Living in the moment

It's been no less crazy than usual around here.  My determination to stick to some sort of framework for our schooling is not so much born of a need to organize (I have gone from hyper-organized to a happy, disorganized mess over the decades), but from a need to keep the kids occupied enough to make a dent in the petty bickering.  Seems that too much free time is not a good thing in this house.

Anyway, between staying on top of schooling 6 kids from Kindergarten through 11th grade, trying to keep up with the household stuff, making things and being the shipping department for our Etsy shop and attempting to cook everything from scratch these days, I barely have time for any hobbies.  I do my running at 6 a.m. for an hour, I exercise for 30 minutes in the evening, I knit in the van and occasionally in my chair when there's a good movie to watch, and I read for maybe 30 minutes before I slip into my 6 hour, nightly coma.  That is how I squeeze in personal time.  Which is why this blog has suffered such neglect.

As I write this at near-10 in the morning, I am looking out my workroom window at the pasture and the changing colors of autumn, my favorite time of year.  I have a few Etsy shop orders to pack up and of course school stuff to attend to, but I'm hoping to bake pumpkin bread this afternoon and maybe make some miniature cakes with Gemma in her little cake pans.  I like the kitchen so much more this time of year, when I'm not constantly perspiring.

This year is quickly drawing to a close, and it has been a hard one.  Financial struggles, personal demons to fight, worries about family members...I'll be 51 next month, and in all honesty, I think that 50 has been one of my more trying years.  Definitely a milestone year, and one I'm not unhappy to bid farewell to.  There's been ore inner upheaval than I've felt in decades, but it is finally winding down and I am finally feeling more settled...not totally at peace, but better.  The trick is to work very hard at living in the moment and casting one's gaze neither backward nor forward.  That's the key.