Various Things that Have Annoyed Me In July So Far.

You know, when I was a kid playing in the sprinkler, the kid pool or the hose was a mainstay of summer outside entertainment.  And I've tried to replicate that with my children but I'm finding it an uphill battle.

First attempt - I bought a slip and slide type plastic thing that attached to a small inflatable pool at the bottom.  A slip and slide, if you aren't familiar with the term, is a water slide that is, essentially, a tarp.  It's a flat, smooth runner of plastic and you put water and possibly soap to add to the slipperiness, and then you run along and slide on it.  Works best on a hill.  I bought a child sized one of these and since we had a small hill beside the house this was perfect for the children to play on and then fly into a little pool of water at the bottom.  Then the house next door at the bottom of the hill sold and now we can't use the hill, and therefore the slip and slide.

Second attempt - I started using a hard plastic kiddie pool.  The children fought constantly about it because, unsurprisingly, they couldn't all sit in it at the same time.

Third attempt - So devoid of the slip and slide with pool option and the hard plastic pool, I bought a sprinkler.  It was a fun one that spurted water in all directions and, I hoped, would possibly also double as watering the grass.  It lasted just over a week before the town instituted a water restriction that means I can only use a sprinkler between the hours of 5 AM and 10 AM on odd numbered days.  This effectively squashed the sprinkler option.

Fourth attempt - I bought an inflatable pool that I could set up on the deck and would fit the children at the current larger sizes they are.  It took an hour to inflate the first of two parts of it, including stopping for breaks to let the air compressor cool off.  And then I accidentally poked two holes in it which necessitated applying puncture patches and waiting 30 minutes for them to cure.  Then I re-inflated the already inflated part I had punctured, and inflated the second part, and it all took a ridiculous time by which point it was past 10 AM so I couldn't actually use the hose anymore to fill the pool.

I just remember standing outside playing with the hose, or running through a sprinkler, so I can't understand why this is so complicated.

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So this past week the children went to day camp, by themselves, for the First Time Ever.  And they had a great time but I have had a week of repetitive stress as all the little things about camp worried me.  And now today is the last day, which is so good because now I can relax a bit knowing they aren't going to get lost in the woods or drown at the beach or discover that they really ARE allergic to bees or any of the other extreme scenarios my mind made up for me to helpfully fuss about for five days.  On the other hand, David and I thought 'the kids should write thank you cards for their counselors'.  And herein lies yet another worry.  Both of the 7yo's counselors have creative names that are spelled with unusually placed letters, and I'm not 100% certain I am spelling them correctly.  And also I told the children they had to compose and print the cards themselves, and their spelling is ATROCIOUS.  What if no one can even READ them?  And also the 7yo expressed displeasure at my Thank You card selection.  I'd just bought a pack at the Christian book store that said 'Thank You' on the front and was brightly coloured but she didn't like the look/Bible verse/something something I don't know, and now I'm stressed about ALL of those things.

What all of this means is I have three horribly printed and spelled cards with mis-spelled names on them in patterns no one likes.  Looks like a real win.

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The other day David turned to me and said 'where are all of the little coloured plastic bowls?' and I had no idea.  Had I thrown them away?  I thought it was possible because I remember thinking I should throw them away since they were several years old and looked it and also I'd like to get a better quality bowl.  But had I actually thrown them away?  I was very stressed about this because I couldn't remember at ALL.  And this was several bowls I'd lost, not just misplacing the sugar bowl in the freezer or putting my keys in a potted plant or something.  And then my mother in law called and asked me if I might have left a bunch of coloured plastic bowls at her house.  So THAT'S where they were!  And let me tell you why this is infuriating.  Before I leave her house I always ALWAYS go all over the house making absolutely certain I haven't left anything behind.  And yet, so often I have left things behind.  A sock disappears, or a stack of plastic bowls, or a box of tea I brought with me and didn't bring home, or a pen, or something.  And it isn't that I begrudge the gods of misplaced things their due, or that I expect perfection from myself or something, but I can't understand how I can look so closely over and over again and not see these things!

The Bay - Part 3

I will have you know that on July 19th, I finally swam a 'real' swim.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have watched Jaws for the first time the night before, but live and learn.

So this was the perfect night to really make the First Swim Night.  It was very hot so the water was actually nice and warm and lovely.  My husband was watching the children, I had no company to try and talk to or interact with, no social obligations that come with swimming with others.  I swam along the shore for about 200 metres or so, and there were weeds, which were icky and touched me and Were Not Sharks.

