Summertime is here - "wheee" or "oh no"?

I have realized that I am really bad at posting to this personal blog on a regular basis, but I am pretty consistent with my business blog.  All things considered, since this is a personal nonmoney making blog I should be happy that I am consistent with the business blog.

I also have to acknowledge that for the business blog I dedicate a day for that blog, I know that every Wednesday I have a blog to post and I have a list of ideas so I am not staring down a blank screen.  That list gives me direction to follow and that does make it a bit easier than this personal one.

When I came up with the idea of 2019 being the year of Happiness the idea of the summer scared me the most and it still does to be quite frank.  When I was kid, and heck even when I was simply an adult even with kids but working in the corporate environment I really liked summer, so it is quite a change in me for me to be scared of it.   We are well into June at this point so I need to do something and therefore I sat down and tried to figure out why I was scared, because once you identify a problem then you can solve a problem. Thank you Outer Order Inner Calm!

So here is my list of reasons:

• The kids are out of school
• I am still trying to build a client base
• My husband started a new job
• What do I do with the kids
• My school time schedule will be obliterated
• My kids are awesome but they are loud which is normal and typical but until I was home with them I never realized how much I don't like loud.

As I look at that list I realize that (1) those things are all connected and (2) this is a manifestation of my dislike of change, because I don't really fear it I just dislike change unless I initiate it and (3) finally that I am in uncharted waters.  The best way to resolve these fears, in my opinion, is to double down and embrace who I am, which by nature is a planner.

Yes, my school time routine is obliterated but that doesn't mean I cannot create a great summertime routine and then use that routine for future summers as well as the various school vacation weeks that Massachuessettes loves to have.

Step one in solving the problem was to mingle my work and professional calendars.  My work planner is a Happy Notes Planner and using it helped me really easily map out my various blog posts and Facebook posts, sure I use my online calendar but paper works best for long-range planning and coordinating schedules so I decided based on listening to a Before Breakfast Podcast that I needed to mingle my calendars.  I had a listing of a bunch of events at my local library to take the kids too, and I had put those in my personal calendar including reminders a week before each event because that is when sign-ups for the event open.  I added those events into my Happy Notes calendar and I started to see how I could make this work.

Step two planning other activities to do with the kids so that I could block out dedicated work time.  For me this meant researching treasure hunt ideas, I am creative in certain aspects but not in others and you can find pretty much anything on the internet so work smarter not harder.  I found several lists of clues for treasure hunts so I made a few with the clues I found on the internet adapted to my house and I wrote out the clue, where I should put the clue and what the ultimate prize would be.   I started out with a simple 5 clue treasure hunt and the is the best part the prizes are things that I found in various nooks and crannies while I was doing some organization, things like Matchbox cars, and Pez dispensers (I checked they are still good!).

I also found some other activities such as a faux laser obstacle course I can set up, and balloon tennis, and pom pom racing.  All of these things I put on my calendar because I know my kids are reasonably good at finding things to do by themselves they are 7 & 9 but I also know with all the unstructured time of summer I need to be prepared for my sanity and theirs.

Step three I signed them up to attend their previous daycare's summer program two days a week in July an August.  This allows me to have two full days which I can dedicate to the business and client meetings and means fewer things for me to plan.  This should not be read as me not being able to meet with clients on the other days or that I would not be working on the business on those days, it just means that those days would be broken into snatches of time rather than 6-7 uninterrupted hours.  And for a client meeting that would just need to be carefully planned by coordinating with my support group, aka my family.

After did those three things I started to feel better but I still have moments of me freaking out.  One of those moments is right now because today is the last day of school and it is only a half day!  I do hope to start to be a bit more consistent with my posting and possibly doing a post that describes a bit more in detail what types of things I am planning with the kids and how I actually do get my work done.  And finally to let you know if my summer ends up being more of a "wheee" rather than an "oh no"