Reverb 14 · May Post · Spring Cleaning

#reverb14 is an opportunity for participants to reflect throughout 2014. Each month, the Reverb team will post a new prompt. Join and write, or simply join and read.

May Prompt: How are you cleaning out your life and cleaning out your writing in preparation for a new season?  Reflect.  Photograph.  Think.

May is my "month off" between the end of my spring semester courses and the course I'm taking in summer school. Not that I actually have a vacation; my own classes don't have their finals for another week, and then I have End Of School Year Stuff. By the time I'm actually on vacation, my summer course will have begun.

Basically, before I submitted my last exam, my schedule looked like this: work, school, HRH school, HRH ballet, HRH swim, try to keep the house from looking like it should be condemned.

Currently, my schedule looks like this: work, HRH school, HRH ballet, HRH swim, try to keep the house from looking like it should be condemned.

And this summer, my schedule will look like this: school, HRH school (she'll continue through the summer at her daycare/preschool before Kindergarten starts in the fall), HRH ballet, HRH ballet camp, HRH swim, HRH swim camp, HRH cowgirl camp (hopefully), try to keep the house from looking like it should be condemned.

(I don't even want to make that list for the fall when "school" means kindergarten and all the things that go along with kindergarten; I've had to create a new calendar group just for HRH's stuff)

If the state of my house is any clue, I'm not good at cleaning out ANYTHING, including my life or my writing.

I mean, really - how does this even happen?

This is what I'm thinking about every day this week.

It's not that I want my house to be dirty. And to clarify - my house isn't dirty; it's just messy. So it's not that I want my house to be messy. I'm just not the tidiest person; I never have been. I'd like to be, but…leopards and spots and such. To compound that, there are only so many hours in the day. And not washing the dishes every night is the choice I've made.

It's the choice I've made because we (Husband and I) have made the decision to sacrifice some other things, including our time. I'm going back to school, and he's taken a position as an instructor at one of the community colleges here. So he's not only working all day, but then he's either gone at night teaching a class or grading/prepping for his class. I can't remember the last time I read something of substance that wasn't for an assignment, and I've spent more time in front of a computer screen than not.  There IS an up side, though. Once I get my masters, other, more flexible doors, can open for me, so I can ensure that I'm able to get HRH to the activities she pursues. Husband's instructor pay is both paying for my tuition and going into HRH's college account.

But because we've opted to make those time sacrifices, the time we do have with HRH during the week is not going to be spent with her having to amuse herself after I've worked all day because I need to wash a pan or vacuum a rug. So I read to her, and have her read to me (last night I read her The Cheese; she read me Llama Llama Home With Mama); we learn about the plant cycle on her newest science app; we have tea parties with fake tea but real sugar. And since Husband generally has Fridays off, they have a standing date for lunch (usually it's at Chick-Fil-A) and some sort of "field trip" while I'm working. This week I think they might go to the Science Center; she's interested in outer space again.

We rarely clean pans together.

So this weekend, I plan to actually clean - that pan and the rest of the house - and hope that "this time," I'll be able to keep a handle on it over the summer.

OK, maybe next weekend. HRH has something going on this weekend.