006 || Stop Letting Summer Happen to You — Design It Instead

A slow summer doesn’t happen by accident — it happens by design. And if you’ve ever finished the school year dreaming of a slower pace, only to look up in August wondering where it went, this episode is for you.

Sarah shares exactly how she’s planning this summer: what she’s saying yes to (swimming lessons, VBS, and a children’s theater play — that’s it), the simple weekly rhythm she’s building around Adventure Monday, Water Wednesday, Explorer Thursday, and Free Friday, and the daily anchors that make the slow parts actually happen. Plus five practical tips for designing your own slow summer before it fills up on you.

Because a slow summer is not a lazy summer. It’s a chosen one.

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Transcript

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I want to talk to you today about something I think a lot of homeschool moms secretly want, but don't quite give themselves permission to plan for, or maybe don't even think about planning for. A summer that actually feels slow. Not a summer that's supposed to feel slow, but fills up anyway. I've been there many times. Not a summer where you look up in August and wonder where it went. An actually genuinely intentionally slow summer. Today I'm going to tell you what that looks like in our family and how I plan it so it actually happens. And you can too. Glue. It's messy, it's sticky, it gets everywhere. But without it, nothing holds. Homeschool life can feel messy too. We have the loud days, the mental overload, so many moving parts. But we don't need is more curriculum or more pressure to do it all. We need something that holds. Simple systems, steady rhythms, the kind of structure that makes homeschooling easier instead of heavier. Hi, I'm Sarah, a homeschool mom of four, and this is the Homeschool Glue Podcast. Each week we have an honest conversation about real homeschool life and the simple systems that help overwhelmed homeschool moms clear the mental clutter, build rhythms that actually stick, and create the peaceful lives we are all craving. If you're tired of carrying everything and getting nowhere, you are in the right place. Grab that load of laundry and let's get started. Welcome back to the Homeschool Glue podcast. Today's episode is a little different in tone from the last few, definitely different than last week. If you haven't listened to that one, I went into two different stories of times when everybody around me told me that we should take a break from homeschooling, but we kept going and it was actually easier to keep going than to take a break, both during a really traumatic time in my life and a really beautiful time in my life. So definitely go back to that one if that sounds interesting to you. But today I'm gonna be just sharing some practical real life advice and how we set up the summer. Last few episodes have been very practical and technical, talking about types of overwhelm, the Sunday rebuild, why systems matter when life gets hard, and so on. And I'm really glad those episodes really seem to resonate with everyone. But today I want to come up for air a little bit and talk about something that I think is equally important, and that is what happens when school ends. Now I know some of you are year-round um homeschoolers, and that's great, but I know we all have breaks built in. My family does not do year-round in the traditional sense, like we still do um some school over the summer here and there, just depends. Like we'll probably be finishing up math this summer. We read books, and often we have done a science study over the summer that we've continued into the school year. But in general, we take a break. And that for us is because we live in Minnesota, and so about half the year it's snowy and cold. And so when it's nice and beautiful, even though it does get hot-ish, I know if you live in the south, you're probably like, you don't even know hot girl. But um, it gets pretty hot and humid, but still to me, it is worth just not having to worry about homeschool because we have a long, long, long time where we're cooped up inside and I like to be outside as much as possible. And it's just this free time to go do and have fun. But the truth is in previous years, um, I have tried to have a slow summer. I have said I'm going to have a slow summer, and then somehow the summer just kind of flies off the rails, and it feels extremely not slow, opposite of slow, jam-packed, and that is not what I want. And so uh I've gotten a little bit more intentional the last year or two, and this year even more so, and that's what I'm gonna be talking about today because I've noticed over the years of homeschooling that the moms who feel the most burnt out by fall, myself included, are usually the ones who didn't take any kind of real rest in the summer. And it's not because they didn't want to. Um, I know a lot of us crave the slow lifestyle. That's a big reason why a lot of us homeschool is to have a slower lifestyle for ourselves and for our kids. Um, but summer sometimes can just kind of creep up on you if you're not careful and all of a sudden you're running here, there, everywhere, and your schedule is completely not even yours anymore. And I just think that's not very restful. And I think a lot of us feel that way during the school year. And so it's important if that's something you want a break from to actually create that break, which isn't always easy, but um, sometimes is