26. My Summer in Review

Listen to this as a podcast episode.

I hope you had a blessed summer and are settling into school and fall routines. As you know, I have been building in the habit of reflecting on the past season and I like to share that with you all, like friends catching up after a long time being apart. 

This summer was the first summer we didn’t have some sort of move since 2020. And yet, it was a very full and at times hard summer. And while I knew ahead of time all the events planned, there were still a lot of things about this summer that surprised me. As far as planned events, everything went as expected, but it when it came to daily life, it did not go as expected. Nothing life altering, but just normal shifts and changes I didn’t see — which is just normal for life, right? 

Summer Timeline

To begin with, I want to give you a timeline of our summer because it had a lot going on which of course affected our rhythms, my goals, and just everything! 

For us, our summer really started the second week of June when my husband was done teaching for the year. We had a nice day trip to Cooperstown, NY where the older kids and my husband went to the Baseball Hall of Fame and the younger kids and I visited a replicated town and farm from the 1800’s. On June 12th, my husband flew out of the country for a three week pilgrimage to Jordan and Lebanon with our Metropolitan and other priests and seminarians. 

He came back on July 3rd. On the 4th and 5th we hosted friends to celebrate the 4th of July. On the 8th, I left for a two night personal retreat. On the 14th, my brother and family came to stay a few nights. My oldest had her birthday on the 18th, my second on the 23rd. My brother and family came back for a few more days on the 23rd, and we had friends come on the 25th. (Oh and my husband was at the Archdiocese Convention from the 22nd-24th.) On the 27th, my husband and older two went to Antiochian Village for camp and came back on Aug 8th. 

Our younger three went to a day camp at a nearby Orthodox Church from Aug 11-14th. We celebrated Dormition on the 15th and left on the 17th for a two week trip to Ohio and Indiana, arriving back home on Aug 30th. Phew!

Something I’m Learning About Planning

Before I get into how all that was for us and what things were like for me I want to just share something I’m learning about planning. As I saw all these plans beforehand, it felt manageable because I wasn’t the one traveling so much. Having gone through it, I see that it was really a lot, too much in some ways. In the past I would have been really frustrated with myself for not realizing this, for expecting so much of myself without building in enough margin, etc. But I’m realizing that all I can do is learn from this and try to be wiser next time. It’s not worth the energy to beat myself up about it when I was trying to plan as best as I could at the time. Also to just realize that some things were out of my control and sometimes life is a lot and we just keep going and try to rebalance when seasons shift. 

Solo Parenting – Part 1

Okay, so the first question you might have is how did I manage three weeks without my husband?? Well, it was long, but not as hard as it could have been. The hardest days were when I tried to do some summer school. The hardest moments were at the end of the day when I just missed him so, so much — and the younger kids taking turns knocking on my door for one thing or another. 

The nice thing about having older kids is that they can be responsible for certain things like dishes and weekly chores, so those things don’t fall on me as much. I kept our weekly schedule simple and pretty much the same as it had been. We did add in a few activities like going to the lake about once each week, the library a couple times, and had friends over a couple times. We only had church on Sundays since our priest (my husband!) was gone. I had a “date” with some of the kids once a week, and I had a solo date (at home) once a week. One day a friend from church watched my boys while the girls and I shopped for the month. That same day we went out to eat for supper to celebrate (almost) making it through the three weeks. 

One thing that helped me through was a three book series that I read through during that time. I started it before he left and finished it right before he got back. They weren’t classics or deep reading, but just a historical, soft romance series that took place in the 1800s (but was written recently). It was refreshing entertainment for me that I looked forward to everyday. Another source of comfort for me was the messages and pictures my husband would send me a couple times a day. Most mornings I had one to listen to before I started the day, and then another in the afternoon or evening. Hearing about what he as learning and gleaning was so inspiring and helpful for me being on the other side. Overall, I am so, so thankful he was able to go and I love hearing him share his takeaways and stories from his time. 

Hosting

As I mentioned, we had a lot of guests in July. I was expecting myself to be so ready after being on my own for three weeks, but I found myself a bit worn out. Taking my retreat early on in the month helped a lot. I loved having our family and friends here, but I learned how much work it is and that it’s not the best for me to have lots of hosting all together, or without my husband. Still, I wouldn’t change it, just be more aware in the future. 

Solo Parenting – Part 2

The two weeks that my husband and older kids were at camp were actually the hardest weeks of the summer! Really, just the first week. We were all so tired from all the visiting and hosting, which wasn’t really the problem. The problem was that I thought it was the perfect time to wrap up our summer school. Let’s just say that was  the worst idea. Once I dropped that, we settled into our own rhythm and it was very pleasant. One thing that happened organically — yet helped so much — was to have one child a night spend some time in my room with me before they went to bed. Each night a different child got to do it. I would “put them to bed” at the normal time, but in my bed and they would just lay or look at books while I finished up things in the house and got ready for bed, which was about 15-20 minutes. I would lay with them until they were sleepy or I was ready to turn out the light and then they would go to their bed. This cut down on the bedtime interruptions because they all got their time with me instead of trying to get it on their own. 

