School’s over for this year. That means different things to different families, but for us it basically means the two-day school and accompanying schedule have come to a conclusion. We worked diligently this week to get all the work for the week done before the last day of at-school school so that we would be done when they finished there yesterday. This is the first time we’ve had a defined end to the school year and that feels really, really good.

This is also the first year that I’m dealing with our school stuff immediately. Usually we finally whittle things down to a point we call “done,” and then I leave the school papers and books as is until much later, when I no longer remember where we ended or what I meant to do with it all. I woke up motivated to get it taken care of today, so when the girls woke up, I communicated to them the idea of the “reset” in which we toss what we no longer need, group together like-items of what we do and get it organized now before going into the modified schedule for the summer. They seem to be getting it because it didn’t take much prodding for them to get to work on their respective areas. It helped that I told them I would tackle the school area myself (it was pretty overwhelming).

Another first this year is that I’ve given myself permission to throw away workbooks that are completed or almost completed. This has been really freeing this morning. I know what they did and don’t need to keep all of it to prove it. I chose a few of their best projects from the year to save and the rest is officially history. The girls will participate in standardized testing next week, and after that we will move into a really light summer routine that will include math, handwriting, and reading and won’t be that big a deal at all.

Last summer was nuts for us in the scheduling department (which I take full responsibility for); this year, however, I intentionally left the summer wide open. Craig will be gone for two weeks on Westminster‘s Summer Seminar, and those are the same two weeks I signed the girls up for summer day camps (two will go one week, two will go the other). We’ll hit VBS and a Classical Conversations Parent Practicum and Play Camps in July, and that pretty much takes care of the summer schedule. If we end up moving, we’re set to do so without too much schedule juggling; if we don’t move, we should have a nice long break. We’re ready either way.

I had the thought today that this is the first time in a long time I’ve not needed to either do school with the girls, read a book/write a paper for seminary, or do research/write for GWN (this will change soon, as I’ve been given a new writing assignment that will start over the summer). But, for this moment in time, I have nothing to do that has a deadline attached to it, and it feels amazing.

Happy summer break!