Summer

Today is the last day of school for my two elementary age children. For the past few weeks I have been thinking and planning how to organize a household of people through the summer. There are nine people in my house when we are all home. There is my husband, myself, my mom, 25yr old son, 18yr old daughter, 15yr old daughter, 9 yr old daughter, 7yr old son and a 30yr old nephew. We have two dogs and a bird. The bird I have to think the least about.

Out of all these people, only my husband leaves in the morning for a full time job. You can imagine my challenge. Honestly, it would be simpler going to work and having one specific focus. My job is more than full time and all over the place. I need a way to reign it all in. I want order and peace above all. How to accomplish this?

Early this morning I was thinking about this. I have a few ideas. Small daily chores for everyone. I am trying to figure out mealtimes. There are some activities like beach day Wednesdays, library Fridays and possibly movie Mondays. But my concern is keeping the house clean and people productive. Idleness and filthiness are not ingredients for peace and happiness. But how to corral so many different individuals into such an existence without fighting?

I decided that I need a super-structure, a large scale system to channel lives. I prayed for one. The gospel is such a structure -family prayer, church attendance. In my yoga teaching I teach within a super-structure. The students are all different and I have to encourage and guide without force. I certainly can learn to do that at home. My family then, is my yoga class. There are different types of people, I need to modify for some and challenge others. But we all need to function within the super-structure ( such as the yoga poses and philosophy are the super-structure for the yoga class).

In order to be a good yoga teacher I know that I need to keep up with my own practice then share that with my students as I teach them. This is the same in my family. In order to guide them through a productive and purposeful life, I need to live one myself.