I was heading for a dock probably 250 metres around the shore from my starting point, but before I got there I started to worry about being too far from the starting point and it being my first time in the water really in over a year, with the exception of splashing in pools and shallow water and such.  The first 'real' water.  In a year.  Maybe I shouldn't go *too* far, I thought.

So I turned and headed back along the shore but after a short time I thought maybe I should be brave and cut across deeper water - I estimate about 10 feet deep.  I felt good, there was no tiredness or cramping or anything, and I knew the water well and there were people around, so I decided to do it.  I swam with my eyes closed for a lot of it, just focusing on breathing, clean strokes through the water, the sound of waves and birds.  One of my favourite things about swimming in open water is how your face is right at water level and you see and experience a whole different world.

I made it back feeling so good and vibrant and energetic I probably should have tried for a farther swim, but I'm perfectly happy with my 300 or so metres.

Afterwards, while eating an ice cream sandwich and examining the caterpillars in my friend's garden, I could feel the weakness and shakiness of muscles well used.  It was wonderful.  I can't wait to get in again.

Summer School!

Link

Usually by the end of the school year, by which I mean May, we are D.O.N.E. with anything even vaguely educational.  I certainly don't mean we are actually actually done the work I'd scheduled for us to finish that school year, but we just have no more brain space for one more lesson, one more fact, one more anything. 

So, because we homeschool, we just sorta...stop.  At some point I throw my hands up in the air and from that point forward whenever someone asks how 'school' is going, I laugh and explain that...it isn't.  Going, that is.  It isn't going and hasn't been going for a while now.

So this is all fine and well for us and the children.  May is half-hearted schooling, then June is totally void of anything intentionally educational at all and is usually filled with travel to see family and go to meetings.  But then here is the part where May come back to bite me.  Because after June comes July.  And July has two things against it.

1)  July is very hot.  And we are not a hot weather people.  No we are not.
2)  The children have exhausted the exciting novelty of 'vacation'.  And they are bored.

Here we are halfway through July and I know what the solution is, and it is restarting school.  So today, with a chorus of groans accompanying me, I pulled out a few small things to do, to start to ease back into school.  We had a family book study that was still unfinished, and so we heard a short chapter of that and then everyone did truly awful narrations.  And then we heard three short history chapters and looked at the map to discuss where all of these places were.  Where was Charlemagne coming from?  King Alfred and the Danes?  Who are these people?  Where were the Danes?

Of course, learning happens without books, obviously, and we do plenty of 'learningish' things all the time as a matter of course.  We've been playing math games and raising plants and monarch caterpillars, and we've been reading lots of books and finally finished a huge 1500 piece Van Gogh puzzle.  We've gone on trips and done woodworking and researched lots of things we're interested in.  We've heard plenty of audio books and new music and seen educational shows and gone exploring and swimming and so forth.  But those things are life for us, and when I refer to 'school' I mean more intentional learning.

So here is the plan for the remainder of July - slowly, slowly, finishing up the things we didn't quite finish last year.  And then hopefully August I can use as Review Month, because I'm sensing that will be very much necessary.  In September, with six weeks of reintroduction under our belts, we will be ready to launch into a new school year's work.

Of course, this is The Plan.  And who knows what the reality will end up being.

The Bay - Part 2

This is a not particularly good picture of the bay, looking towards one side, from about the halfway point.

Further thoughts on this increasingly ridiculous idea.

A few weeks ago I went down to the dock (the halfway point) and looked at the water in the bay and thought about getting in and decided it was too cold and didn't do it.  I was scared.  This train of thought, 'it is too cold to start swimming', worked up until a few days ago when I took the children swimming at a friend's house.  I put my feet in the water and it was actually nice and warm so my cold excuse is gone and I should Get. In. The. Lake.

I have scrolled through all my photos trying to find one where you can actually SEE the distance from one side to the other, and unfortunately the above pic is the best I can do.  I mean, I could take a camera and walk to the side of the bay and take a picture and come back and use that, but I'm not going to do that today.

So I drew you a map!

Essentially, the bay is a big U.  At the curvy part of the U is what I keep referring to as 'the dock' or 'the marina'.  It is a pier jutting into the lake, with berths on one side for boats, and also two small docks and a boat launch.  I wouldn't call it BUSY, necessarily, but certainly pleasure craft are coming in and out with some frequency, especially in the summer, especially on nice days, especially on weekends.  Which is likely when I would be swimming.

