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It was a highly productive day at my house, which was a surprise since I had insomnia last night and only got 2 hours of sleep. But then I got Gleek off to girl’s camp. I answered a pile of customer support email. I liked today’s pile of customer support better than yesterday’s. Clear lesson: People are irritable when they are confused and faced with unexpected decisions. But people are kind and agreeable when you apologize for confusing them and clear up the confusion. I wrote contracts for the artists we hope to work with for the Planet Mercenary book. I got a quote from our book printer. And I pulled together a sample deck of cards for some play testing. Side note: creating cards is surprisingly complicated and nit-picky. We have a lot of work to do before these are ready for prime time.

Howard had a fairly productive day as well, though his would have been better if I hadn’t had some last-minute card design requests. Patch had an exceedingly productive day. He spent all day creating an amazing castle in Minecraft. That might sound like wasted time, but he was using a digital tool to make something he imagined. I’ll take that over endless hours of watching YouTube. To balance out the productivity, Kiki and Link took the day easy.

Now we’re all tired and ready for bed. Hopefully this time my brain will do a better job of letting me sleep.

It is almost ten o’clock and outside my open window I can still hear the rain falling. It began hours ago with a few drips while we were at a dinner picnic in the park. Soon the children were running, laughing, spinning in the rain. I watched Kiki whirl around with her younger cousins. Kiki’s long braided hair whipping around like a rope attached to her head. Patch chased after her for a bit and they both laughed. The spinning and running was Link’s idea. “You should make yourselves dizzy and play tag.” So they did, and he stood and watched, protected from the rain by his hat. Gleek found an open section of lawn and sat. She was still while the rain landed on her, communing with the sky. I watched all this from the pavilion where most of the grown ups and half of the kids had retreated when the rain began to fall. Howard stepped out into the rain to flip the last of the burgers.

Rain didn’t ruin the picnic. It just added a new layer. Though the temperature dropping probably did send people home sooner than they otherwise would have gone.

I like listening to the rain. I like that we got to be outdoors in it for a time.

We are two days into the school-free summer schedule and I’m still trying to figure out how it goes. I’m certain that this summer has more scheduled things for the kids than I’m accustomed to and I’m trying to figure out how that fits with all the hours where I need to be able to ignore the kids and get work done. So I dove into my blog archive to see how I managed other Junes. Turns out it has been five years since June wasn’t impacted by a major shipping event. It has been three years since June didn’t have a big trip in it. My archive trawl showed me that the only pattern I have for June is to intend to do lots of good parenting things and then to let them slide because I have to balance against the work I need to get done. Thus the kids play far more video games than I should probably allow.

For the first time in years I have June as a month to establish summer patterns. I’m not going to make ambitious plans. I’m just going to try to help us all to settle in. We need routine and relaxation. We need work and rest in appropriate proportions. We need to set up Link’s summer independent study program. We need to establish therapeutic cello practice for Patch. We need to visit the barn where Gleek rides horses and plays with kittens. I have to remember that I’m only two days into the summer. It is okay that we don’t have established patterns yet. It is okay to feel our way through this first week and figure out how things need to go. June has 30 days and I don’t have to get all of them perfectly right.

Not that today or yesterday were wrong, they just weren’t routine. Yet. Because nothing can be a routine when you’ve only done it once. We need some more summer Mondays and Tuesdays before I can know if they’re working. Only then can I see what needs to be tweaked. For now I can hear my kids laughing out loud because they’re playing a game together. The fan is in the window drawing cool evening air into the house. And I’m sorting my thoughts into words. These are all good things.

Just a few days ago I had a day where I didn’t feel like I was failing. Today that feelings of failure returned, so I took the opportunity to consider the differences in the two days to try to figure out where this sense of failure is coming from. The answer is: Dozens of tiny places. It is in the phone calls I have to make to schools or church youth group leaders to explain why my kid won’t be meeting their minimal expectations. Again. It is in the household tasks that I see still aren’t done though I intended to do them weeks ago. It is in my to do list which has spent two days growing in size instead of shrinking or at least staying steady. It is also in the fact that the things I’ve been succeeding at are big and nebulous where as the failures are small and concrete.

