Martha might be on to something.

Today is Day One: the first official day of summer vacation. I am filled with an anxious excitement and a little fear. I’ve gotten so used to our school schedule, which allows me ample one-on-one time with each kid, that now I feel a little lost knowing I’ll have them both all the time for next ten weeks. It’ll be fantastic, I’m sure. But today the task feels daunting.

Carpoolqueen recently wrote about Martha Stewart. The post was cute, but the comments were hysterical. I think all American women harbor a love/hate relationship with Martha. She makes things look so simple that really aren’t. We want to be “perfect” like her, but when we try we realize how utterly ridiculous she is and how impractical her priorities may be. Please note: I’m not dissing the woman. She’s immortal, or at least an alien, and if that works for her, great. But in the real world real human women have real problems. Problems bigger than trying to crease perfect ninety degree angles into our sheets.

I digress.

After reading CPQ‘s blog (and all the corresponding comments about what Martha activity sent real women over the top, thus forcing said real woman to stop watching/reading her), I went about my typical non-Martha day. Until I got to the grocery store. There in front of me was the glossy July issue of Martha Stewart Living. I chuckled to myself, then noticed how the cover advertised a section on cooking lobster (a definitely summer weakness in the Dennis household). I had to buy it. Then I spent the afternoon leafing through its pages, reminding myself how utterly inadequate I am why I don’t buy into her enterprise and “you can do it all” philosophy.

At the front of the magazine she gives her calendar. It’s filled with her daily activities for the whole month: harvesting cucumbers, beans, potatoes and currants; making jams, jellies and pickles; dinner dates, yoga appointments and antique shows. She tells us when she’ll raise her lawn mower blade (you know, because she mows so much herself, she knows exactly when grass growth slows and the season gets drier) and when she’ll move her horses to the East Hampton estate or train the grape vines at “the cold house” (whatever that means). I laughed at seeing not one, but THREE housekeepers’ birthdays. (Seriously. How many housekeepers does she have? Do they all have birthdays in July or are there enough to fill the annual calendar?) And we can’t forget her pets’ birthdays which are oh-so-relevant to my life.

Yes, I was quite morose.

But this morning, as I looked over the horizon into the open expanse of my next ten weeks, I decided Martha might be on to something.

I keep calendars and schedules, but nothing quite this detailed. And never with “mundane” tasks allocated to specific dates. I kinda like the idea. I consistently reasurre Ellie that we’ll make it to story time at the library next time, but then never remember when it is. I want to take the kids to museums and new parks and such, but never actually make solid plans to do it. I have crafts and project ideas roaming the halls of my mind, waiting for the opportunity. But too often they stay there, jailed by my fear of elaborate messes and stressful preparations. I think I’ll make a summer calendar. I’m going to follow (Really? Can I say this?) Martha’s example and free those waiting ambitions, those family memories yet to be made.

Today is Day One.