We’re now two weeks into summer and I still haven’t gotten anywhere near establishing a normal routine. The more I look at our calendar of events, the less I believe routine will have any part in this summer. It looks much more like I’ll be muddling through one thing after another. At least now I have pinned dates onto major events. This helps me picture how to plan things.

Today was the XDM release planning meeting. We met with the Hickmans over lunch to discuss merchandise, marketing, and scheduling. I was incredibly stressed going into the meeting. I knew that I would emerge from the meeting with a To Do list. I’ve been scrambling to try to clear away all the post-shipping stuff so I could have a clear schedule for the incoming To Do items. I didn’t manage it. Fortunately that didn’t matter. I should have remembered what a joy the Hickmans are to work with. I came out of the meeting less stressed, and surprised to realize that most of the To Dos assigned to me had already been on my list. Also lunch was really yummy. I’m sorely tempted to hop in the car and go buy dinner. But I won’t. We’re in solid financial shape right now, but with the income from XDM a great big question mark and expenses for two huge conventions coming up, it is wise to be cautious about spending. XDM is going to consume most of my business attention in July.

I think what I’m having the most trouble with is work/life balance. During the school year I have nicely segregated sections of time which are devoted to either work or family. But if I wait until the kids are not around to get work done, the work would never get done. So it is all muddled up together. Time for me to be alone and recharge is next to non-existent. Granted, there are times when the kids happily occupy themselves for several hours, but there are also times when I am interrupted every 5-10 minutes for hours on end. If I could know which to expect in advance I could plan for it. Instead I’m constantly trying to juggle paying attention to kids and paying attention to work. Whichever I pick, part of my brain is certain that I have picked wrong.

I am optimistic about next week. I have no business events scheduled. Perhaps I can catch up on maintenance tasks and get a glimpse of the ever-elusive routine. The glimpse will be brief. Routine will be scared back into hiding because the following week is awash in company coming to visit. Company is happy, but definitely not routine.

Photo by Provophoto

The rose bush grew off the corner of our front porch. As far as I knew the bush had always been there. I certainly have no memory of my parents planting it. It was likely there when my parents bought the house. Unlike the small reddish roses in the back yard, this bush grew giant roses. I had to cup both of my small hands together to hold just one of the pink and yellow blooms. I loved those roses. I loved the non-standard color of them. Our yard was not the pretty one on the block. With seven kids to tend, there was not much energy left to make the yard attractive. But when the roses were in bloom, we had beauty. I loved the roses even more when I learned that they were called Peace Roses. The variety had been smuggled out of France just prior to the German invasion during World War II. This was the rose that was given to all the delegations of the newly formed United Nations. This beauty had history attached.

When the passage of time and events brought me to plan my wedding, I was not a person who had clear ideas of what I wanted. I knew that I wanted things to be pretty, but I had very little idea how to arrange that. I was also very focused on not spending too much money. My wedding dress, sewn by my aunt, cost less than most girls spend on their first prom dress. But when my mother asked what flowers I wanted for my bouquet, I already knew the answer. I wanted Peace Roses. In fact Peace Roses were the only uniting theme of the wedding. I didn’t have bridesmaids or mandatory color matching. The decorations were minimal, but there were matching floral arrangements on the tables, cake, and my bouquet. In the end the flowers were silk roses. Silk roses were simpler to arrange. We bought them months in advance rather than having to arrange a wedding day floral delivery. But we did find silk roses with the Peace Rose colors. And I was happy.

I look back on my wedding and realize that if I were to arrange the wedding now, there are many things I would do differently. At the time I dumped most of it onto my mother because I did not much care about details so long as I had Howard. I suspect that this looking back and re-evaluating is common and that it is possibly the source of much wedding stress as mothers try to do better for their children than they did for themselves. The thing I have come to realize is that yes I would do it differently if I had to do it now. Of course I would. I am a different person now than I was then. I have far more experience planning and arranging large events. I’ve had 16 years of refining my opinions about the things I like and do not like. At the age of twenty I was much less certain of myself than I am now. But the fact that I would now plan things differently does not mean that I need to make any attempt to “fix” that wedding. It was just fine. It was perfect for who I was at that point in my life. The fact that it would not be perfect today just means that I have changed, not that the wedding was wrong.

