Finding a new routine.

I do think it is funny how I long to have some 'normality' in my life.  You would think after 42 years I might start to understand that there is no such thing as 'normal'.  I suppose what I really crave is some sort of order, as do most folk I find routines comforting - they give me a sense of being able to complete something.  The problem I find in life though is that the routines keep having to change.  At the start of the children's summer holidays there is a new routine to find, where we can all relax and feel on 'holiday'.  Now that they have gone back to school,  I can't just pick up the old routine we were using 3 months ago.  The children are a bit older, they are doing different things, they want different things.

I set some boundaries with the three of them last week,  at the end of last term, homework got very out of hand.  I was not being consistent, they were not bringing homework home, or arguing about doing it, or not putting any effort into it.  So my new boundary set was that if I had to moan at them to get on with homework, if they forgot it, or if they did not do it or hand it back in, then pocket money would be deducted from them.

Now whether it was the shock of that or whether as I hope, they have all made a new commitment in this new school year to work hard, the homework situation last week was dreamy.  Long may it continue.

Hopefully for me my new routine of work and home life will start to settle and I might start feeling productive again.  In the meantime I continue to count my blessings.

215.  Morning Prayer with my work colleagues.
216.  The comfort of my bed when my body hurts.
217.  Sunshine on my face.
218.  Sunday lunch outside in the garden.
219.  Time to declutter and give away what we really do not need.
220.  Friends who will pop round and forgive me for talking with my eyes closed when my lids are too heavy.
221.  The comfort of my puppy jumping onto my garden chair to snooze with me.
222.  The quietness of a walk in the New Forest on a Sunday afternoon.
223.  The reminder to pace myself better.
224.  The longing He puts in my heart.


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