I was chatting with a friend yesterday who has been working full time this summer for the first time in many years.

“Gotta say, sort of can’t wait for back-to-school…” she admitted.

I told her that I have to go to Ikea and Target today and she said, between gritted teeth: “Oh… getting back to school stuff done?”

I wish! I still have so many chores on my plate related to this hellacious bathroom renovation, and, um, it’s my son’s 15th birthday TOMORROW and, um, have we got him one single gift yet? No! Am I running to the store today to desperately buy him some stuff? Yes! So — am I getting organized for back to school? NO!

Sure , it’s nice to have the new backpacks at the ready, the shiny sneakers bought, the cubbies cleaned out and the desks cleared up and organized with new bookshelves, folders, what-have-you. But tell me this, do they have to come with all that on the very first day of school? Can it wait until the first day after school — no homework yet and no one elbowing you out of the way at Staples for that perfect highlighting pen?

So here’s to some sensible procrastination. I could squeeze it all in now and go crazy, or I could wait until AFTER everyone else has rushed to the stores. It’s all going to get done, the only question is: will I do it like a perfect mom or like a real mom?

You guess.

(And now, whoops, it’s 5:30 am, time to start working…)

We were just at a family reunion with 48 far-flung members. Bunches of kids running around, eating mac and cheese for a week straight and not a vegetable in sight. Late nights, late mornings and fairy palaces built in the woods.

The teenagers slept all day, counted their zits, played badminton and talked (yes, actually held conversations) with the adults.

The adults made the rounds of the cabins, leisurely checking in with the other gray-haired-ones, assessing life’s ups and downs (thankfully, mainly ups) and just hanging out.

No phones. No internet. Hardly anyone even opened a book or a newspaper. Pure down time.

Life as a mother is a constant work in progress. You’ve probably figured this out already, but no one ever has all the answers. We are always searching, and sometimes the search can be very interesting…

Early this morning I was reading Deepak Chopra’s novel “Buddha.” Late last night, I was flipping through, “How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk.” Then I stopped for a minute to ponder the strange and wonderous intersection between these two incredibly different texts.

The Buddha book is about living with compassion and accepting and overcoming pain. It is, essentially, about rising above our physical selves and acknowledging that our day-to-day worries are minor in the face of the awesomeness of the universe.

Cool stuff. But what about paying the bills or getting the kids to school on time?

We struggle to deal with the burdens of our real lives (and whether they are small or large, everyone has burdens) by holding onto a sense that there is something larger at play, something that puts the little irritations or big burning desires into perspective.

When I think about these considerations in respect to the teens book I was just reading, it makes me laugh. The teen book is so enlightening and sensible in its own way, and so utterly the opposite of the Chopra novel. Put the two together and I think you have the essential quandary of the life of a parent: how to marry the concerns of the everyday with the perspective of an enlightened human!

Everyday reality is something us moms  cannot really transcend — we have to figure out the nuts and bolts of dealing with hormonal kids or exacting work demands or babies needing food. But if we can do it all with some humor, with an understanding that it’s ok to be doing the best we can (as opposed to being perfect), and that there are forces at work that are larger than us… well, then I think we’ll all be all right in the end.

An old friend visited yesterday. She’s a year older than me and has a three-year-old and a 9-month old (compared to my almost-15, almost-13 and 9-year-olds!). We tried to have a conversation and for about four hours, we managed to conduct a stacatto, interrupted, utterly non-linear and almost nonsensical exchange punctuated by both of us hovering steps behind a crawling baby, pulling a huge dead moth out of said baby’s mouth, feeding a wiggly-screaming-starving baby, and, finally, entertaining a dead-tired, sleep-fighting baby.

Phew. This was a friend who I loved visiting in NYC because she was a career woman without kids and seemed to have no interest in my life-of-kids-diapers-and-chores. It was so refreshing!

And how things have changed! I love the turn our friendship has taken. All those years when I would escape from my suburban life and live vicariously through our visits, I so enjoyed her for being everything that I was not. I never took my kids with me, and we talked about love and life, work and sports. Not about kids or husbands or any of that “normal-life” stuff.

Now she is where I was about 13 years ago. I have to bite my tongue not to give her too much advice. As a “new” mom, you don’t want your friends telling you what to do–you want to live it and learn it through your own experience. You can’t imagine how many times I have to stop myself from saying something like, ohmygod read chapter five, you HAVE to have sex more often or else! What could be worse than a know-it-all friend who spouts advice at you from HER OWN BOOK?