pretty necessary. So I want to help you um and I want to share today how we're setting up our summer. So here's what happens or tends to happen with summer. We finish the school year exhausted, and we think, oh, I'm so glad it's summer, we're gonna have a break, and then we sign up for swimming lessons and VBS and this sports camp and that sports camp. And oh yeah, that kid needs to do that. And oh, we haven't done all those appointments, we need to fit those in, and I need to visit this person and that person, and I need to schedule a bunch of play dates and weekly activities. And before we know it, the summer is completely scheduled, and you look at your calendar and you're exhausted just looking at it. And it's even more exhausting than the school year, which is what you're trying to take a break from. Except now it's also extremely hot and the kids are home all day and you're with them, and you got nothing planned for homeschool. You just have a bazillion things to do, so your routine is kind of off, and so even when you're home, it's just you just feel off. Does that sound familiar? The problem isn't that we don't want a slow summer, because we do. Um, it's that we don't design one or we let it just kind of fill up and we don't put boundaries around it. We just let it happen. And when you let summer happen to you, it fills up because that's just what happens. You have a container and somehow it just fills up without you really intending for it to. Because there's always one more thing that sounds fun, one more good thing that is good and you want to fit it in, one more commitment that seems reasonable at the time, one more yes that feels easy to say yes to in April when summer feels far away. But a slow summer doesn't happen by accident, it happens by design. And I love talking about systems and routines and rhythms, and summer is no different. If we don't plan any of those things, it's gonna plan chaos for us. And I say that as someone who genuinely genuinely loves the concept of slow living, but myself has had to learn the hard way that slow doesn't just show up. You have to protect it because, especially in today's day and age, there's limitless options and they're great options. But if we say yes to everything, we're really saying no to peace and calm and slow. And if that's what we really desire, we have to protect it. So I want to share what we're doing this year. It's similar to what I've done in the past, but every year I refine it a little just to really um make it even better the next year. And so I think it really helps to see a real example rather than just me talking in theory about what you could do. I just think it's helpful to see what a family really is doing. This is not a perfect system, it's not going to look like your summer. You don't need to replicate this. It's just hopefully going to give you some ideas and some aha moments that maybe you can somehow implement into your own, um, or maybe inspire you that you don't want a slow summer and you want it jam-packed, and that's okay too. Like if that's what you want, go for it. But um in our family, a slow summer really starts with protecting the calendar before it fills up. So it's April right now when I'm recording this. Summer is on the horizon, and this mama is looking forward to it. Um, it has been a busy year, and I just truly am so excited to just be able to get up and go and not have school to do every single morning. I love homeschooling. Don't get me wrong, love it. It's such a blessing for our family, but it is nice to have a break. And I am a very busy lady uh with business and side hustles and all the things. And so I don't get a lot of time to just get up and go with my kids. And so I really enjoy this time. But if I don't protect it, it gets out of whack. And then it's not something I am happy about, it's something I'm kind of wishing I had done differently. So now that it's April and it's on the horizon, we are planning for it right now before all of the signups um have already happened and all the things. We're planning for it now, and we're being very careful about what we end up saying yes to. And so I usually pick a small number of things to commit to. And this is hard for me. There are so many good things. There's this camp, there's that camp, there's this nature thing, that nature thing, this group's doing this, that group's doing that, this friend wants to do this, this friend wants to do that. Like this part is really hard deciding what you actually want to keep. And I try to keep even less than what I intend to do, if that makes sense, because stuff's gonna come up in the summer that we're gonna say yes to at the last minute. And so if I have no space for that, we either have to say no or we get to that, you know, spot where it's it's starting to get chaotic and overwhelming, and I don't want that. So for us this summer, that looks like we are saying yes to two weeks of morning swim lessons, which for me is a big deal because mornings are usually when we go do fun stuff. I have a side job in the afternoon, I have a little one who naps, I work on my business in the afternoon. We don't get out and go as much in the afternoon in our family. It's usually in the mornings. And so swimming lessons takes up two full weeks of our summer in the morning. It kind of breaks it up, and especially when you have a napper who only will nap in his crib, which I'm thankful for, but it does get hard when we like have older kids who want to be on the go. So we have to be