Picking up the Pieces

Here at Chez Tayler life shifts rhythm pretty often. We have the over lapping cycles of school and summer; book preparation and book release; and convention preparations and clean up. These various cycles interact with each other and wreak havoc on my attempts to create helpful life patterns. When our lives shift problems are both created and solved. Sometimes good things get dropped from the schedule and I’m left wondering how we fell out of the habit of family dinner, family home evening, or regular reading. It is normal for good things to accidentally get dropped from the schedule. This is because creating an ideal schedule is impossible to achieve. All I can do is cobble together the best possible schedule for whatever mix of circumstances in which we currently reside. That, and I promise myself to pick up those important pieces and put them back as soon as I possibly can.

We’ve finally reached a point where most of our over-lapping life cycles are in a lull phase. I’m also leaning on the cycles to try to slow them down (or speed them up) and keep things that way for awhile. It is finally time for me to look around and figure out which important pieces need to fit back into the schedule. As usual I have some shiny new pieces that I also want to make fit. On Sunday we had a proper Sunday dinner for the first time in months. This included requiring kids to help cook the meal. On Monday we had family home evening which included a lesson and an activity. The kid chore charts are gathering dust, but the homework board is working well for the younger two. I haven’t been out to do any of the gardening projects I have planned, but the lawn is getting mowed weekly. I haven’t written anything other than blog entries for months, but I did open up my file of agents and begin prepping some queries. I have all these important pieces and some of them don’t fit yet. Shuffling things to make them fit will make some other piece fall out.

Howard came home yesterday. He left when we were barely two weeks into the new school year. Then he was gone for 10 days while we all tried to settle in to a rhythm. Now he is back and things are shifting again. Many business thoughts were on hiatus while he was gone. I have to find space for them again. However having him home is a weight lifted from my shoulders. There is an Us again instead of just me. It makes everything different, even the things which are still my job. Us is stronger than Me.

I just wish I wasn’t stubbing my toes on all these pieces scattered on the floor. At least I can fit in the piece that is this blog entry. I began composing it around 2, but had to hold it in my head until I had time to sit down and write around 10. I’m pretty sure I lost some pieces in the interim. Oh well.