Instead I smile sweetly, and wait for the day when we can have a full conversation again. Maybe in another 13 years…

Good friendships can last and thrive through all sorts of phases… and I am so thankful for that gift.

Kids are underfoot, hot and bored. Carpet guys are huffing and puffing in the bedroom, installing new carpet, and my entire second floor is crammed full of homeless furniture. Glass guys came to finish the shower… and the glass was cut the wrong size. The new toilet is running. The plumber is owed money and the checking account is empty. Tomorrow is vacation. Packing has not yet been even considered.

Well, I feel frazzled, but I also feel lucky. Once this hell is over — this renovation we were forced into because of leaking pipes — we will have peace in our lives again. The past six months the house has been such a disaster zone: dust everywhere, always; strange men here on a daily basis;  trash on our driveway; pounding hammers while I’m trying to work; endless errands and decisions to make PLUS a full time job to hold down. Not to mention that my office is relocated into the study so I can’t find anything and my internet connection is iffy.

Lesson learned: never do a renovation while you’re launching a book.

But here’s what I’ve also learned: when I am Zen about things, I can handle the upheaval much better. Why get angry about things you can’t control? I’m sure this attitude has tacked three months onto this project, but at least I haven’t slit my wrists.

I find people are easier to deal with when I’m friendly and understanding, even if, inside, I’m going nuts. It’s part of trying to have an attitude about life that is at once accepting and yet also firm and aware of priorities. I decided back in January when this hell broke loose with the house, that this was not going to be my undoing.

And it hasn’t been.

Well… not quite… yet…

“You are after all, what you think. Your emotions are slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.” Elizabeth Gilbert

It took me a while to really trust in the idea that you create your own reality by how you think. At first I thought self realization and affirmations and controlling destiny with thoughts was basically gobbledygook.

OK: I wish I had a million bucks! Well that’s not going to happen, now, is it? But there’s more to this self-realization stuff than I realized.

I first came across these ideas in this wonderful book about unleashing creativity: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. She talks a lot about acknowledging your negative thoughts and then banishing them. I remember being utterly nonplussed by one suggestion that involved looking in the mirror, grinning at yourself and saying “I love you” to your image every morning. It just seemed forced and false to me. Who cares if I love myself?

Well, a lot has changed in my life since I read that book about six years ago. First of all, the messages slowly seeped their way into my consciousness. Over time, as I struggled to build my career and also bring up my children, I was able to see what she was really saying. My thoughts of being burdened or stuck or frustrated were what made me feel burdened or stuck or frustrated! I had the power to take back control. In fact, I was the only one who really had that power, no one else could or would do it for me.

I recently made a dream board, in which I pasted images from magazines or the internet on a poster board. Those images represent my dreams for the future. Just the act of doing that has made me feel empowered. Maybe I will get on Oprah! Maybe Mothers Need Time-Outs, Too will become a bestseller! Maybe my novel will be a blockbuster and that million bucks will be mine after all…!

What are your dreams? If you can become a believer too, the small and big dreams you have may just come true.

I just recently re-read Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir, EAT, PRAY, LOVE and I was astonished, time and time again, how applicable many of her insights are to motherhood. I found this amazing because the very thing that set her off on her devastating quest for fulfillment was her fear of having children. This bucking of expectation, and the subsequent self-loathing and doubt, led her on a journey to figure out who she really was and what she really wanted — and needed — from life.

When women embark on motherhood, it’s all too easy to immerse ourselves utterly in this role. Being a mother is satisfying, time-consumming and incredibly important. What could be more noble than to give ourselves over to the job 100%?Here’s the rub, though. As women and as mothers, we may wish to be altruistic, serenely patient and giving all the time, but frankly it’s not really possible. We can spend a few years working ourselves so very hard that we’re in a blur most of the day, but eventually we just hit a wall. Sometimes it takes just a few years. Sometimes it doesn’t hit until the kids are out of the house. But show me a woman out there who does not one day turn to herself in the mirror and say, Huh? Who the hell are you?

Mothers have an almost visceral reaction to the word selfish. But what I liked about Gilbert’s book was her willingness to call a spade a spade. She struggled with the idea of selfishness, and came to the conclusion that that there are two kinds: one that hurts others and one that is all about knowing and caring for yourself (not at someone else’s expense). Of course we should not be so selfish that we hurt others, especially not our children.

But think about this for a minute: when our kids become adults, they will face a world that is largely indifferent to them. People will tell them to shut up, to get out of the way, that they did a bad job or have a bad idea. People will not give them undivided attention, never let them fail, and catch them when they stumble. Kids have to learn that the world does not revolve around them.