home for his naps most of the time, and so that breaks up our morning so that we don't really have time to do much of anything else on those mornings. So we're saying yes to that. That's important to us because I want my kids to learn to swim well, and so we devote two weeks to that in the summer. And then there's one week of vacation Bible school. There are some that are at night. We've just found that that's harder for our family, especially with my husband's schedule and everything. Um, and that's his only time with his kids, and so it's better for us to do ones that are in the morning, and so I'll have some special time with my little guy for a week, and my three daughters will go have VBS. I just think it's really fun. They get to be with other kids, learn about Jesus. Um, and it's kind of just a fun time. I can kind of get some errands done that week. Um, I just don't want to have that like every week because I want to spend time with them too. But we do that once one week this summer, and then I might do one other thing that's a week long. I haven't decided yet, but it would be something for all my kids. Now I know some of you have kids in sports and they might have this camp or that camp. So you really have to ask yourself, do I want to be running around a lot? Is this camp necessary? Is it beneficial or do the pros outweigh the cons, or vice versa? And so, like I said, this is hard because these are good things. I will say, we one other thing we are saying yes to is a play. My kids love doing this play, and it's at in the evenings, and so it's not so bad. It's not really cutting into our slow summer. Um, it gets a little hard with scheduling, but it's not too bad, and it's seriously, they look forward to it all like as soon as it's done in the summer in August, they look forward to it the whole next year. So it's like the Missoula Children's Theater where they learn a play in a week and then they put it on. So we're definitely doing that as well. But that I don't really see as cutting into our slow summer because it's not during a time when we're normally doing a whole lot anyway, because it's in the afternoons and evenings. So we are doing that as well. And so that's all I'm planning. That still leaves a lot of weeks open where we can plan around. And so, based off of that, you know, those weeks are accounted for, but then all of the open weeks, I kind of I like to plan a rhythm for just like my homeschool week has a rhythm. I know what's happening on Mondays, I know what's happening on Tuesdays. My kids do really well when they know what's happening which days. They stop asking a million times, usually. Um, usually is the key word. Uh when are we going to the pool? When are we going to do this? When are we going to do that? They know what days to expect things. And I just really like living our life that way in the summer of Mondays we do this, Tuesdays we do this. For the most part, obviously things can get moved around, but it's just kind of nice, especially when it's an open schedule. It gets us away from just like sitting around the house doing nothing. And it also keeps us from go, go, going all the time because we're like, oh, it's summer I have to go and do it. It kind of builds in some going and doing and some more relaxing getting stepped down around the house or just hanging around at home. And so this is what I've come up with for this summer for our family. Hopefully, this will inspire you, but you can do whatever works best for you. And I've named these, I don't know if the names will stick, but this is what we're going with. So we have Adventure Monday. So my plan is every Monday we will go somewhere. So this in the morning. So this might be a new park, go for a hike, somewhere we haven't been before. We live in Minnesota, like I said, summer's here so short and so beautiful. And so I really want to be out. And we've spent all the last year reading the flower book and by Thornton Burgess and doing my whole buds, blooms, and bees uh science, botany science curriculum, literally for a whole year. And so we want to be out seeing all the plants we've read about and learning more um through nature. We read a lot of it through the winter where we couldn't actually go observe anything, and so I'm really excited to be out in nature. And so Monday is our adventure day. I have some towns planned, some parks planned, some little things planned that we could do those days, and we'll just kind of I might plan them in advance, I might not. It depends on the weather. We'll probably pack a lunch and have a picnic lunch and then be home, you know, by nap time. That's my plan for Mondays. So that leaves a lot of, you know, gray area of things that it could be, but it just sets the tone that on Mondays we're most likely going to be out of the house. And it's just, I like starting the week like that. I have a work day, usually on Tuesdays, where my kids go to my parents' house for a few hours and I get a lot of work done. And so that's gonna stay over the summer. So I don't plan a lot other than that on those days. So that's work Tuesday. So I've now had one day where we're out having fun. I've had one day of deep work. Um, and so it's nice on Wednesday to just have a day at home. And this is water Wednesday. So this is when we'll do water play outside. We'll just kind of hang out at home, get the squirt guns out, the neighborhood kids play, um, you know, sprinklers, fill up the kiddie pool, whatever. They'll just have fun at home. Or, you