(Before I start this, I want to say thank you for all of the kind and thoughtful comments on my last post. In case I haven't mentioned it lately, I just love you. Truly.) My embarrassing confession for today: I don't do give back as much as I think I should. As much as I could, if I prioritized it better, anyway. I'm pretty good about giving money, but I'm not as good about giving time. And I can justify that with all sorts of things; I work long hours, and my kids need me, and money does more than time anyway, and blah blah blah. Excuses. I live a life of relative privilege, and I believe...
I find camping very relaxing. It is only while camping that I do not feel guilty sitting down with a novel and devouring it in one sitting. At home there's always something that needs cleaning or otherwise attending to, whereas at a campsite, I consider reading and napping to be the two main categories of strenuous activity. The children, however, do not have a need to loll around and relax. They scoff at relaxing! They are plenty relaxed! They are so relaxed, they need to poke at each other and run around in circles, and then THAT will be considered calm in comparison to what comes next,...
Memorial Day weekend is fast shaping up to be a barn-burner, over here. I don't really even know what that means, but hey, I am taking a lot of drugs, so it seems appropriate somehow. First, fence update! Guess what! No, really, you will NEVER GUESS. Oh. You guessed. Hmph. Yeah, that's right---the fence is still not done. Oh, technically there is now fence all the way around the pool area, at least (though even that was looking doubtful until shortly before we left town), but we have yet to negotiate the fixing/replacement of all the damaged stuff, so that awaits us on our return. Awesome. I...
Don't I look calm? Serene? Nary a care in the world? It's the drugs. Just an update on yesterday's post, because I know you all care VERY DEEPLY: Our missing fence section never showed up, yesterday. Around 4:00 Otto called the fence company to say YES HI I AM WONDERING IF YOU EVER DO WHAT YOU'LL SAY YOU'LL DO and was told that our crew was on another job and then the equipment broke and they were delayed and blah blah blah FIRST THING IN THE MORNING, WE PROMISE. First thing this morning the foreman of a THIRD crew (just in case you're keeping count) showed up, and proceeded to sit in my...
The work on the fence has been going on for almost a week, which means that even Licorice is pretty much over it, not even bothering to bark at the guys anymore. That's fine, because Otto has pretty much taken over on the barking, inbetween small head explosions as we traverse this particularly delightful path of home renovation. When we signed the contract, by the way, we were told "one full day, or maybe one full day and half a day." That's all it was supposed to take. And this is not our first rodeo; we figured that meant maybe three days. Heck, I even said it to the fence guy, laughing,...
I meant to tell you the story of the fence today, I really did. But it's not over yet, so it'll have to wait. In the meantime, just to give you an idea: Number of days the fence was supposed to take: 1, or possibly 1.5 Number of days they've been working on the fence SO FAR: 4 (and counting!) As I often say to my long-suffering husband: If I wrote it out and called it fiction, I would be accused of being ridiculous and unbelievable. But, you know, it actually happens this way. TO ME. Of course. So while we wait for the fence saga to reach its conclusion (what will it be? A completed fence or...
It has recently come to my attention that there's the possibility that my oldest child has observed a year of her younger brother getting a lot of attention for repeatedly falling into messy chunks, and that she has since concluded that the best way to get love and affection in our family is by behaving badly. [This conclusion is fueled by a deep need to believe that her recent rottenness is the result of incorrect conclusions rather than an honest-to-God sociopathic streak, and I AM OKAY WITH THAT.] So over the last month I have been trying very hard to Spend Quality Time With My Daughter,...
I've been doing a lot of reminiscing about my school days, lately. I guess it's a side effect of this academic year coming to an end, and the fact that I am about to be Officially Done Being An Elementary School Parent, which doesn't seem possible. (Seriously, how is that possible when I still have to ask my kid if he remembered to put on underwear??) Anyway, today I'm over at Off Our Chests remembering my first time, though it's not what you might think. C'mon over if you ever had an idol who ended up surprising you (or even if you didn't).
To listen to me yammer on and on about my garden, you might be tempted to believe I've always been a natural-born nurturer of living things. That would be an erroneous assumption. Today at Off Our Chests, I'm giving you a little peek into my past... back to a time when I was only too happy to let things die. Maybe YOU didn't have to have a tortured youth to come out of it a relatively useful adult, but I did. And I think it worked out okay. C'mon over. Please tell me I'm not the only one who used to be rotten...?