Our trip to Indiana and Ohio was full of blessings! But it was also just plain full! We were so tired by the end, which is to be expected. I’m grateful for everyone we were able to see, but I also took notes about what I’ll change next year. I’m still surprised that everything happened as planned and we didn’t get sick! 

Now that I’ve shared about the specific events of our summer, I want to share how some general areas went in relation to how I thought/hoped they would. 

Popsicles… or Not

Last summer, one of my main things for the summer was to always have popsicles on hand. I just bought them the whole summer. This summer, my goal was to make popsicles and just always have them on hand. I bought a popsicle mold that I’m very happy with and I made some right away. I made a big batch that had yogurt and frozen fruit and some honey. I thought they were going to be the best. Well, they weren’t. They were too tangy from the yogurt and not sweet enough. A couple of my kids did like them and they ended up eating most of them, but they were not a hit. The next kind was just frozen strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice. They were amazing, but I didn’t feel good about the sugar content (especially since these popsicles were about twice or triple the size of the all-fruit kinds I bought at the store). And then things got super busy and I felt a little paralyzed because I didn’t have a good go-to recipe and I knew it might take some more experimenting. But, what I wasn’t planning that became a theme for the summer is yogurt parfaits. I wanted to move my kids away from the pre-sweetened store-bought yogurt. They weren’t into yogurt with honey or maple syrup, but when I turned it into a parfait with some chopped strawberries and blueberries and granola on top, they were sold! I would make those once or twice a week for all of us and it was such a special treat. 

Ice Cream?

I also wasn’t expecting to make ice cream this summer. I had thought about getting an ice cream machine, but decided we couldn’t afford it just yet. Then I found the exact one I wanted at the thrift store for $5! The first time I made it was a bit of a trail though. I started with a custard based recipe, only my custard turned out more like scrambled eggs, so I switched to a simpler recipe. Then, it would not turn into ice cream though I followed all the directions! I think our kitchen was just too hot. Even with the window a/c unit on, it was 80 degrees and I think the bowl just thawed too quickly for the mixture to freeze up in time. I finally ended up just freezing the mixture in a bowl and then churning it a bit with the machine to mix in the butter pecans I’d made for it. It was so much trouble, but it was all worth it because it tasted amazing!  I made more for us to have on Dormition and I prefroze the ice cream mixes, then churned them in the machine some. Again, it was delicious! 

Summer School – aka a bad idea!

Let’s talk about summer school for a bit… It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to do any school type stuff during the summer, mainly because we’ve been moving so much! I really wanted to strengthen a few skills for the kids and wrap up a few things. But man, it was rough. Mostly for one child, but just that made it so hard. I think if I want to do something again in the future, it will only be if the child wants to or some books to read out loud. I think I’d like to make sure I have margin and time to pursue any interests that come up — kind of like unschooling. For me, with all the other things going on in the summer, it’s too hard to do school randomly on the days we can. When it’s the school year, that’s what the days are dedicated to. Summer is not, at least for us, and it was incredibly hard to be switching back and forth from summer to school mode, especially while parenting solo. 

Gardening

This summer was also the first time I was able to really plant things! I had high hopes for a plethora of cut flowers, lettuces, tomatoes, herbs, cucumbers, green beans, and squashes to pick and fill my kitchen with. That was not the case. I did get around to planting all those things, but I’ve learned that New York soil is much different than Indiana soil. I do have a raised bed of herbs that I routinely pick from, my zucchini and cucumber plants produced a few things, and the tomato plants provided a  couple tomatoes. I only had three sunflower plants grow. One had the flower bud eaten, but the others bloomed! I can’t complain too much because we do have a lot of established perennials that have flowered and even red raspberry bushes! So there were blessings along with the disappointments. 

Routine – or lack there of

One thing that really threw me off this summer is our routine … in that I felt like I had none! The main structure was there of the meals and quiet time, but normal time for walks and working on the podcast just disappeared. Beyond the basics, nothing was routine! Sometimes I’d have time to work on projects, but other times I was just preparing or recovering from events. As I’m writing this, we are in our last week before starting school so I am hopeful things will become routine with the tweaks I’ve planned and the structure of school, but I don’t know! 

Your Turn!

If you haven’t taken time to look back on your own summer, I hope my review will inspire you to do so as well. Look back at your calendar and make a list of all the things you did. Reflect on how those events felt —  were they life-giving or life-draining? What would you do again? What would you change? What surprised you this summer? What ways were you blessed? My yearly reflection journal, Remember the Days, is a great tool to help you do this kind of reflecting. You can find it on my Etsy shop. 

Links:

Remember the Days Reflection Journal (now on sale!)

Popsicle Mold

First book in the book series I mentioned.