know, we don't even have to get the water out. But if that's what they want to do, we'll do it that day. And then if I need to get anything done around the house or get some yard work done in the morning, that's when I can do that. So the kids can look forward to the water. I can look forward to, okay, we're not going anywhere. I don't have to pack a lunch, you know, even though those are great fun things, they do require extra energy to get out of the house, and my work day requires a lot of my mental energy. And so Wednesday is just kind of a catch-up day, but the kids love doing water play with their neighborhood friends, and so that'll be Wednesday. Thursday and Friday are kind of open, but I gave them names and maybe over time I'll think of more intentionality. But Thursday is Explorer Thursday, so I'm kind of thinking this would be a really good day to plan get togethers with friends, um, go hiking with them. Um, we may go explore a store if I have an errand to run, but it's just kind of another outside of the house day. So I like to plan a couple of those in the summer just because we don't get a lot of those during the school year. And so this is when I'll try to plan play dates, get together with friends. If Monday was really rainy, maybe we'll then go hiking or go to a park on Thursday and just go explore somewhere. Um, and that's the plan for Thursday. And then Friday is free Friday, so I don't have a plan and I'm planning to kind of go into the week not having a plan for Friday. So I may kind of populate what I want to do. Like I have a list of parks I want to go to, hikes we want to do, little um places or events and things we want to fit in, and those we'll try to keep on Mondays and Thursdays. But Friday, I really want to protect going into the week and not have a plan. Like, unless a friend absolutely cannot get together any other day but Friday, that's fine. Then maybe I'll protect Thursday that week. Um, or if there's like an event that's only on Friday, then we'll obviously move things around. But I would like to have at least one day, and for most weeks it'll be Friday, where we don't have any plans going on in the week. And as the week goes on, we can kind of just based on how we're feeling, we can plan something. So if we're like loving being outside and there's like something that's on our list that we don't think we're gonna get to, or we want to do it earlier, we can go do it that day. If I have Amazon returns or I my kid needs something and you have to go into the store to get it, and I don't have any time that week and I won't have time that weekend, then we can do that on Friday. Um, it's just gonna be an open day. And I found that that's something I'm often missing in the summer is even if I haven't scheduled a bunch of stuff with people that are like set in stone, I still have like planned out I want to do this this day and this this day. And I overplan it to the point where there's like no freedom and flexibility, and then I don't want to move something off of a day because then it feels like a letdown even though it was never set in stone. So this helps me just have that free space to just kind of get up and go. Uh, this is like the kind of day when I imagine stay like being a stay-at-home mom before I, you know, I don't know. I guess I still don't, I guess I am a stay-at-home mom, but I don't always think of myself that way because I'm also working in many different ways from home and outside the home. But anyway, when I was younger and not a mom, or when I ran a daycare in our home and was not like really a stay-at-home mom with freedom to go places, I always just assumed stay-at-home moms could just go and do. And I know that's not how it always is, but this is the kind of day that I always have longed for. Just an open day where you don't really know what's gonna happen until you get to it, and then you can decide. And so I like days like that. I'm a pretty type A person. I like having some free days to just be like the kids woke up and we're like, what do you guys want to do? Okay, sounds good. We'll go play in the creek at the burger, whatever. You know, whatever we want to do. And then threaded through each day, or most days, you know, if we're outside of the house, these won't always happen. But through threaded through each day, we'll still have some rhythms that anchor our day, regardless of for the most part, what day it is, what day of the week it is. So we'll have most mornings, we'll have a little morning time with a Bible or a devotional. We might do a read aloud. There's a bunch of books I'd love to read with my kids. Maybe we'll read some picture books. I haven't really fully planned that out yet, but some kind of start to our day that feels kind of homeschool-ish, but does not take very long, and that'll be around breakfast time. And then that'll be like the time we're learning or, you know, in the Bible. And then from there we can go do whatever it is planned for that day. We will still plan to have quiet time in the afternoon when my little guy naps, and that's when I get my work done for my business. It's always a non-negotiable. It's been in our family since my oldest was a baby because I ran a daycare and I had 10 kids here, and we had quiet time. And since I started homeschooling, I ran business and I've always had a napper. I've always had a napper. And so we just protect that time and it becomes a really nice time. My kids often play outside with their neighborhood friends who are home more in