So if I had to do it now, what would I change? There are myriads of small things, but the one that looms largest is that I would have real cut flowers. Real flowers have textures and scents in ways that silk flowers never can. But see, I was not a gardener at the age of twenty and so this did not matter so much. I just picked the only flower with which I’d had close personal acquaintance. Now I’m very familiar with an array of beautiful blooms. I love so many flowers that I would be hard pressed to pick only one. I doubt that I would pick roses. As a gardener I am not a lover of rose bushes. This house had two dozen of them when I moved in and they are suffering slow attrition as they die or I dig them up to plant things which will not attack me. No, I would not pick roses.

But then I found this photo of a Peace Rose on my internet reading list. It was taken by Provophoto, whose photo-a-day journal continually amazes and interests me with the beautiful images he captures. I saw that Peace Rose and was transported back to being a young girl on my parent’s porch with the bush of giant blooms in front of me. The photo reminded me of the one rose bush that I loved. It is almost enough to make me want to plant a Peace Rose bush in my garden so that I can once again hold a double handful of bloom and bury my nose in the memories. So I guess for all the changes in my life and preferences, some things stay the same. These threads come from my past and extend into my future and allow me to still be me no matter what else may shift. And so now I love Peace Roses even more, because for me they are symbolic of continuity as well as peace, and beauty, and childhood

The day after Shipping Day is generally a jellyfish day. I drift in the tides of the day without much ability to direct myself or get things done. I did jellyfish last night, and I slept late this morning. But then the contractor showed up to finish some odds and ends. This caused me to dash upstairs and put on some clothes. Then the doorbell rang and it was a Fed Ex delivery of the XDM advance copies. This means that we’ve begun the headlong run of XDM promotion, pre-order, and shipping. There will also be the negotiation of distribution deals to get the books into stores. All of that will be followed by Worldcon with the announcement of Hugo awards, and Gencon with even more XDM promotion. I will find some quiet spaces in there somewhere, but it does not feel like things will be truly calm again until the kids go back to school late in August.

So instead of jellyfishing, I spent the day crossing things off of my To Do list. It was a long list. I’m not going to get it all done. Whatever I don’t get done today can go onto tomorrows equally long list. At least I already scheduled some social time tomorrow afternoon where I get to go out with a friend and no kids. That space is mine and business cannot encroach. Also I’ll likely be a nicer mother once I’ve had some time away from the children. Children seem to radiate interruptions. I don’t think a single task for today was accomplished without at least one interruption in the process.

Did I mention the XDM books are beautiful? They are beautiful. I’m hoping that sometime today I can sit down and really feel triumphant that I was critical to making it be a book. A feeling of triumph would be good.

The shipping is done. It is amazing how much stress no longer exists in my head. It had been there so long I’d forgotten what my brain was like without it.

Once again our volunteers were amazing. We had many repeat volunteers and every time I turned around they were solving problems as soon as the problems were identified. There weren’t many problems. Most of them were me forgetting things. Having multiple organizers made a world of difference.

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. I step out of my routine and spend more time in contemplation of things beyond my daily existence. It is good to have this emotional and spiritual resetting once per week. Today, like the rest of this week, did not fit the normal schedule. This meant a two-hour-long meeting early in the day rather than a block of three one-hour meetings in the afternoon. The afternoon stretched out in front of me and I made use of it to relocate the contents of Howard’s office back where they belong. We’ve put everything into place. There will be a blog with pictures next week sometime. It feels really good to be putting things back. And Howard’s new work space is very nice. I am jealous of his window. My office doesn’t have one. So I guess this Sunday was spent in a physical reset rather than an emotional/spiritual one. Unfortunately the rest of the house still has significant cluttering and needs clean-up. I’d vow to tackle it tomorrow, but tomorrow is the big shipping day.

Tomorrow is the big shipping day and I am not a frazzled ball of stress. I attribute this both to the wonderful help that I got from Janci and also to sufficient experience to finally teach my brain that panic is not a necessary component of this process. Also I think I’ve been relying on displacement and denial. If I don’t think about shipping it will all be okay right? Truth is that I’ve spent a lot of time planning and prepping for shipping over the last month. Janci has spent as much or more. There is no preparation left to do. Now I just need to trust myself rather than fretting endlessly about what I missed. And yet, I think I will be a lot more relaxed/happy once the packages are all sent.

