We just looked at the calendar and realized it’s less than just over a week until school starts. WHAT??? Already??? It’s this time of year when I think homeschooling everyone might be kind of fun. I at least enjoy the idea that it’s an idea.

We’re trying to get our heads in the game as far as what it means to start up again with the 6:45 alarm and the homework and the lunches, but honestly, we usually opt for more of a baptism by fire. In some ways that works – especially as far as the rising early goes – but in some ways it sort of catches us off guard.

One thing we do every year is have a little back to school family party the night before. We state some high points of the summer. We all set some goals of things we want to have happen this school year, what we might want to learn or do.  And we celebrate our life together as a family. If you have some things you do each year to make it breezy, I’d love to hear them!

Suz Lipman at Slow Family Online, a great site and resource for all things family, just posted a great list of ways to intentionalize the back to school process – for yourself and for your whole family. It’s a good one with lots of amazing tips. Check it out when you have a few minutes.

And if you’re going back to school here in Austin, be sure to check out our 4th annual Zilker Elementary Back to School Clothes Swap. Bring what you can. Take what you need. We’ll have clothes from infants to adults. As usual, we’ll have sewers and screen printers on hand to help you one-of-a-kind a fave garment picked from the piles. Come and swap and see what amazing ensembles you can put together for back to school!

We’re getting ready for back to school at our house. Sort of. We’re still swimming until dark at Barton Springs and sleeping in late in the morning and taking each day as it comes, but in our heads, we are preparing. Sort of.

Our big nod towards back to school comes this Saturday at Zilker Elementary school in Austin, TX where we’ll be holding our 2nd annual Back to School Don’t Shop;Swap! We’ll have sewers and silk screeners and sorters on hand ready to rad-ify any finds. We’ll have oodles of piles of clothes all sorted by gender and size. And we’ll have hundreds of folks from the school and the community there to swap out what they don’t need and get what they do. It was a huge success last year and a definite example of abundance – enough for EVERYONE!!! And all the kids were back to school in total Green fashion following the Future Craft Collective creed: Reduce, reuse, recraft, UPCYCLE!!! Join us if you can as a sorter, a sewer or a swapper.

Then in September, if you’re a mama looking for a night out and a little crafting fun too, you can join me at our Mama’s Collective Craft night where we’ll be making totally cool postcard and greeting card collage. No muss, no fuss and a totally creatively crafty night out. You can read more about it here…

Back to school means major shifting in our house. We just have to figure out how to make it work for everyone.