The Beginning of the Craziness that is MARCH

It’s just one month, it’s just one month, it’s just one month…

OK, it is MARCH. Michael’s birthday is coming up, the sun is finally coming out and garden and lawn stuff is starting to happen, AND it’s Music in Our Schools Month, which means so many choir and band events. *whispers* So. Many. Concerts. This week has three huge events: An all-day all-district choir thing, finishing off with a concert that evening; an all-day band festival that won’t have us getting back to campus until 7pm or so, and a big jazz band thing that both Nathaniel’s and Renaissance’s jazz bands will be performing at that will probably not have us getting home until 10pm or so. That’s just one week. There’s so many more weeks like this.

My tendency is to get ~~a little~~ a lot wound up about logistics and time away from home and all that stuff, but at the beginning of this school year I had an epiphany that I could choose to worry about the stuff coming up or I could decide that I was just going to enjoy it. It’s a subtle shift, but it makes a big difference. When I find myself dreading some upcoming event, I try to remember that I’m smack dab in the middle of the years that I was really looking forward to as a parent—I looked forward to the music getting better when they were in high school, and how much easier it would be to be out in public with them because I wouldn’t have to worry about them running into traffic—and I force myself to just simmer down and enjoy this chapter. No extra worrying needed. This is the good stuff.

As far as plans go for the week…

Cooking

This Week’s Meal Plan:

Saturday: Meatloaf
Sunday: Chicken Drumsticks
Monday: Leftovers
Tuesday: Crock Pot: Pineapple Bacon Sausage Soup
Wednesday: Quesadillas
Thursday: Crock Pot: Spaghetti
Friday: Michael’s Choice

As always, it’d be good to bake some bread and/or desserts to throw in there, but with how busy this week is, I don’t think it will happen YET AGAIN.

Clothing

Laundry catch-up after last week’s full stop.
I need to start thinking about spring wardrobe rotations.
Need to start thinking about Easter outfits.
Start planning for Rachel’s choir trip to California in April.
I so badly want to sew up a closet full of 1950s spring formal dresses. There’s no reason for this, other than I want to be making pretty things.

Cleaning

Trying to reset the house after the full stop/basic cleanliness because it’s a busy week

Caring

There’s a handful of doctor appointments that need to be scheduled for various family members. It’s quite the production to make appointments with our local medical facilities, so time needs to be set aside for that sort of thing.
I had a nice visit with a friend last week when she drove me to the ER. (That’s a weird sentence to write.) We debriefed when I was feeling better and decided we should hang out more. So I’m going to follow up on that this week.

Creativity

I need to figure out my new portable project now that I’ve finished the Baking Doodle Cowl test knit. (Post coming soon!)
I don’t think I’ll get time to work on creative projects beyond “In the Van Crafting” this week
I’m thinking about abandoning the Chatsworth BOM quilt. I am just really not enjoying how the pattern designer writes his instructions and I don’t want to extend the mental effort to manipulate his instructions into techniques that work better for me.
I need to decide if I’m going to do a special musical performance near Easter. I kind of set a goal at the beginning of the year that I’d try to do a musical number every six weeks, and I did one in January, so the next one’s deadline is coming up. I have not been good at practicing music at all lately, so I need to tighten that up ASAP.

Gardening

This will be a Year of Resurrection for the garden. It’s been largely ignored for the past two years while I worked on my master’s degree. I have a grand vision of an English Cottage/Potager Garden that takes up my entire backyard someday, but this year we’ll just work with what we’ve got back there and really talk about and start fleshing out extension plans on paper.
I’m still working on taskifying all the various reminders and due dates of stuff for the garden, so I need to be ok with having to purchase some of my plants this year because I’ll remember that I like them and then realize I should have started them six weeks ago—like petunias. Whoops.
I need to inventory my trellises and poles and order more if they’re needed. It’s my hope to get them set up this coming weekend.
I need to do a second round of pea planting.
I need to check and see what seeds I need for April planting and order more if needed. (This is a great list idea that I came up with and very handy!)
Keep an eye on the rhubarb and start working it into our meals as soon as it start producing stalks.
Start more delphinium because there’s only two growing right now.
Use more of the countertop herb garden because it only takes two days for it to become a countertop JUNGLE.

Celebrating

Michael’s birthday is next week, so preparations for that
Easter is at the end of the month, so I’ll need to find out if I’m hosting anything and prep for that.

Community

Our community has a scholarship they give out and the application is due on March 17th, so I need to nag Renaissance about that.
Setup signup questions or something like that for the Band Booster Facebook group because I’m tired of dealing with the spam
Setup an embarrassingly overdue thank you note writing session for Evening of Jazz
Make significant progress on the Trivia Night fundraiser so I don’t look like a lazy loaf at next week’s meeting
Same re: Popcorn fundraiser
Because we have our monthly meeting next week, I need to do a lot of prep work over the weekend for that—agenda, send out reminders, etc.

It’s good to sit down and figure out priorities for the upcoming week. When I first sat down to write this post, I was overwhelmed by what I saw on the calendar, but once I sit and think about what really needs to be done, it feels much more manageable. Bonus: It also helps me realize how important it is right now to SAY NO to requests. Remember, this is an enjoyable time in parenting, so ENJOY IT. All the beautiful, all the fun, all the exciting stuff—All of that only happens if you’re willing to put in the behind-the-scenes work. I thought about this really hard last spring and came up with a great motto that I use when the work starts feeling like a little too much: I welcome the work that makes my life beautiful.