How to procrastinate effectively

I'm clearly quite good at procrastination since I never seem to get around to blogging. Apparently I have fans who stalk my blog every day looking for new entries. In honour of one such friend's 11th anniversary today, I have decided to blog! (K, it's really not just for you but I had to say it when I realized the date, haha!)

August is here and we still have quite a few summer activities that we'd like to pack in before school starts in 4.5 weeks. (I can see my Kansas friends glaring at me since their summer is over in 2.5 weeks!) We haven't yet made it to the beach or the African Lion Safari although both activities are at least on the calendar. This morning I took the girls mini-golfing with a friend and her two girls. The 3-year-olds spent the time running around and/or putting their balls in the hole without the aid of golf clubs. The older girls did quite well and were 1-2 holes ahead of us for the most part. This particular mini-golf course has an awesome tire park beside it, complete with old-fashioned merry-go-rounds with built-in seats for the kids. It was a great to way to spend the morning!

Rachel is taking private swim lessons this summer and it seems to be going really well. I signed her up at a local retirement home's swim program on the recommendation of an acquaintance and I'm quite impressed with how much she is learning. She looks forward to going and is even jumping in the water on her own most of the time now! Both girls will take swim lessons there in the fall on Sunday mornings when Ben is teaching. That will get us out of the house so that I'm not constantly shushing the girls or putting on shows for them to watch in order to keep the house relatively quiet!

Blastball and T-ball are now done for the season. The girls loved playing and Anna was very insistent that there be at least two "coachers" on the field for her team at all times. Ben enjoyed helping out from the coaching side of things, and I was an enthusiastic cheering parent who was happy to provide freezies for snack as needed.

Ben has had a busy summer. For some reason unknown to us, almost all of his cello students wanted to take lessons all summer long. He even has one new student who is taking two lessons per week! Add to that several theory students taking August exams and our Monday-Wednesday summer teaching schedule filled up very quickly. I've had a few students here and there which is fine by me.

In addition to all the teaching, we're in the height of wedding season. The requests get crazier every year. Since this blog is public, I think I'd be rather foolish to go into any detail but if you really want the stories, just email me!

Ben finished up working for the census last week before heading to Wisconsin for a week long course in bow rehairing. Yes, he took a similar course last year but it's always good to have a chance to work intensely and learn different ways of doing things. The census kept Ben out of trouble and gave him valuable skills for future employment, such as the ability to sound exactly like an infomercial or bubbly telemarketer:

"Hello, I'm calling regarding the National Household Survey. Our records show that blah blah blah. You can call this 1-800 number to complete your form or blah blah blah. Thank you and have a nice day!"


Now that we're into August, Ben's almost done umpiring in the evenings but the tournaments are ramping up. By the time I see him for more than 5 minutes at a time when we're both awake and can have an uninterrupted conversation, I suspect that there might be snow on the ground!

Lest any of my blog readers feel that I am simply a slothful pseudo-SAHM (That's stay-at-home-Mom for those of you who don't speak in "modern" acronyms!), rest assured that that is not the case at all. A list of my projects for August is as follows:

1. Finish editing Kindermusik website. Order instruments & materials. Wait for Spectrum ad to come out next week and phone to start ringing. Organize demo classes. Arrange for large window sign. Put print brochures & schedules out in all kinds of places, preferably places where they will be seen. ;)

2. Put together student information for fall lessons, ie. policy, registration forms, payment, group classes etc. This includes a new option to pay online since my Kindermusik website allows me the ability to add private lessons as a class on the schedule.

3. Plan curriculum for Grade 1-8 music program at Rachel's school. Yes, Ben and I volunteered to take over the not-really-existing music program at LCHDS. What were we thinking? To be perfectly honest, two things. For starters, it would be great if the school had a music program. It would be even better if that program even vaguely followed the Ontario curriculum standards. And for another reason, we are doing this on a volunteer basis. This should allow me to feel less guilty about not paying full tuition & hopefully we won't have to pay much more when Anna attends in a couple of years! See? There's method to the madness. But in the meantime, I have a couple of weeks left to come up with a rough plan of what we plan to teach from September until December.

4. Attempt to clean and organize the house. Since we're not moving for the first time in 6 years, we apparently need to do this.

5. Get everything organized for the kids - back-to-school supplies, clothes, registrations, etc.

That shouldn't take me long, right? And now you know why I'm sitting here blogging instead. I am nothing if not an effective procrastinator!