The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Mother

Actually, summer is only ending for me. The rest of my Boyen Bunch gets to enjoy a couple more weeks of summer. We are officially starting our "College Era"  (Lorelei thinks it's incredibly cheesy that I call it that, but it's true!). And classes don't start for all of them until August 25.  I have to head back to school tomorrow. It's the first time in 20 years that I haven't had a child in Northside ISD. Crazy to wrap my head around. All four of my kids will be in college this year.  Bailey is taking online classes at Texas Tech. He's had a few hiccups that have prevented him from moving to Lubbock yet. He's still hoping to arrive before the fall semester ends. He's aiming for October. Thank goodness for online classes. He plans to complete his degree with an Interdisciplinary Major in Sociology, Music, and Computer Science. No matter what they are studying this fall, they are still just as silly as they were when they were little.  Savannah ...

A little background about my writing. I think about this post all month. I try to come up with a clever title and theme to base my writing on. Sometimes I get so caught up in the conceptualization that I just put it off. Then like homework, I sit down on the last day of the month to put words to "paper".  It's my birthday month and I have been trying to focus a bit more on myself, so that was the concept floating around in my writing brain all of January. Here goes... I'm not a fan of the term "self-care". It feels selfish in a weird way. I like to think of it more as working on myself. I try to find time to do the activities that I love. It doesn't happen every day, but I do have some simple things I like that make my life a little easier.  Last year the kids and John created the perfect little coffee station for me. Every night before bed I set it up so my coffee is ready first thing. Actually, I do three things every work night before bed, set the cof...