Another beautiful summer week has come and gone, busy and yet unhurried. The dichotomy of summer is interesting that way. I like having this Happy Homemaker post on my to-do list for each Sunday because it gives me a chance to reflect on the last week and firm up my plans for the upcoming week, so I’m going to personalize some of the prompts to my particular wishes this week.

Highlights of last week:

• Renaissance and I are making good progress on our strength-training and hiking goals. We are complete newbies and starting from absolute zero, but we’ve shown up consistently 3-4 times a week for the past month for our scheduled workouts together. That’s something to be very proud of! I especially love our trail walks together. There’s just something about summer morning walks in nature that are absolutely wonderful, and I get to share it with one of my favorite people. I love that we’re doing this together.
• Rachel’s room was officially emptied! I was anxious about this and it was so nice to complete that step!
• I finally quilted the baby quilt!
• Peach milkshakes
• Planted some flower seeds just because I could. We’ll see if they’re successful come…August 1-7-ish?

Things I Wished Had Gone Better in the Last Week:

• Workout fatigue is real. I wish it didn’t impact my days so much. I think it’s improving slightly, so at least there’s that. Until it does improve, I need to simplify evening tasks because I am just out of energy by that time of day. I know this will be worth it, but it’s hard to deal with the exhaustion while my stamina builds up.
• Cancelled a lot of Ren and Rachel’s driving practices because I was tired or something came up. I’d like to schedule these for earlier in the day, but we just don’t have that time available in the mornings right now. Gotta make it work.
• We didn’t get out much this past week. The field trip I had scheduled in my head turned out to be a 2.5 hour drive away and none of us were interested in 5 hours of driving that day. I feel like we’re getting bored of our immediate area and we’ve visited so much of it already. I’d like to come up with a new plan. More nature walk/hiking, perhaps? Maybe I need to move field trip day to a different day of the week so we can get an earlier start? Our schedule is going to go through some major change-ups in the next few weeks as different activities end, so it might be possible.

Alright, onto the regularly schedule HHM prompts:

The Weather:

Looks like a perfect week, temperature-wise! Last week’s forecast seemed pretty ok, but it was much warmer every day than originally guessed, so I wonder if it’ll actually be bordering on too warm this week as well?

As I Look Outside my Window:

Aww, cute little Rachel was doing her weeding for the day when I stepped outside to snap a picture. She’s been really consistent about weeding and the garden looks much better for her efforts. I really appreciate her work out there. I think the grass is starting to get a little greener as the increased watering begins to show its value? I’m hoping to plant a few more seeds just to see if they’ll work. We could have a few flowers in the autumn.

The baby birds in the nest up to the right of the swing post hatched this week! They’ve already grown a lot in the few days they’ve been out of their shells. Mama and Daddy Bird are flitting back and forth non-stop to keep the babies fed and it’s so cute to hear the babies’ thin little squeaks when food arrives.

Right Now I Am:

Sitting in my craft room typing up this blog post, listening to Rachel hammering away in her bedroom as she constructs the new shelves we ordered for her.

Thinking and Pondering:

• I have a lot of thoughts that I’m processing right now! I’m “in the swirly place” as I call it, with a lot of thoughts and feelings swirling around that I’m trying to examine and unpack.
• With the push to give kids more autonomy and practice with making their own choices, I’m wondering if we’ve taken it too far and are expecting behaviors above the developmental abilities of their ages? Kids aren’t great at making solid plans, coming up with an attack strategy, and following it through. They need it modelled to them and they need to be shown how to do it. Then they need to be slowly allowed to take control of one thing, then another. It’s not a “sink or swim” kind of thing.
• A Facebook memory popped up where I shared an article I’d read five years ago:

• Upon reading it again, I’m thinking about the importance of service and socializing. We Brookes are an achievement-oriented people and can produce a lot of dopamine for ourselves, but we’re not known for doing a lot of service or connecting with others and I’m wondering if concentrating on those two categories would improve our lives and happiness levels? (I think this article was from the Costco Connections magazine, Summer 2018? I have no other info to go on.)
• Being self-disciplined is a solitary road to walk.
• I think I might be a little lonely right now. Which makes sense; I’ve only socialized with my husband and four children for the past three weeks and that’s not healthy. Summer is weird like that. It feels super busy, but with everyone going out of town and the like, it’s actually hard to connect with other people.

Listening to:

Rachel hammering away on things in her bedroom. The squeak of the floor in one of the bathrooms as someone takes a shower. The clink of a spoon against a bowl in the kitchen. Morning sounds.

How Am I Feeling:

Frustrated, lonely, and tired. Not the best combo, but completely understandable given what I’ve got going on right now. The workouts and decluttering are wearing me thin. I’m going to schedule a week off from decluttering once Rachel’s room is finished because I’m tired of my living room being full of kid possessions. The workouts will continue because eventually I’ll crest this hill and feel energized. I’ve got a few feelers out to connect with other human beings in the next couple of weeks as well, so that should help with the loneliness.

On my Reading Pile:

Library books went back to the library and I just couldn’t find anything I wanted to read to check out. Perhaps I’ll check out a bunch of magazines over e-loan? That seems to be the level of reading that I’m up for right now.

On my TV this week:

I started re-watching Clarkson’s Farm 2 because it makes me happy. If it weren’t for my back injury, I think I’d like doing a lot of farm things. I’ve been inspired to get out in my garden more, so that’s good.

On the Menu:

I don’t have a menu planned for this week because there was a church BBQ on Saturday that I had to get ready for during my meal planning time and then Michael drove straight to Costco from the BBQ because he didn’t want to drive home, wait for me to plan meals, and then drive somewhere again. So we have food, but no plan as to how we are going to use it.

Looking Around the House:

I see light at the end of the tunnel regarding decluttering Rachel’s room, so that’s nice. The craft room is getting tidier, so it’s nice to be in there again.

To-Do List This Week:

• Haircuts
• Dentist appointments
• Family portraits
• Maybe figure out a way to use up the rhubarb
• Rachel’s bedroom finishing
• Keep planning Ren’s birthday party
• Driving practice sessions for Ren and Rachel
• Plant sunflowers
• Some sort of field trip. It’s Nathaniel’s week to pick the location.

Devotional:

My word for this last week was “power,” and I really didn’t like sitting with that word and its implications. I think, in my experiences, I’ve mostly dealt with power in terms of lacking it. I’ve thought a lot this week about what it means to have power, how it’s decided who gets the power, and what should one do when they either have or lack power? These were not warm and fuzzy ponderings.

One thought that I liked was that there is power in cultivating good character. You can be poor, you can be unwell, and you can be victimized, but you still have power in choosing the right. I had some experiences during my student teaching this last year where I saw the importance of always choosing to have good character and how easy it is to let one little blip of a bad moment absolutely ruin a reputation of goodness and how far-reaching and difficult it was to recover from that blip. There is immense power in maintaining your good character that will serve you well once ugliness and meanness come to their full fruition and everyone realizes how terrible the situation was. You keep your power when you refuse to stoop down to levels of spite and aggression. You are powerful when you are honest, when you are trustworthy, and when you calmly assert what is right and true and fair, even if it doesn’t benefit you.

This upcoming week’s word is: Strength. What is strength? What is not strength? Is there such a thing as too much strength? How do we become stronger physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? Is it ever OK to choose weakness over strength?

Linking up to Sandra’s Happy Homemaker Monday!