The crazy days of May!

How is it that this month is mostly over? I can't quite fathom it except to say that no other month barring December gets so much packed into it! Let's begin with May 1st which was Women' s Conference. The next day Saturday May 2nd always makes me feel like I should have the garden planted immediately! So the frantic yard work begins... We edge beds, shop for plants, go buy more plants, then start planting. Pots first, then hanging baskets. Back to Walmart for more potting soil. Back to nursery for more plants. One more trip to Walmart for more more potting soil. Now mind you these baskets pots and flowerbeds get done over several days, but my brain is clogged up thinking about them the whole 2 weeks! Today I will finally plant the rest of the garden (some of the plants were just too tiny two weeks ago when I bought them so I have been growing them on the porch). Besides all this planting there is the never ending grass issues. Dog pee has burned up twenty spots, two days later dog pee has burned up 23 spots. Randy spends most of monday cutting out dog pee spots and replacing with chunks of sod from the beds he is edging. Now there are only 8 spots but more new ones coming every day. Time to up the sprinkling system to help combat pee concentration, then it rains for several days so its hard to get any yard work done. Now it is time for the million trips to the Waste management facility ( the dump, only the other name sounds better) for loads of compost! My first trip this year was a doozey! I had Rhonda Perkins and her boys with me because we were taking a load of their stuff to drop off and then pick up the compost. The brakes kept squeaking all the way there so Christian age 14 can't stop laughing but the real comedy was yet to come. As we pull into the property there is a huge sign that says, "Beware of Signs" what does that mean? Are they attack signs? Then there are like 6 more signs posted one after another every 10 feet or so, that say things like no scavenging, speed limit 15, assorted other messages, none of them seem very threatening, but whatever. Then we get to the place where you're supposed to back up to the edge and unload the stuff. Only too bad for me because they want us to pull in between two other trucks and the edge is uphill from where I am. I pull up to the guy and tell him that space isn't big enough and he says " Are you serious?" No, I just like to make silly conversation with the dump workers! So I say ok, that will be fine and I try to concetrate,but Christian is really laughing now and I hate backing up, up hill especially when there is a light load. So I pull way forward to make sure I start out straight, but this was a mistake because now I have farther to go! I start out, but I'm nervous and the dump guy is watching so I go to fast and just about jackknife it so I pull forward again and then curve the trailer the other way! Christian is now nearly hysterical and so I make about 3 more attempts before getting it semi close and Rhonda says, thats good enough we'll just throw it from here! Bless her, I was mortified and shamed. Once we got unloaded it should have been smooth sailing, but we go to get the compost and I drive the loop that they had us drive last year which is behind all the trees they are shredding and suddenly there is a man chasing us and so I stop and wait for him and he says where are you going? So I calmly explain and he says ,"not this year you should have pulled over here"! Well where are the signs now I ask you? Beware of LACK of signs when you need them it should say! So we pull up to get the stuff and the huge front loader just about runs us down, I guess to prove the point that I was in the wrong area, anyway we get the load and head for home with the brakes really squealing now! Christian still laughing all the way. Need I mention that Randy went for the next few loads!?
Enough about the endless yard work! In May we also get to celebrate Sawyer's birthday, Mother's Day, Randy's Dad's Birthday and cousins Daphne, Benson, Isaac and Karleigh's birthdays! We also have Memorial Day, preschool programs, field trips, recitals, and year end school parties, and Field Day(twice if your in kindergarten). All of these things packed into one regular month! I realize we can't change bdays but what about field trips and programs, do they all have to be the last three weeks of may? Oh, and did I mention that summer semester began on May 11? We are a smidge overscheduled here and I am really hoping that June will at least be a little slower! Or at least I won't have any trips to the dump, or at least there will be no school programs right! No wonder we spend the first three weeks of summer just getting up when we want and eating dinner at 8:30pm instead of the lovely schedule I always envision of everyone up at 7 for scriptures then weeding for a 1/2 hour as a family then a healthy breakfast some quick house cleaning then little school workbooks for Sawyer and Zoe and piano practice for the girls then a picnic lunch to the park back home for naps for Zoe and reading time for the other three. What's next you ask? Well then we would prepare a lovely dinner to eat on the patio and then spend the evening playing baseball together as a family or going for a bike ride! This is really what I want to have happen during the summer, but we are lucky if 1 or 2 of those things happen per week! I have a hard time making my dreams a reality! I think I set my expectations a little high! Instead I should make plans for days when we will stay in jammies and watch 13 episodes of Monk in one day or we will go to the park but the house will be trashed before we go and will remain so after we come home. I need to accept that piano practice will rarely happen, that reading will probably be done in spurts like 3 hours one day and none for the next week ( that still averages 20 min. per day, right?) and that dinner at 8:30 on the patio is almost as nice as dinner on the patio at 6pm. Either way I am really looking forward to June!