Back to School

Well it is that time again, Marshall is back to work.  After a too short summer of having daddy home us kids are really gonna miss having him around during the day.
Daddy does a lot of things differently than mommy (which Rowan loves to point out) but it is a good balance.  Of course we barely made a dent in our summer project list, but we did finish our sprinkler system, and we had a big yard sale, and a lot of family time.  Marshall wrote some, (check out his blog) and started to work on his novel again; honestly I can't wait for this novel to be complete, every time he shares some with me it leaves me hungry for more, so I hope he continues to work on it this school year as well.

Being married to a teacher I find myself measuring the years in school years again.   I stopped doing that when I finished school, but here we are starting a new school year and here I am taking an inventory of myself.  A self evaluation.  What I have done, what I want to do, how I can do more, what I need to do etc.  I enjoy this type of thinking and planing and dreaming.  And I feel good about my plans.  I am bringing my kids to work with me two of the four days I am at Pippi's.  Sometimes it is challenging but on top of not having to dish out money for child care I get to spend more time with my sweethearts.  And I get to be at Pippi's more then I have been since Zo was born.  It is good to be more present and I so enjoy my work.

The kids eating lunch at Pippi's.

I have also decided to make time for myself to get fit.  Since having my kids I have really not worked at carving time out for me to do anything alone just for me.  Gardening is one thing that I do for me, but I usually have my babies with me.  But now at 5am before Zo and Ro wake up, I am sneaking out of bed and downstairs to work out.  (It kind of sucks to wake up that early but the harder part for me is going to bed early so I have enough sleep to function and be a good mommy.)  I do love those quite moments when I am the only one awake, I get to get ready for the day make my coffee and maybe sit with it for a few moments before my mommy day begins.

As usual the list includes more gardening! I have to study up on somethings but I really want to start being able to grow more or even most of our own produce and I have a long way to go to get to that point, but it's a good goal.

And maybe during this school year we will check some of those summer projects off of our list, if not there is always next summer.

How do you measure your years?  By birthday? January 1st? Do you do "self evaluations"?