the summer when they're not at school, and they can do crafts or different independent things too. There's just so much they can be doing, and then I will get my work time in. I still plan to do silent reading most days. So usually after our one-year-old goes down for his nap, my three daughters and I will sit on the couch and we'll read for 20 minutes. Silently, we'll each read our own little book, and I absolutely love it. They absolutely love it. It's so sweet, and it's allowed me to fit in more reading because when I try to read at night, I often fall asleep. And so it's just a really wonderful time, and that way we're still making sure we're getting in reading, um, which we fit in a lot less of in the summer because we're not reading for hours a day like we are. In homeschool. And then also, I would love to fit in when we're home in the afternoon after my little guy's nap, uh, afternoon stories and a snack outside. I love doing that in the summer, either under a tree, on a picnic blanket, or at our little table outside, and we can have a snack out there and read some books. I love doing that with my kids. So we plan to do that. And then another thing I really want to do this summer, and I'm gonna say it out loud for all the world here, um, so that I actually commit to this. Um, and that is inviting another family over for dinner like every other week. It's something, if I'm being honest, my kids are a lot, especially when people come over. Like they I don't know what happens to them when new people are over, or just they just love people and it just becomes a lot. And so we don't do this very much in the school year when it's cold and we're stuck inside because it's overwhelming to me sometimes. You know, a couple of my kids are just very extroverted, and so I just it feels like a lot sometimes when there's extra people over. And so at this point in our lives, it's not something we do a lot. But this summer I would love to have people over where we can be outside. The kids can run around and play, and the adults can talk, and it's just a really good time. And, you know, I don't mind them being, you know, kids and loud, but it's a lot better when it's outside and they can just run around the yard and have fun, and the grown-ups can talk and chat, and we can just have a great time outside. And so we can grill up something simple and just invite some families over that we love and want to get to know better and have our kids grow up together, and so that's something I really want to commit to this year uh while the weather's nice and maybe, you know, maybe eventually we'll start doing that in the summer too. We have done it here and there, but not nearly as much as I would love to do. It's just it's a lot during the school year. Um, and then being stuck inside is also a whole nother level of interesting, you know, if you know, you know. Anyway, um, and then a couple Saturdays a month, I want to kind of alternate for our family, um, having our family time. Typically, Saturday is the only time we really have together where we don't have plans, other than we usually have supper with my family. But um, during, you know, the morning, afternoon, we don't have a lot of plans, unlike Sunday where we have church. And so I would love to kind of alternate between having family days where we go do something fun, like go to the zoo, go, you know, bigger things, bigger things than what I'm probably gonna take the kids to do on a morning. So like a little day trip somewhere. Um, and then alternating that with some more like at-home yard work or organizing this, because during the school year I don't get to a lot of like the deep organizing that I would love to do, like the craft cabinet or the storage room or what have you, because we're very busy and we have school during the week and I can't do it then, and then the weekends um we have stuff to do or we're trying to have quality time. And so the summer is kind of a nice time I found to get some of those stuff, some of those things done. And also, like one of us can go play outside with the kids or go take them somewhere while the other one does the organizing, and it's a lot easier to go do that in the summer where you have parks to go play at versus the winter where it's like, what how many targets are there to walk around for hours? You know, there's only so many. And so um the summer is a great time for us to get stuff done. So I'm planning out, I've kind of been writing it in my planner in pencil, just like this will be an out-of-the-house day, this will be a get some stuff done around the house day kind of thing. And that's that's my plan for the summer. So it's not like overly detailed, but I think, you know, as we get closer, maybe I'll plan out June. These are where the places we're gonna go for our Mondays, these are the places we'll go for Thursdays, these are the friends when they can get together and kind of start planning that out over May, and then kind of take it a month at a time, and obviously things will come up and shift and all of those kind of things. But it's nice to kind of have a set system or rhythm, um, if you will, for the summer, for the whole week, and what the weekly rhythm will look like, and then what the daily rhythm will kind of look like so that when we're planning, I have those guardrails up of like, okay, this my daughter heard about this thing and it's a week long, but only she can do it. And we had already scheduled to play with a friend that day, and she's gonna really