Having a mother who is strong and independent enough to insist on the right to be a little selfish every now and then, to have her own desires and needs, ends up being good for kids in the long run. After a lot af agonized soul-searching, Gilbert comes to this conclusion in her own way: it is better for the universe when she can find a way to be true to herself.

Living a lie is not good for anyone.

A month ago, back in late June, my son Peter started moaning, “Summer’s almost OVER already!”

I felt his pain. Here in the Northeast, those of us who hate frigid winters spent indoors (peeling off our dry skin and shivering in the drafts of hundred-year-old houses) live for the summer. We relish every hot second of it. Who cares about humidity? At least we’re not wrapped in ten-foot-long scarves and wearing those horrendous things on our feet called Uggs (this from someone who does not like looking like a androgynous dwarf).

It’s almost the end of July and I’m starting to have that same sinking feeling in my stomach… hmmmm, do the kids need new backpacks? Hmmm, what was that reading assignment Greta had? Hmmm, am I gonna make it into carpool this year or will I be stuck on my own again?

It all is very gloomy: the end of summer looms.

Back when Peter was lamenting the passing days, I really felt sorry for him. The poor kid couldn’t even begin to enjoy his free time because he was so very aware of how limited it would be. You can’t find much peace in the moment if you’re always looking ahead to the future.

It’s the typical glass-half-empty conundrum.  Kids and adults alike make their lives soooo much easier if they can only have a glass-half-full attitude. A young colleague of my husband’s, a beautiful girl named Lexia, died a few weeks ago of leukemia. Every time I saw her she was full of beans, excited about her prospects for recovery. She was such a happy soul. I often wondered whether I would be able to react that way in her situation. What a blessing for her — and those who loved her — that she was a glass-half-full girl.

So even as I see fall just around the corner (and all those errands and carpools and searching for lost but absolutely crucial items), I want to sink into the everyday and enjoy the moment I’m in. I don’t want to either dread or look forward to fall, I want to savor now. Because this is it, this is life. Who knows what will happen in one, two, three months.

If there’s one single lesson I would like to teach Peter, it’s to give up worrying about things you can’t control and to let yourself focus with energy and positivity on just where you are at any given moment.

What constitutes a time-out in the summer?

Yesterday, it meant getting up at 5:40 am and bombing into downtown Boston to my Writer’s Co-op to work12 hours straight on my novel.

Today I’m up at 6am to get a couple of hours of work done before the kids wake up.

This from a woman who could not open her eyes before 11am B.K. (Before-Kids).

In the summertime the hours of the day are not my own. Suddenly, from comfortable 8-hour workdays during the school year, I have to cut back significantly and do a lot of work at unusual times. Early mornings when the mist is still hanging thick and soupy over everything, at night when the cool air keeps me awake and at weekends, when my husband takes over.

And while, in a way, it’s frustrating not being able to work as I usually do, it’s also a gift. Spending unstructured time with my kids is ALWAYS rewarding. Giving up on being efficient (and not feeling guilty about it!) just feels good.

So… be inefficient, be lazy, parse your time well and you will get a little it of everything this summer. And you’ll enjoy it too!

Writing is a funny business. What is work? What is day dreaming? What is wasting time? What counts and what doesn’t count?

Many of you reading this who are in the creative field will know exactly where I’m coming from. When your hubby or a friend asks, “So, what did you do today?” and you answer (maybe just a touch defensively…), “Well, I worked,” sometimes it’s not really the kind of work they’re thinking of.

I watched a Fassbinder movie, so shoot me! I mean, well, um, for me that’s actually work. I went to a bookstore and checked out books about teens. Again, real work. So, I watched TV, work! HARD WORK!

I’m only half kidding here. Inspiration comes from the strangest places and at the strangest times.

While I was away with the kids in Germany, I was all theirs. I didn’t take my laptop, I didn’t answer (or even check) e-mail and I took no business calls. “Work” was on hold. I listened to them, spent every waking hour with them, had fun with them and also hung out doing nothing.

But that stretch of ten days was incredibly rewarding for me in terms of work. I had ideas for three new books, which I am so excited about. I carried around a little notebook with me in which I jotted everything down. I planned a new workshop I want to run in the fall, a non-fiction book project I’m going to start, and I figured out my next novel! I even started day-dreaming about a writing book I’m going to work on once I get famous. Dream big, I say…

So taking a little time to relax actually proved to be very fruitful professionally. And my kids got a happy mom to boot. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!