Of cabbages and kings

I've been pretty quiet lately, despite the three posts I need to write.  I've been in one of those slumps we all have every so often, both in reading and in blogging.  I'm surrounded by wonderful books and all I do is re-read fluffy mysteries and P. G. Wodehouse!  I guess I've just been focusing on other things lately, but I'll be back soon.  Meanwhile, I'll burble a bit about my life and its new shape.

With the start of school, my life changed a lot.  I now have two kids in public high school, which makes me a retired homeschooling mom.  I did it for 12 years, and it was great, and now I'm really, really tired.  Being alone during the day is a new (and fairly wonderful) experience, though I'm not getting as much of it as I'd like; after all, I have a part-time job, and everybody else has great ideas for things I should do.  I picked up a volunteer job one morning a week -- sorting donated books for the library booksale, which will convince any book addict that there are far too many books in the world* -- and a weekly tutoring gig.
 

Book sorting job: what it looks like when we start.

Sorted, priced, and ready for sale.

I suppose at some point I will use this alone time to read and/or blog, but so far what I've mostly done is work on the house.  Any homeschooler can tell you that great housekeeping and homeschooling do not go together at all (anyone who says otherwise is selling something -- probably a system for homeschooling and keeping house at the same time), and I wasn't a great housekeeper in the first place.  I've been pretty thrilled with my decluttering progress so far!  There's plenty left to do (in the yard as well), but I'm very happy with it.

I haven't done much sewing either, but I am binding a pretty great quilt!

And I have other goals too!  I used to be a perfectly good cook, though meal planning has always been my weakness.  Between homeschooling and working, and three other people whose diets got ever-more individualized, my meal-prep skills got worn down to almost nothing.  Most of my go-to recipes were axed by a wide array of dietary needs, and I need a whole new set of planning and cooking skills.  Not to mention that I now need to keep two teenagers supplied with portable, nutritious foods to take to school and work!

I don't know how long this period of relative leisure will last.  I'm hoping to expand my hours at work, but it's a tricky prospect.  I don't want to go full-time for a few years yet; these kids may be gone for most of the day but they still need me around for a lot of things, including emotional support.  Anyway, I'm enjoying the leisure while I've got it.  I've got a massive deficit of alone time built up. 

We also have some stressful stuff going on, just like everybody else.  My husband's work has decided to shut the local office and move everything to Florida in the spring, so he's looking for a new job.  In a small city like ours, tech jobs are not as plentiful as they might be, but there are several possibilities, so he is optimistic.  This is probably why I'm mainlining comfort reads instead of tackling the pile of world literature and history on my bookshelf.

We accidentally joined the marching band. With a violin.

*Though today I got a Riverside Chaucer just like I've been wanting!