I’m writing a little less often in this space as we get busy with the school year, and I have a lot of irons in the fire right now, so to speak. It’s not an intentional break from this blog, but I’m working on a creative endeavor that I’m really excited to tell you about. (It’s not quite ready yet… hopefully by the end of the year!) A new project means that I am pulled in a few different directions right now, so it’s difficult to stay focused on this space for long when I am putting effort elsewhere.

I feel lucky that I’ve connected with a lot of new readers in the last year, but it also gives me occasional stage fright when I have nothing monumental to write about. Just life, just us. Both old and boring but also new and scary as ever. Now I have a few thousand viewers instead of a few hundred, and life doesn’t always feel monumental enough to pass on to others. But much of the value in this journal is to record pieces of my own weeks so that I remember they ever happened when life turns a page to something else and the past feels distant. So here I am.

When things I don’t need start to creep in and take up space in my mind, I have to make a diligent effort to move my focus to what’s important. Me, my children, my family, my own boundaries, my hopes, and my creative life. That’s all I can handle on my plate right now. Distractions scream so loudly though. How do you do it? What are your tricks for staying focused on the few things you most want instead of running the hamster wheel all around us? I feel a little like a hamster wheel right now.

I’m deliberately pausing today though. It’s Labor Day, and I have been perfectly lazy for most of it. The kids left yesterday for a night with their dad, and I had dinner with friends last night — the long kind where you linger for hours and talk about light things and heavy things and all the stuff in between. I’m prepping for a busy week ahead by resting now, something I’ve learned is every bit as necessary as hard work, but we tend to forget that.

I picked up some varieties of kale and cauliflower from my grandad yesterday, and the kids and I will plant them in our containers on the patio when they get home. A change of seasons is coming, and I’m ready for it. I’m trying to pause here though, for just a little while. Reset my goals and expectations and be realistic with myself. What is most important to me in this season? Where am I headed and how do I get there? Questions that get lost in the busyness of life and need to be asked and refreshed again and again.

We’ve tried to enjoy the last few days of summer with a lot of time outside. The pool is losing its novelty, but nature never does for my two. They’ve chased butterflies and counted caterpillars, and Jude got a tiny lizard last weekend that he tended carefully like a pet for a few hours before releasing him again.

The best moments are always the little ones in between, the ones that are impossible to orchestrate. Creating space for that is key, I think. I’m trying to slow down at home as life outside the house picks up its pace with soccer practice and reading homework and paper grading. I’m fighting the temptation to stay on the spinning wheel. Slow and steady always wins the race.