My geriatric semi-wild cat was quite disgruntled this morning.

We have built a nice morning routine together over the past three weeks. I get the coffee going, shave, and then when the coffee is ready, I pour myself a cup and head out to the front porch, with the cat trailing behind me. I sit quietly and sip my coffee, while she begins to prowl (in a manner befitting her advanced age, of course).

But not this morning.

With the start of a new school year, I am having to adjust those morning routines. In fact, we are having to build an entirely new set of morning routines. Back in the spring, we were a fairly well-oiled machine in the mornings. But now, we have new school destinations, new commute times, and new morning starts. Everything is going to take a little tinkering.

The afternoon offered a similar challenge–having to leave my campus in time to reach my son’s high school by dismissal… only to discover that with the back-up of other parents’ cars picking up their kids, I will need to leave fifteen minutes earlier or fifteen minutes later to avoid waiting in a long line.

My oldest boy and I planned to go to the university gym after school to do a little climbing… which led to another schedule adjustment. With all of the students coming back to the university, we had another wait–apparently the climbing area has a maximum occupancy, and that number had been reached.

So…we ended up staying out later than I thought. Which meant I didn’t have time to make dinner. Which meant we ended up eating out.

It’s now 10:30, and no one is asleep. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be the really rough morning.

None of what I described above sounds anything like “living simply,” I know. I guess the point is: even though we have been in our new home for over a month now (and really only three weeks as the entire family), we are only just now beginning to adjust to a new schedule.

And it’s going to take some time to find a routine that works.

So in this instance, I think “simplicity” really means: having the patience to allow each of us to find our own way into that new routine.