Merging Schedules

I've probably mentioned this before, but my husband changed his schedule at the beginning of the summer from a 5 day work week to a 4 day work week. We weren't sure how we would really feel about it. The three day weekends were enticing, but instead of getting home shortly after 3:30pm (which we Loved), he would be starting at 6:30am and going until 5pm. The extra long days were a little intimidating. I sure this sounds normal to most people, but the 3:30 finish time allowed us to have a normal dinner and still spend some good, quality time with the kids before the bedtime crunch.

Fortunately this new schedule has been amazing! Our weekends are usually so full with kidtivities and household catch up that I rarely got to do any of my work during the daylight. Now we've arranged our schedule in a way that gives me a whole work day to paint in my studio and when things do get crazy busy we have an extra day to catch up without sacrificing much family time. Obviously I love the extra time in my studio. It provides the stimulation that I crave, but is often still peaceful and meditative.

The last couple of weeks I have sacrificed painting in order to keep things growing in my garden and put up tomatoes for winter enjoyment. Today I am going to dive back into painting. I was starting to get the shakes.

The windows of my studio overlook our backyard and so one of the great things about being able to work while the kids are awake is that I still get to watch from a distance and listen in on their games and hear their laughter. In this heat we sometimes let them play on their slip-and-slide which is always a crowd pleaser. With little relief from the drought however, we've had to shorten their playtime in order to conserve water. This is a concept that is really hard for them to understand and so I'm not going to tell them that we're not in an official water ban . . . yet.

I love that my youngest monkey is wearing nothing but a tutu as she sprays her siblings.

I love being able to get some work done, but still seeing my kids having a great time. I look up from my work and smile and really appreciate the life that we lead.