were supposed to repeat. The anger one included lines such as “I am a calm and loving person” and “I allow feelings to flow through me without attachment.”

But the one that would always stand out to me most was the one that said, “I let go of old past hurts with ease”. Every time I said it my body would shake. I thought it might have been a protesting demon. You had to lay on your back in be in a half “happy baby” position. It was a shake like a jolting shock-wave trying to get all of the crushed up leaves out. It would shake as if to say, “Here’s what your problem is.”

Along with the anger I also did one for grief. I don’t remember as much about that one other than that I was always sore the next day. I would alternate between days, one for the anger and one for grief. I guess in ancient Chinese medicine, grief is stored in the lungs and anger stored in the liver. Whatever it was, it helped in some very hard times. It may not be a cure, but can still help with management.