Looking at the drawn map you can see that the bay, like all natural bays, is not exactly a 'U'.  The line shows the approximate route I'd try and take.  I would start at the left hand side of the line, in the slightly swampy, rocky launch point, and swim over the deepest part (marked by the red dot buoy) and end up at the rocky top part of the line. The buoy is not exactly at the same height up the 'U' arms as the start and end points, but it provides a good place to mentally tally 'this is about halfway'.  Also the buoy does not exist for foolhardy swimmers to aim for, in fact it represents the deep channel that boats entering and exiting the marina aim for.  I did discover the depth, but I can't remember now just what it was, and the number will probably only serve to frighten me anyway so best not to dwell on it.  I think it was 19 feet deep at the buoy.

I planned to get in the lake a few days ago, and then I didn't.  Then I made another plan to get in the lake...and I didn't keep that one either.  I'm actively AVOIDING the lake at this point, which is ridiculous because...I WANT TO DO THIS.  Surely this is some strange, never before seen psychological phenomena.

Oh, I also tried to figure out if swimming 1.34 km was something that required me to actually, really buy a new bathing suit.  Which I don't want to do.  Or goggles.  Or a bathing cap.  Or anything that costs money.  I don't want to spend any money at all on anything.  And I told myself that if I just gosh golly darned Got. In. The. Lake. I didn't have to buy anything at all.

Summer Stress

I am this turtle.  Both anxious as heck and also incredibly slow and paralyzed by summer.  And wanting to climb into my shell.

The first week of July - done!

I try not to wish away the days in life, so to speak, but enjoy each time for what it is.  On the other hand, summer is an incredibly stressful, anxious, overwhelming, hot, humid time of my calendar year so...I'm counting the days.

Once everyone else is firmly ensconced in public school again, and the vacationers have fled cottage country, then I feel as if I can take a deep breath and start to live freely once more.  The air is cooler, the pressure to Have A Fun Summer !!!!!  is gone, the excitement of a new school year is starting up, and just generally everything is much happier and calmer and nicer.

I'm very sensitive to the 'fun summer' intensity, which hits me as hard as some people seem to be pressured to have excellent, amazing vacations.  I've been thinking a lot about it and here's why I think that is:

1) I'm in Canada, at a latitude where winter is long and harsh and dark and the summer is hot and damp and very light out.  For some people this might indicate a propensity towards seasonal affective disorder; in me it's the total opposite - Summer Affective Disorder.  Thoughts include "Oh my goodness there are only two months of summer I have to make them count!" and "Stuff exciting plans into every space they might fit before it's too late!" and "You are failing to make happy memories!!"  Oddly enough, winter is pretty chill and relaxing.  It's hard to feel pressured to do much when the sun sets at 4pm and it's -35C outside.

2) I'm a homeschooler, so I spend a lot of time planning lessons and executing lessons and explaining lessons and, and, and.  School is my focus.  There isn't school in the summer.  The children want a vacation and I can't blame them.  I'm adrift in a sea of uselessness but also a nice frisson of invigorating panic underlying it all as I prepare for the next school year.  This is sarcasm - I'm not invigorated by the panic.

3) The things we 'have' to do are all around summer.  Pretty much all of them.  My tension starts with filing taxes in the Spring and ends with hosting the Women's Conference at our church at the end of September, but in between those two bookends are all the meetings, expected trips, visiting, 'vacations', etc.  We have to go to conference.  We have to get to the Big City to visit Grandma.  We have to get to family camp.  We have to get to this other meeting over here!  David has to go to this conference in Ohio.  We have to volunteer at Canada Day.  Etc.

4) I live far from family, so there are Expectations.  Further to the above point, even if nothing is said there is a sense of expectation to summer visiting.  That we will make it to family, to spend time there.  Even if we can't.  When my parents lived on the East Coast it would have taken at least two full days of driving to get there and so we never visited them at all.  I felt guilty about this every summer - I SHOULD get in a car that barely runs and drive for twenty four hours and see them!  I SHOULD!

5)  More expectations!  That we will attend family camp like we have in previous years and that it will be amazing and the children will LOVE IT and make so many happy memories.  That we will get our family picture taken again and it will be wonderful and everyone will be so happy.  That we will visit the beach as often as humanly possible, even though it means taking time off work, because that's what parents do when they want their kids to be happy.  That we will spend $10 several times a week at the ice cream store in town.  That we will shell out for soccer gear so the kids can all play soccer, which we will sign them up for in the next town over because our town has decided they don't host teams anymore.  And also baseball.  And also day camp!  That we will host guests at our home.  That we will have bonfires.  That we will take time off from work to do 'fun things!' like...who knows!  FUN THINGS DARN IT.