miss out. So, should we say yes or should we say no? And I'll have, you know, I can have those thoughts because I've already kind of planned what our rhythm will look like, and I know what we're saying no to if we say yes to that thing, and I know and I can kind of pre-plan and think about okay, well, if we do that, I will feel blank, and she will feel blank. And if that means peaceful and feel happy and excited, great. Or if it is stretched thin, overwhelmed, or like we're missing out and sad that we're missing out seeing with this friend who's only in town that day or whatever, um, then we can make that decision accordingly because we've already kind of planned out uh what the alternative will be or what the what the rhythm will be. And then when we have something come up, we can kind of compare the two different alternatives. So, some practical tips. How to design your own slow summer. What can you take from this episode of me sharing about our summer? Because I'm sure your summer is not going to look the exact same. So, first of all, start with the calendar, not with ideas. So before you start adding things in, really look at what's already there. If you've already said yes to some things, definitely take note of that. What commitments do you already have? What appointments are already scheduled, what camps have you already said yes to? What family reunions or trips or what have you are already on there? Be very honest about that and start there and say, is this already pretty full? And if it is, you need to ask yourself, okay, do we continue adding or are we at our limit for pre-planned things like that, commitments that you that are set in stone? Um because sometimes we forget how much we've already said yes to. Another tip pick your anchor commitments and stop there. So, like I said, choose a small number of scheduled things. If you're really wanting a slow summer, then you don't want to overschedule it. Um, think of the things and decide on the things that are genuinely important to you or your kids, and then say no to pretty much everything else. Decide what you're gonna say yes to, decide what you're going to say no to. Not forever, just this summer. You can definitely change your mind, but it's better to have less than too much. Um, for us, like I said, that's swimming lessons, VBS, and that play. And then that's pretty much it. Um, everything else is optional, and everything else I'm gonna very carefully consider. Then build a loose rhythm, not a schedule. So I never said from eight to nine, we're doing this, from nine to ten, we're doing this. I said, these are the things we're gonna have on our day that are kind of tied to these things nap time, breakfast, afternoon snack, that kind of thing. So I have things tied to certain times of the day or certain, not even times of the day, but certain parts of the day. And then the rest is very loose. And so it's a rhythm, not a schedule. I definitely do not recommend, um, especially when you're taking a break from homeschool, having like a very detailed schedule. A rhythm, great, but planning minute by minute, hour by hour, um, it it definitely feels constricting. So I wouldn't recommend that. So if you want to give each day a theme or a feeling or some kind of name, um, you can. It doesn't have to be as specific as ours. And even mine are kind of just loose. Um, they're not that specific, but maybe, you know, Mondays we go out, Wednesdays we stay in, Fridays are free, what have you. Um, the rhythm gives the week a shape. It's kind of like when you plan your meals. Mondays are are Mexican, Tuesdays are Italian, Wednesdays are crock pot, whatever. Just it helps you go into the week having a plan. It's still very loose. There's still so many things you can plan under those headings, but it helps you kind of check off all the boxes of things you wanted for the summer, but still give you lots of freedom. And I just really like that when we're having a freer schedule than the homeschool year. It's just nice to have some structure, but not too much. Um, and it really means you're not deciding from scratch every single morning. And that's something I love to talk about is not rebuilding everything from scratch. And so if you have a little bit of a plan, a little bit of structure for your week, at least gives you some of the decisions already made. So you're not having to go, okay, this is everything I wanted to do this summer. Which can we fit in this week? No, we already know I'm gonna leave the house on this day and this day. Here are going out of the house activities. Oh, well, this is happening that day. Let's do that. And okay, on our days home, I really wanted to get to this project. Okay, we'll fit that in on Wednesday or whatever. Um, it's just a lot easier to drag and drop things into certain days if they already have like a category that they fall under. And then protect the part, the slow parts on purpose. So for us, that's afternoon snack outside. That's our quiet time, that's our free Friday. We're really protecting those things. You know, our little ones nap. Um, those things won't protect themselves. It is so easy to skip those. It's so easy to just push them to the side, but they are really important to us and they're they are slow. Quiet time is slow, silent reading is slow, afternoon snack and books is slow. And so if I don't protect those, then I'm I'm not protecting the slow parts that I crave that I love and that my kids love. And so I really need to protect those. Often the