It looks like Howard’s office will be done within then next hour or so. This will be a great relief. As home improvement projects go this one has been relatively painless. True we’ve been tripping over extra furniture, and tracking plaster dust constantly, and the job took four full days rather than just three, but compared with the many construction horror stories I’ve heard, this one was simple. It was certainly better than attempting to do the job ourselves. We simply don’t have access to the array of power tools that the contractor hauled in and out of our house. Nor do we have the years of experience that make the job routine rather than a learning adventure. Some day we may venture into the realms of do-it-yourself home renovation, but for now I’m glad to just contribute to the economy by paying someone more capable to do the work. I’ll be even gladder when we can get Howard moved in and our family schedule can return tonormal.

I am by nature an organizer of things. I am not so good at maintaining the things that I have organized, but the organization itself is very satisfying. I have reached the end of the first week of summer and while my intended schedule has not fallen apart completely, it is definitely not quite the same as it was on Monday. I am choosing to blame this fact on the general air of chaos which always attends a home remodeling project. Furniture is out of place and there is a fine layer of plaster dust all over everything. At least the scent of fresh paint from the office tells me that the project is drawing to a close. It should be complete tomorrow. Then I can organize things again. All of Howard’s stuff can be removed from the playing spaces. All of the dust and detritus can be cleaned up. Even better, today Janci and I organized all of the postage and boxes and merchandise for Monday’s shipping event. Soon all of that stuff will leave my house forever. I hope that the creation of order in my house will help with the creation of order in my mind, because this counting down the days until the kids go back to school is not a healthy mental place to be. I need to find ways for all of us to enjoy this time we are in. I need to find enjoyment in each day as it passes. I need to not let the stresses obscure the happinesses.

Strike a pose. Then hold that pose for 5 minutes. It is likely that some part of your body will become fatigued or uncomfortable before the five minutes are over. Not only that, but you will likely have shifted your position. The hand that was at shoulder height somehow drifted downward and the bent knee is straighter than when you began. This is something like the experience of creating a family schedule out of nothing. I decide exactly when meals will be, when friends are allowed in the house, when work will be done, when kids must go to bed, etc. I lay it all out in a list and it looks great. But as I start to implement it, I find that getting out of bed on time is hard when I know that no one will notice if I let everyone sleep just a few minutes more. In fact they’ll complain if I make them get up, but not if I let them sleep. So breakfast slides later into the day, and sometimes lunch gets missed entirely, and I decide not to interrupt the quiet play to make the kids do work. Bit by bit the schedule falls apart.

I’ve learned a lot about building schedules out of nothing. I’ve learned not to build the equivalent of a pose where you hold a hammer out at arms length. Instead I build a schedule that keeps both feet flat on the floor and if possible involves sturdy props that I can use to support weight and promote balance. This summer my external prop is swim lessons. I’ve scheduled six weeks of them. They run from 11 to noon and provide an immovable break in the middle of the day. The morning is given over to work and the afternoon is much more free-form. To provide additional structure in the mornings, I’ve created a chart and sets of lists so that the kids know exactly what is required of them before they are allowed video games or friends. This schedule is also planned around the fact that Howard generally works at home in the mornings and at Dragon’s Keep in the afternoons. The mornings will be quieter to facilitate him working. The afternoons can be noisier when it will not bother him.

After two days I can already see where the strains of the new schedule will be. Or at least I think I can. It is hard to tell because this week is far from routine. We’ve got the garage full of books and the entire contents of Howard’s office crammed into the family room. Right now the biggest problem with the schedule is a significant lack of uninterrupted time for me. Also, I don’t have much alone space either. This is particularly true with Howard evicted from his office. He wanders about the house at loose ends. I like that he is available to talk more, except when I’m trying to hide from people and recuperate. I think these issues will be much less significant once we get Howard moved back into his space and the books shipped off to customers. Then I’ll have time to figure out how to get me out of the house often enough to keep me from going completely stir crazy.

It helps that our summer is pre-sprinkled with events to keep kids busy. Girls’ camp, scout camp, pioneer trek, space camp, cousin visits, a family reunion, and the trip to Worldcon will provide sufficient interest. Even better, most of these activities are already paid for by fund raising activities that the kids participated in over the last few months. Add in a few day trips and we’ve got the family schedule taken care of. Fortunately most of these activities leave a big empty space in the middle of July, which is right when we expect XDM to arrive. Every thing is lined up to work out fine. I just need to get through this next week of disorganization. Fortunately for me, I’m allowed to shift things around if the pose schedule is getting too tiring.