6)  It's hot, and humid, which is horrible and gross and everything is damp or rotting and the bugs.  The. Bugs.  No one can sleep even with heavy curtains because it isn't dark until, like, 10pm.  And even when it IS dark it is so blasted hot no one can sleep anyway.  The splinters in hands and feet, the bug bites, the sunburns (I forgot to put sunscreen on ears!  They will get skin cancer and it is all my fault!), the blisters, the heat rashes, the cuts, the bruises from falling off bikes, the endless begging for popsicles and drinks of water (What if they are dehydrated!!!???), the headaches from heat and lack of sleep, the stomachaches from heat and lack of sleep, the grouchiness from heat (What if everyone gets heat stroke!!??) and lack of sleep, the yelling after people to put on a hat.

7)  The MONEY.  Hundreds of dollars for camp fees and sports fees and spontaneous trips to air conditioned movie theatres and hot dogs from chip trucks and the ridiculously priced flea medication I have to give the cat every month so he DOESN'T get fleas (I mean, is it made of GOLD??) and the car maintenance I insist on because if you're driving a thousand round trip kilometres you want to make sure the widget doesn't implode or whatever happens to cars that makes them stop moving forward in a timely manner.

8) All the pictures and reminders of other people 'doing fun things in the summer'.  A long litany of people's camping pictures and camp pictures and photo essays on the glory that is canoeing somewhere and doing fun fantastic stuff in remote and glorious locales.  "Are WE going there, mom?"  "No.  We're not going there."  "Why NOT?!  Doesn't it look fun!!??"

9)  The sheer amount of time and mental space it takes to do things when you are pushing through a heavy fog of anxiety all day long.  The week long cleaning and list making and packing necessary to go away for two days with everyone in tow.  The budgeting.  The trying to keep things at a reasonable level of clean when three children, having a 'fun summer' are spending a lot of time dumping a mixture of bubble solution and purple juice and mud all over your floor every moment of the day.  Trying to find a movie everyone will agree on so that they will stay out of the heat from noon until 2, at least.  Trying to find an SPF60 sunscreen that people say doesn't cause cancer.

So I suppose it makes sense that I'm tense in the summer, what with hemorrhaging money and feeling this panicked sense of Required Fun Times, especially in terms of giving the kids a "Nice Summer".

Do you know what I did as a kid in the summer?  Mostly read books.  I don't remember where I got the books because we certainly didn't have the finances to just be buying books constantly, even if we'd had a bookstore right near the house, which we also didn't have.  But I still remember books and I do faintly also recall a travelling bookmobile so perhaps some of them came from there?  I also remember being outside a lot, running through the sprinkler, making forts in the backyard, picking flowers.  There were sometimes trips to a public park that involved getting to swim in the outdoor pool.  This was not frequent but greatly looked forward to.  My parents sometimes barbequed things outside, mostly hamburgers if I remember correctly.  Very occasionally chicken or steak or something.  Once a summer we went out of the city for a week or two and traveled up to the family cottage, used by all our family, and stayed there as a vacation.

If my parents felt any sort of pressure to provide me with a fun summer they certainly didn't show it.  My father worked, and that didn't change over the summer, and my mother stayed home, and that didn't change over the summer.  We had essentially the exact same life as during the school year except that we didn't have anything like school to go to.  I always enjoyed the return of the school year because I could see my friends again and have a plan for the day.

Ministry Update - July 2019

Conference

Every year the husband *has to* go to district conference, and every year there is a hassle of some sort.  This year we debated whether the children and I should even go with him, or stay at home, and then when we decided we would travel together whether we (the children and I) should try and attend conference or do something else.  This year we opted to stay in Ottawa, where my mother in law lives, and visit with her while my husband carpooled with another minister to Trenton, a few hours away, and sat through the meetings.

To be honest, I'm torn on attending conference myself.  I think I'd like to do it once, but having children makes sitting through a meeting nigh impossible.  I have tried before, when the conference was being held in Brockville, and it was miserable to try and entertain little kids, by myself, in a hallway.  The other parents who had pulled the 'take kid out of the meeting straw' and I hushed and shushed for hours.  The next time we went to conference was the year it was held in Toronto, and again there was no keeping the children occupied through the meetings.  I believe we went to Ottawa last year, possibly, as well, and he went to (Brockville again?  Somewhere?) and anyway, you can see my interest in pursuing this is waning.