things that are the most meaningful are also the things that are easy to not do. And so it's easier to just get things done and just, you know, go with the flow of the day. But if we really want those beautiful slow parts, we need to protect them and we need to implement them and not push them to the side. And so you have to decide in advance that they matter and actually guard them. When something comes up, which it will, that tries to fill that space. You have to push back with we keep Friday open or we have quiet time. That's you know, it's something I've struggled with for years of like there's been hikes during quiet time, there's been beautiful things, there's been different activities and stuff that happened during quiet time, and I've had to say no because I've had a napper, and if they don't get their nap, we all pay for it. And also, that is when I run my business. And if I don't run my business, then we can't afford for me to homeschool. So it's pretty important for us. But even things like silent reading, it would be so easy to skip that, and we do from time to time. Um, but in general, if we can do it, we do it because it's it's something we all love and it's very easy to not do, but it's so beautiful and life-giving to actually do it. And so we need to make the space and protect the space for it. And then lastly, say no early. So the best time to say no to a summer commitment is right now, before you feel the social pressure of it being right in front of you. If you know right now that adding one more thing is going to tip your summer into the kind of summer that's busy and exhausts you, then just say no now. Say right now, these are the weeks we're doing stuff. If anything else comes up, we're saying no, if it's a week-long thing, or these are the days that my husband's off, or whatever, you know, and we're not doing anything those days, then protect that. Um, and just hold it firm. You know, it's it won't happen unless you create it to happen. Future, you will be grateful. And then a slow summer is not a lazy summer, it is a chosen summer. I don't think slow summer means lazy. We're gonna be out doing things, but it's intentional. It's slow at times and busy at other times, but we've chosen it. We've chosen the slowness and we've chosen the busyness. Um, and it's a beautiful thing. So if your school year has felt heavy, I really just want you to hear this. You get to decide what your summer feels like. Not Instagram, not your co-op group, not the activities catalog that showed up in the mail, not me. You. You get to decide that. And if you've been listening to this podcast and thinking, okay, I really want systems, I want rhythms, I want my home to feel like this. Summer is actually a really beautiful time to start building some of these things. The pace is slower, there's a lot more margin. It's easier to try something new when you're not also trying to finish the school year. And I have something in the works that's going to help you do exactly that. I cannot wait to share more. It's going to help you build the kind of systems and rhythms that make your whole life feel a little bit more like a slow summer, even when it is far from it. I'm not ready to share all the details yet, but if you want to be the first to know when I do, make sure you're following me on Instagram at homeschoolglue and you're subscribed to this podcast, and make sure you're on my email list because I will definitely be sharing it there. Um, so I will put links to all of those in the show notes. But just know there is something really big in the works that I cannot wait to share. In the meantime, if you want a place to start right now building rhythms and systems very similar to what I talk about in this episode, and you want to start setting them up now or over the summer, you can grab my free starter glueprint at homeschoolglue.com slash start. It is a PDF that will walk you through the foundational systems that I would put in place first, including a weekly rhythm template like I talked about, but for your homeschool, but you can also apply it to your home and your summer if you would like. And you can use that to start mapping out your summer, and you can use that over the summer to map out your school year, which is something I highly recommend. It is free and it's a great starting. So you can go to homeschoolglue.com slash start to pick up that free PDF. I hope this episode was helpful. I pray that you will have a restful, slow, meaningful, intentional summer with your kids. Um, we don't get a whole lot of those and we want to make each one count. That's not pressure to do it perfectly, but it's pressure. I don't want to say pressure, it's encouragement to be really intentional and mindful about how you're spending your time in advance so that it doesn't run away from you and get chaotic. So I hope this was helpful. As always, happy homeschooling. I'll see you next week. I pray this episode blessed you and gave you something useful that will make homeschooling easier or more fulfilling. If this episode made you feel seen or gave you one thing to change this week, would you please share it and leave a review? That's how more homeschool moms who are struggling with overwhelm can find something that actually helps. You can always find me on Instagram at homeschoolglue where we talk simple systems, rich learning, and the real version of homeschool life. You don't need to do it all, you just need systems that stick. I'll see you next week. Happy homeschooling.