Also, the successes are often attached to some large emotional thing which I really wish wasn’t a thing in our lives at all. It is a huge success to spend four hours talking to my son, assisting him in managing an unstable emotional state. It was absolutely the right use for those hours. Yet at the end of them I have no way to know if anything I said will stick in his brain and make a long term difference. I don’t know if we made progress or if it was just a holding action. I do know exactly what things I would have accomplished in those four hours if I hadn’t spent them with my son. I can measure the failures. The successes are intangible.

The good news is that the ending of the school year gives me a clean slate from a pile of failures. We get two and a half months to re-set, stabilize, grow strong. My son needs that as much as I do. He needs to be out from under the many small-but-measurable failures of the past few months.

Usually the last week of school is a playground with all the stresses lifted. That has not been the case these past two days. Tomorrow and Friday look to be better. Then we are free to make of our days what we choose. One of the things I hope to do is take away the pencil from that one piece of my brain that wants to make tally marks on a parenting scorecard. Keeping score of failures and successes doesn’t help.

I’ve reached the end of the day and I don’t feel like I failed at anything. This is a new and unusual experience, since I’ve spent most of the last few months with this constant looming sense of failure. Today has been lovely. I got some things done. I procrastinated others. I took a nap. I look at my To Do list for tomorrow and it feels like I can do that too. Hopefully this will continue, but for now I’m just going to sit here and enjoy the cool evening breeze. It is nice to feel content.

Memorial day is almost, but not quite, summer. Some years I attempt to practice my intended schedule for the summer months. Other years we just play and stay up late. Then with a mental screech, we remember that we have to do four more days of school schedule.

Only it isn’t really a school schedule. The high school kids have finals, and given that Link is only attending a few classes, he’s pretty much done with school by 10am tomorrow morning. He’ll wander back to retrieve his yearbook on Thursday, but that’s it for him. Gleek has locker clean out, turning in text books, getting her yearbook, and general housekeeping that culminate in a very short day on Friday. Patch has a smorgasboard of events. Graduation/BBQ, Dance Festival, Field day, and the final day on Friday. It is to Patch’s events that I’ll be making daily trips out of the house. By Friday I can close the door on this school year. I don’t have to interface with teachers or school systems again until August. I can close off a host of worries and not think about them until then. This thought makes me very happy.

The summer ahead is far from empty. Cello and horseback riding lessons continue. Link has some classes that he is taking as part of the WIA youth program. Link will also continue to work on his independent study courses. Both Link and Patch have therapy appointments weekly. All of us need to be walking more in preparation for our coming pioneer trek. Yet even with all of these things, my days will open up tremendously. I felt that this morning when I was able to let the kids sleep late and putter around doing things of their choice. I got to focus on my priorities. It was lovely. Business tasks that have been lingering for far too long, got completed. I was able to give them morning brain instead of the brain I have left after making a dozen judgement calls about kids and school.

All of this bodes well for the coming summer.

Every time I think I’ve done the most complicated shipping project I’ll ever do, Howard and I manage to come up with something new. The Planet Mercenary RPG currently has over 4300 backers. And it doesn’t close until Monday. Each individual package will be simpler to assemble than the challenge coin packages were, but there will be more of them. Fortunately I have some time to plan. Shipping won’t begin until sometime next year. Also fortunately I have a loyal crew of people whom I can ask for help, because this is going to take many shipping days to get done.

And shipping is not the first big job. We’ve got to make the books amazing first. I am excited and daunted by this project. I’m honored that so many people trust us to get it done.

My first task will be to set up the pledge manager and get all of the backers into that system. I figure that will take most of the two weeks between the close of the Kickstarter and when we receive funds. The other project for those first two weeks will be to plan work schedules and assign deadlines. We’ll start commissioning some of the art and Howard will work on building the buffer. This is going to be a busy year and I’m excited to get started.

I’m at the end of a day where I can look around my house and see that it is more organized than it was when the day began. The same is true for my email and my task list. I like being at the end of that sort of day. I particularly like it when we also took the entire family out to go see Avengers: Age of Ultron. We frequently have trouble finding an activity that appeals to everyone, but this movie fit the bill. Everyone had a good time and we all came home happy. All that remains is to remind the kids that we still have school in the morning. None of us wants to remember that. We’re all very ready to have summer. This feeling is amplified by having Kiki home from college. Four weeks left. We should be able to make it through.

For now, I need to go to bed so that tomorrow can be another day where things are more organized at the end of it.