So anyhow, that's the first thing - conference accomplished!  We were gone for several days, which was just long enough for my house to start smelling horribly and my garden to turn into a bed of weeds.  Fun times.  It's taken a week for me to get things somewhat back to normal.

We learned that there will be a Zone meeting sometime in the fall, and it will be about three hours from us, which is better than the usual ~5 hours, and so we will likely attempt to attend that as well.  And it will only require one night away, so the children and I might tag along and get a hotel with a pool to sit in.  There is also a National conference meeting, and that is even farther than the District conference and would require significant driving over two days and so since it isn't required we will be skipping it.

School

The two courses we enrolled David in are halfway to completion and we are pushing to get them done.  They started at the beginning of May and last until the end of August and the courses he is taking are Anthropology and Romans.  When he is finished them, assuming he passes (and I have no reason to doubt that he will as he's been an A student in every other distance ed course) there will be between 3-4 more courses to take before his Associate's degree is complete.

We won't know what else he can take in the fall until later this summer because the school he's working through hasn't posted their fall distance ed course offerings yet and won't for a while.  There is the possibility that the school will just decide not to offer any of the courses we need, and that would put a bit of a hitch in our plan for him to graduate in Spring 2020.  We're hoping there is something offered that he can take.

The Bay

Under the category of Weird Things I Come Up With And Then Do...I'm debating planning an open water swim for myself and I have no idea why.

Here are the reasons I should not do this:

I am not a professional swimmer, or even a terribly competent amateur swimmer.  My swimming status would be best described as 'I can swim'.

Even though I can swim, I don't have any sort of badges or certificates or anything like that.  I took swimming lessons as a child, and I remember practically nothing of those lessons.  They were many decades ago.

The bay I would be swimming in has a marina in it and a boat could run over me and I would die.

When I swim, I use breast stroke.  This is probably the slowest possible way to swim anywhere.  I don't even think I COULD do front crawl or anything more than a few metres at most.

I am planning the swim across a bay that is very deep, about 16 feet, maybe?  Very deep.  Cannot see the bottom deep with lots of darkness and probably monsters.

Once, while swimming at camp, a weed touched my foot and I almost had a heart attack.

Here are the reasons I should do this:

I want to.

I'm 38, and if not now, when?  Is it going to suddenly get magically easier years from now?

Here's as far as I've gotten with this insane idea.

I've stood on the bridge at one side of the bay, and at the beach on the other side of the bay, where I would start and end, respectively.  I've looked a lot at each point and told myself it is not that far.

I have looked on Google Maps and measured how far it actually is (1.34 km, approximately) and told myself that is not that far.

I have stood in the middle of the 'U' formed by the bay and looked out and told myself that is not that far.

I have taken a boat out into the middle of the bay, where there is a buoy that would mark the halfway point, and looked to either side, and told myself that wasn't that far.

I have decided that I would prefer to start at the weedy, rocky, slimy bridge side of the bay and swim towards the beachy, rocky side of the bay, if for no other reason than that it would be safer to get out of the water at the end not having to clamber through an almost-swamp with tired legs.

I have spoken to my friend, who is an accomplished swimmer.  And she didn't laugh.

I have spoken to another friend, who has a kayak, and who has agreed to paddle beside me to make me more visible and also to carry a life jacket should I decide I need that during the swim.



I'm not fit by any fitness standards, so I don't know what on earth has gotten into me.  Part of me hopes it will just sort of blow over.  The other part of me is saying "Well, if you did it at the end of August, it would be pretty warm and also you would have two months to get ready."  At which point I think "GET READY??"  I mean, how does one GET READY for a swim like that other than just swimming a lot?  That's the only idea I really have.  I looked online for open water swimming (this is the term for it.  I only learned that recently.  I must be crazy.) and all the people are standing around in wet suits looking terribly fit and athletic and young and vibrant and like people who do this sort of thing.  On the phone with my friend she and I figured out that 1.34 km is about 53 lengths of the local pool, or 25.5 laps.  AND, AND, the wind and waves might work against me and THEN WHAT, it could be much much longer and she suggested I aim to manage 80 lengths of the pool just to be on the safe side!  I assure you, if I am swimming 80 lengths of a pool, or FORTY LAPS WITHOUT TOUCHING THE SIDE OR BOTTOM, I am going to certainly need more than two months to prepare!  What is WRONG with me?  Is this some sort of mid-life crisis?