Pretty toes... and more

The last pedicure of the summer.
Marley and I went with a couple of our friends to the mall for food court food (Carl's Jr., Sbarro Pizza and Panda Express,) pedicures and Auntie Anne's pretzels.
Yummy fun.

The summer is coming to a close... except it bugs me that season of summer is still almost a month from ending but my kids will be starting school on the 31st of August. I never started school until mid-September and got out in mid-June. My kids start a full two weeks earlier and still get out around the same time I did. What is up with that?

As summer vacation come to a close, I look back, and what with my sleep-challenged state, we didn't do very much. Probably, that is a good thing. We managed a few trips to the beach, swim lessons galore, more swimming at the university pool, some play dates for Marley and a lot of lying around. Paul's travel schedule was reasonable. The new definition of reasonable around here is that the trip is less than seven days at a time with one week in between. A few books were read by me... very few books were read to Marley. Yikes. She just didn't want to sit still long enough to listen to one. Oh well, I did read Fox in Socks and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs to her yesterday.

I finally have my CPAP machine although there are a few issues with the mask. I made some changes last night which helped but still only lasted until 2:30 a.m. My goal over the next two weeks is to keep building up the time I spend on the machine until I am sleeping comfortably through the night it on. As I feel better, I am looking forward to school being in session, having more of my day free to pursue other interests, getting some exercise, helping out at church more, having more kid-free time in general.

Paul has put up a music website (email me if you are interested in visiting it and I'll send you link.) He has enjoyed doing a couple of shows in the last few weeks and is interested in getting some more shows lined up. He is off to Boston next week and then to Colorado the week of September 11th. He was supposed to fly there on the 11th but I'm a little queasy on that idea. He'll drive instead which means a longer trip but more peace of mind for me. Stuff like that doesn't usually bother me but with it being the fifth anniversary. Ugh. I don't know. Maybe I'm just being a big baby.

Colin is looking forward to school starting, I think. Mostly because he considers this to be the most booorrrrring summer ever. Oh yeah, he'll be back from a trip to Vegas this afternoon, and he did get to go to the beach a few times, and to the movies with friends, and go swimming with friends. I think I wil be ignoring his cries of boredom for awhile.

Marley's engine is revved up but with no destination all that energy is being misdirected. I've been complaining about how loud she has been lately. The rest of us are just kind of shell shocked at the constant barrage of noise. I did laugh the other day in the car as she rolled down the window and stuck her head out singing Buddy-style (from Elf) at the top of her lungs,

I'm just a girl who likes to sing
la, la, la
sing, sing, sing
I like to sing with my head out the window
like a dog
ah, ah, ah
la, la, la

Now, you can't help but laugh at that, especially when she immediately became quiet and I turned around to see the cause was someone walking down the street. She doesn't mind making a spectacle of herself for us but not for a stranger passing by!

Although we were in a NSF (not sufficient funds) position at the beginning of summer, we have scraped together enough to do a half week at a beach house in Carlsbad. We found a friend of a friend situation that is very reasonably priced. Paul can't go because of his next business trip but the kids and I could do with some sand, surf and sunsets before school starts.

I guess that is it for now. What's up with you?