V and Co: i miss my sewing machine...but...

 i haven't touched my sewing machine for over a week. maybe it's been almost two.
sigh.
i really miss it.
i have been thinking of a butt load of fun things to make...and yet...no sewing and no crafting has happened.

no, instead i find myself traveling in the car to and from concert band, jazz band, orchestra, gymnastics, reading camp, and scouts. phew!
every morning we are up and at em.
man, i spend a lot of time in the car.
but it's okay, my kids are happy and active in things they like. and it gets us up and moving as a family early in the am.
i can't complain, i also enjoy the time i have in the car with each individual child to each individual activity we are heading to or from.

this year we have our summer schedule again (but this time i laminated it, thank you very much! oh and i spelled vacuum right this time!)

every day they are responsible for things that aren't on the list (i.e., pick up room, make bed, take laundry up to the laundry room)
i put pick up rooms on wednesday as a more "deep clean" pick up room, as in check the closet for all the stuff that was stuffed in there to hide it, remove all excess toys on top of dressers and so forth.

and this year we added a fun little experiment to our chore list

this year we have added timed increments to each chore, and a small allowance to be earned for each chore completed either by or before the time is up.
for example for bathrooms they each have 10 minutes of hard work (each child doing something different) and when the time is up they get either 25 to 50 cents depending on the chore (bathrooms are 50 cents, dusting is 25 cents).

what?
too cheap you say?
nope.
not when you go to the pool everyday and their snack bar consists of items from 25 cents to 4 dollars.
my kids love to earn their day's snack junk at the pool by finishing up small increments of chore times.

oh go ahead say it "but vanessa you have a teenager! wont he totally say "whatever, don't care, i have money from my birthday anyways.""

yeah, well here's my answer: no work= no pool or video game time or friend time. so you can either work and get paid enough for the snack bar or you can get nothing and the whole family suffers that day.

it's never come to that thankfully. because my kids know i'll do it. i don't threaten, i follow through.

i also have decided that 5 to 10 minute increments of time is a huge amount of time when there is motivation to get the chore done.
every day we have finished most of our chores by 10 even in between all the traveling we have been doing for the summer activities.

my minions are doing awesome, and i love that this experiment of small timed increments has worked out so well.
we go to bed with a relatively put away, clean house, and wake up having to just hit the scheduled chores to keep it up.

i think i may try this on just me when they go back to school. because let me tell you when you only have 5 minutes to pick up the master bedroom and you don't want to be the only one that didn't do it in the allotted time, you'd be amazed at just how darn fast your butt can get in gear. i think i'm going to give myself 10 minuted every day to tackle the storage room that houses all my fabric scraps. perhaps a scraps giveaway and listing some fabric in the shop? hmmmm. we'll think about that later on.

i've said it before, and i'll say it again. one of my favorite things about the midwest is the fireflies, and the clouds.

 this looks like it's some kind of smoke billowing from some far away fire...but they aren't they are clouds. this was the scene when i looked east from my back yard.

and this is what i saw when i looked west later on that evening on my husband and my walk. 

i love the midwest clouds. my husband is like "why are you so weird about the clouds?" and i'm like "they totally look like "Toy Story" clouds and then at other times they do weird things like...blah de be blah blah blah." yes, by that time he tunes me out. what can i say i like them. it makes me happy. happy makers they are.

so yes, i've been feeling like i really would love to put in some sewing time. and i will here and there. (there has to be a rainy day in there again sometime right?) or perhaps one day the kids just decide they want to stay home and make quilts one day instead of going to pool. no? well maybe. you never know.

but for now, i'll enjoy the things that are making me happy till i can get back to the other thing that makes me happy...sewing.

:) we'll talk soon.

V and Co: what our summer looks like

please excuse the fact that real life paper does not have spell check and i spelled vacuum wrong :)

last year our summer was all kinds of crazy and no schedule was had. i hated it. i am reminded that work well with schedules, and the best way for me and my children to keep to a schedule is to write it down and have it up and accessible for all to see and to be reminded.

so this summer we are incorporating what we've done summers past:

a pretty scheduled summer.

oh now don't roll your eyes at me and say "yeah, well, what if you can't stick to a super tight underwear up in a bunch kind of a schedule? i mean life happens!"

yes, i am the first to say " i KNOW life happens." oh man does it. like at least once a day if not once an hour life happens.

so here's the secret to my success:
i only stick to a super tight (well sort of tight but not really) schedule everyday, monday through saturday UNTIL 11 AM.
yup, after that its pretty much free for all.

but i try to be smart about it.
after our chores we have lunch...and then  because after lunch i kind of want to keep all the work we just totally did for the day still reasonably done longer than say .5 seconds after i say we are done, i pick one thing that we will do for a few hours away from home.
 like for example i buy a summer pool pass, make sure i stake out all parks (maybe even take a bike ride to the closer ones), and check out the free things going on during the summer that happen AFTER 11 AM.
oh and of course
and i threaten my children that if the chores on the schedule aren't done...no free time later on. oh and they know i will make up "crap work" just to keep going, that only had to happen one time for them to know i was serious. it.sucked.royally. (for all of us!) for a whole day. 

most of my kids are still in the age that i can totally rule over them (ie. none of them can drive and if they want anything i still am the ruler of their world muwahahaha.) and because they are all reasonably young (12 and younger) they totally still are excited to go places, like parks, and pools, and places with friends. normally i have just one that likes to throw a hissy (the oldest one, but he's been like that since birth, and pretty sure he'll be like that for the long haul) so i'll keep this going and adjust it as they get older.
but that's how i do it.
that's like the #1 thing i get asked: how do you schedule your summers?
then the second one is: how can you eat so much chocolate?  the answer to that one is a mystery. i just really like chocolate, and the darker the better. hmm. maybe i should get some right now. :)
happy sigh.
i do in fact have plans to sew. maybe today. but first we need to get past our chores, then go to the pool (YAY ITS OPEN!) then, maybe i'll get some sewing done when we get home and all the noisemakers are tired.

so? you think you can follow a schedule like mine? i swear it works for us. but maybe you have something that works better for you? please share. i'm always open for more ideas.
k. we'll talk soon. :)