Oh Summer

Anyone else feeling like summer isn’t quite going as planned? I mean, it’s only been 17 days. But still, I had visions of lazy mornings, evenings lounging out back on the deck while the kids swung in the tree swing, and getting all my work (I work from home part time) done while the kiddos were at camp.

None of this has happened. None.

The reality is I have had to enlist babysitters more than planned—because I actually thought I wouldn’t need to do that (rookie move); baseball and softball seasons didn’t end until this week so evenings of shoving dinner in their faces to race out the door to games only to then come home to a second dinner have been a real thing. Still. Work stuff, though I enjoy it, is taking a lot more time than initially anticipated, hence the babysitters. And, well, three kiddos in summer is just flat out unpredictable!

But here’s also the reality, my kids were dying to go to the pool the other day because summer finally showed up—it has been HOT and I am not complaining. The problem: I was supposed to have a meeting at my house. So naturally I messaged my friend and admitted that although it is totally unconventional, would she mind having our meeting at the pool. And yep, she sure did meet me there. We cheered on handstands in the water, threw diving rings for the divers, and gave them snacks as we had our meeting. Was it what we planned? Definitely not. Was it ideal? Nope. Did it work out anyway? Sure did.

The summer hasn’t been what I planned and I definitely don’t see it veering back on the path that I had outlined. But I’m thinking, maybe, just maybe, releasing the plans and trusting that God’s got it just might produce the better outcome at the end of this season.

Consider it another way of giving myself grace (see last post, wink, wink). The kids love playing with the babysitters, I am honing my skills and becoming much more productive in the chunks of time I do have, and clearly I have some amazing people in my life if they’ll put on a bathing suit in the middle of their work day to meet with me.

So cheers to messed up plans and unconventional meeting spaces. Here’s to releasing all the plans and holding loosely my summer expectations, knowing that it's quite possible I’ll be blown away in ways I couldn’t have planned.