We’ve gotten to the time of year where I’m counting down days. Less than one day until I fetch Kiki from college. Two days until we have a family excursion in preparation for Pioneer Trek. Five days until my son is supposed to have a big history fair project ready for presentations. Eighteen days until the Kickstarter closes and we switch into creation mode. Nineteen days until the new carpet is installed. Four weeks until school is over for the year and we switch into summer mode, which will also include school, because Link needs to make up credits. There are other things to count toward, but these are the ones that I keep counting even when I try not to. I don’t really want to count these things. I want to be content in the days as they come to me, but getting closer to these landmarks feels like progress.

The good news is that I’m beginning to be able to put my house back in order. The room shifting is mostly accomplished. Now I just need to sort through the displaced items and find them new homes. Or get rid of them. I like getting rid of things. It means I won’t have to clean them up or store them ever again. Having Kiki at home will help with this.

In the meantime I’ll just keep putting on foot in front of the other. If I keep doing that, then eventually I’ll end up somewhere else. I could do with a “somewhere else” that has more routine and fewer mental health issues to manage. Last week I counted the hours I spent on mental health stuff. Fifteen hours. That’s a part time job that I’d love to be able to ditch because everyone was doing better. The good news is that we’ve finished jumping through hoops and having application meetings. Going forward we’ll just be having the appointments which are actually supposed to help instead of the ones which determine what sorts of help we qualify for. I have lots of thoughts on all of this, but I’ve had trouble sorting them into anything coherent. Hopefully that will come back as I put more things in order around here.

I’m having the kind of week where I spend all of my hours on important things, but all the work is broken into small portions of time by all of the other work. And none of it is finished, so I know that next week and the week after will be the same way. I feel like I’m failing at all of it, even though I have logical evidence that I am not.

So here are the things that make up my week:

Parenting:
My 17 year old had an emotionally rough week, (depression stinks) which means I had extra time spent trying to help him, extra consultations with professionals, ongoing appointments to set up support structures which are supposed to help, but thus far have only created extra burden in testing and appointments.

My 12 year old has a history fair project. It is big. I have to make sure he does all the research and then we will have to do all the preparation and construction. This big project is not his only homework. I know some of it is being missed because he is not good at tracking and I am distracted.

The Kickstarter:
We’re really excited that it has hit several stretch goals. Hopefully it will hit many more. For the duration of its run Howard and I are answering questions, corresponding with backers, and preparing new things for people to see. We’re also reaching out and trying to spread the word. All of this spills over into all of the brain space that we need to be using for other things, because the other things do not stop.

Design work:
Right now much of this is in support of the Kickstarter. But it is separate work from what it takes to actually manage the Kickstarter itself. The fast turn around necessary to have things to show to backers is hard on my brain.

Shipping and customer support:
I can’t allow the urgency of the Kickstarter make me neglect the good people who need help or who have ordered things through our store. They’re they people who keep the lights on around here. I have to set aside time for them.

Accounting:
There are bills to pay and reports to file. If I don’t keep on top of the numbers then my anxiety goes up and we make mistakes in our planning. The outcome of the Kickstarter is a giant question mark in my accounting plans for the rest of the year. I’m trying to ignore the question mark and just pay the bills.

Remodeling:
We haven’t had any construction this week, but we still have piles of things sitting in working and living spaces. This negatively impacts my ability to think clearly and makes me house grouchy. Word is that the carpet won’t be ready to install until mid-May. I can’t wait that long to clear away the piles, so Saturday is going to be a shifting things day.

Staying sane:
I’ve been operating under strain for quite some time. In the past few weeks I’ve been taking deliberate steps to strengthen myself. This involves getting together with friends who are in the same emotional place, attending a support group, reading scriptures, reading in general, and taking time off. This is all important. It is the only way I can continue to carry all the things. But it takes time in an already time-stressed week.

Add to all that the regular things such as laundry, random phone calls from people who only want a minute of my time, and the fact that my kids have decided that digging holes is the new cool thing, which means I have dirt everywhere. (They track it in, then their sweeping is inadequate.) I want to do all the things well. Instead I’m managing to do the most important ones adequately. I’m fairly certain that somewhere up ahead is a week that is less busy. I’ll enjoy that when I get there. For right now, I need to get back to work.