We’ve had such a great summer, it’s hard to believer it’s just about over. Our vacation this week was a blast. We had a great time celebrating my dad’s birthday, visiting with family and just enjoying our time there. Oh, and for those that read my other vacation post, thankfully I didn’t have to try and get those balloons out to my parents house. My sister came out and picked them up. 🙂 Here are some fun photos from our time out there.
This is the gift we made for my dad. A 12×12 photo album of the kids from when Sarah was born through to this year. Dad really seemed to like it.
My sisters friend made this cake. These are all the different names dad is called. 🙂
Yes, we put 90 candles on there. 😀 And my dad blew almost all of them out with one breath.
This is us with my cousin that I haven’t seen in over 15 years!
This is all of us together. 🙂
Today (Saturday) we (Paul, the kids and I) are celebrating my birthday, since my dad’s big party was on my birthday. They gave me some very nice gifts, grilled me a nice steak and made a yummy cheesecake. They’ve also let me relax and do whatever I want to do today. What am I doing right this minute while typing this post? Watching pre-season football of course. 😉
We are starting school on Monday. We are pretty much ready for it. I need to have a Spanish workbook printed out and copy Paulie’s biology schedule. Honestly, I should have done both of those a week or so ago, but just didn’t get them done. I’ll make sure Paulie has the info he needs for this week, and get them copied sometime on Wednesday or Thursday. It will work out fine.
One of the best things about this past vacation was the relaxation and the realization that I need to watch my schedule and priorities a bit more. I’ve been allowing my work to crowd in throughout my day, instead of just working the hours I’m scheduled for and leave it at that. I enjoy my work greatly, and I’m not complaining about my work. But I need to make sure I don’t let it take up my whole day, especially mentally.
I remember when I first wanted to work from home years ago. I read a lot about it and the biggest issue I read about was to make sure to ‘leave’ work and not let it take over your whole day. Working from home, it’s so easy to want to constantly think about work, check a ‘quick’ email, do a ‘quick’ update etc… When that happens, then it seems like your whole day is a work day, which is not what I want. And that’s what I realized on vacation, I was allowing these ‘quick’ checks to be an all day thing.
It was so nice on vacation to not even think about work, to not worry or wonder about it. I need to focus more on other things the Lord has for me and my family. And I’m going to need the Lord’s strength to do this. It’s in my nature to want to constantly check things, work on things, update things. I need to schedule my work time, work it and be done for the day. Then I will have more time for other things that I want to accomplish. Not only homemaking and school things, but things I want to crochet, cards I want to create and photos I want to take. I’m so blessed that the Lord used something like such a wonderful vacation to show me these things. Praying for His strength to follow through on them too. 🙂
6 thoughts on “It’s been a great summer”
oh JoAnn a beautiful write up. I know what you mean and God will help you follow through. I love the pictures. It sure was a great week. I loved it, even tho I was back and forth to work. I’m seeing the same thing with the help I do at the Senior Center and was thinking some of what you were feeling. I’ll pray it comes together for you. So glad you could be here the whole time. Love to all of you and glad you had such a great birthday with your family. Love
Hi JoAnn. Looks like your dad had a great 90th birthday. He seems healthy for 90. I’m glad your family could get together to help him celebrate. Happy Birthday to you too.
So glad you were able to spend time away with your family! All the pictures are great.
ABelated Happy Birthday JoAnn! What fun it was reading all about your family and your Dad’s birthday celebration. I loved the pictures. That Family picture is wonderful! How fast the years go by. Love, Auntie Ella
A belated Happy Birthday to you, JoAnn! That’s an amazing cake! What a privilege to have your Dad still with you at 90 years of age!
I’m hoping I’m ready to seriously start school–once things slow down enough to do it. Belle’s work is done as a bunch of the daycare kids will start school next week, but we still have a few things coming up that interfere with school time.
Happy birthday, JoAnn! It looks like your Dad had a wonderful day too.
It’s quite something to try to discipline ourselves to keep work/blogging to reasonable hours and not let it take over our lives. I’m not sure how it’s going to work for me, and I’d love it if you wrote more about how you’re going to make it work for you. For me it will help that I have a goal to read a math/science book (non-technical, more history) for at least an hour a day and that I want to walk 10,000 steps and do some other exercises.
I found my latest review book to be very wise about setting work/family priorities and it also pointed out some of the reasons why we have difficulties. It’s called The Spiritual Danger of Doing Good and I highly recommend it. I wrote a whole lot about it in the review and put in a link to the author’s blog where he’s putting up bits from his book. I think you’d find it interesting.
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