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I don’t even know where to start. I feel like my blog has been overlooked a bit by myself, to say nothing of my personal journal. I tried to boost my moral the other day and start a new journal, a moleskin that was gifted to me at Christmas. It was my goal to fill all the pages in my previous, purple, dollar journal I was working through but after an entire month of Tim being home it still had about 10 empty pages at the end. Screw it. Most of my journals end that way anyway, why should this one be any different? But you know what will be different? The new journal. I am going to fill it — and this time I mean it! So I have three days worth of entries in it. I have tried to write at least one sentence for the last three days. It’s working out, I hope to keep it up so that these days don’t go by totally undocumented. That said, I just don’t know where to start. I used to think it was impossible not to think of anything to talk about because when it comes to writing I can do a lot of it. Maybe it’s because I have become a little self conscious because there are so many good blogs out there. Blogs that are focused and to the point telling a story. Blogs that are humorous, witty or smartly written. Then there are the long rambling blogs that have entries I lose interest in about half way through. I started to wonder to myself if perhaps I wasn’t one of those long pointless writers. It sure feels like nothing is cohesive enough in my day to write about and yet at the same time I can’t just limit myself to writing one little cute story about some adorable thing that Morella or Athena did (though I love reading those).

At Stephen King says in On Writing, you are writing for one person. I have thought about that a few times over the past week. Who am I writing for? It changes from season to season — but when it comes down to it, the answer is me. I am writing for my future self, just like in the that movie The Notebook. I am writing to myself so that I can remember. Of course that doesn’t mean that many posts are influenced by people I think might be reading it. People that I want to engage.

I guess when I grasp that it is me that I am writing for, the next step is easier. What do I want to know about now in the future? Do I really care that I washed the dishes or am pissed that I am the only one that knows how to load the dishwasher? do I want to know that I emptied all the little garbage around the house, or made a Mexican casserole for dinner? Not really .In fact, I sort have quit writing that stuff down in my paper journal, though there are times when I flop back to writing lists because, “Hey lists of things to do are a better record than no record at all.” Right now, I am not in that phase. Though tomorrow i might be, because writings lists helps me focus. With lists, I can organize my mind. I can break down what needs to be done. I can feel accomplished when I cross things off like sort laundry and pick up toys because those things are hard to do with 2 kids under 3 milling about the house.

So what do I want to remember about today? I had a bad day, relatively speaking. I was just in a bad mood and it just didn’t seem like I could figure out how to get out of it. I was so irritable. A friend suggested that maybe it was PMS. Maybe. I haven’t had a post partum period yet, so really any day could be it. I went nine months after Morella and it’s now 10 months with Neeners. I could be any day. It would be nice to be nice to blame it on that I think the worst part of today was when my Mom called and asked for money because they ran out of food. I told her that I could send it tomorrow but it wouldn’t get there until Tuesday and that I hated to send cash because you just never know what might happen. I could barely understand her because she was mumbling and Morella was screaming and yelling, following me into whatever room I went so I could try and hear her. It in turned caused me to yell and since I was already feeling irritable I just started in and gave her the riot act about her poor spending habits. Not necessarily my best moment, especially considering that she doesn’t ask it of me much anymore.

After the phone call, I called Walmart and a local grocery store to see if I could buy a gift card over the phone that they could pick up. Both said that wasn’t possible. My Mom lives in a small town so there was no chance of having food delivered. I was sitting at the computer desk staring into space and wondering what I could do while Morella and Athena both crawled all over me making ridiculous and incomprehensible demands when I saw my friend Jessie log in. Here is where my extreme good fortune was apparent because I asked her for help. I asked if she would be able to drop a meal or something off to my family and maybe a bag of apples or something until the money would get there. She said no problem, and in fact did better than that. She got a bag of groceries and contacted her church to get together some more food for my Mom. A few hours later I got a call from my Mom. She was astounded that Jessie had just shown up with a groceries — more food that she thought. She told me over and over what was in the bags and was really happy.

I am so blessed to have such wonderful friend like Jessie. Thank you! I owe you one.

I know, photos of the dog. Soon. It’s hard to take a photo of him. He moves around a lot.

On Tuesday, I thought it would be a great idea to go out and slug through some mud to pick some strawberries under the blazing sun with a 10 month old and a 2 year old by myself.

I think the best part was when I was kneeling in the soggy hay, avoiding thistles and picking through berries while having Morella pick them out of the flat as fast a possible to take a single bite and throw them back all while keeping Neeners from climbing into the box of strawberries where she would sit and spin, screeching happily and clapping. Do I even need to say that the strawberries that I did bring home — most has to be thrown out?

I don’t have a photo of him — I forgot to take one today when we visited him again to make sure that he was the dog for us, but I’ll take care of that soon enough. He’s perfect. He met the girls and was just wonderful with Athena and Morella. Over the last week I had sort of forgotten just how short he is. When he is laying down he looks like a normal sized medium dog but when he stands up you see just how short he is. That said, he seems to have plenty of energy, doesn’t bark, cat friendly, loves kids and is mellow – just the way we like it. He’ll even fit into our car with the kids so I see plenty of dog park excurusions in the future. He’s about 1 year old, black, big floppy ears and I sense is a total snuggle bunny. We went and got his new midsized crate today, two toys, a box of biscuits, pig ears, greenies and super delicious treats to get him started on fitting in around here. Come Sunday we are going to fit into our neighborhood again.

Okay, seriously, there are a few people who are dogless, but they are definitely the minority.

We went to that Buffalo Wings place for lunch today and it totally sucked. Either that or we are food snobs. I managed to get in a few garage sales and got some more Little People stuff, some clothes for my Mom, toy kitchen stuff (big score for only 25 cents), and a few other toys. I also splurged and got Morella some princess type clothes (dressy dresses) from Savers and one super fru fru skirt from Old Navy which was 40% off). She’ll love it! She’s totally into dressing like a princess every day. It’s not hard to be a princess though — anyone can be a princess, you just have to wear a skirt.

Tomorrow we are going to Appleton for a birthday party. Morella will be totally jazzed about that since she loves birthday parties…or parties of any sort, but especially birthday parties. This past week there were a lot of graduation parties that she noticed and wanted to crash every single one of them. Tim had to explain to her that parties were something that you had to be invited to, and we couldn’t just go to any old party that we saw taking place.

A few of our favorite Morella sayings this past week are “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!” and “Oh man!” and “Back here!” (as in get back here) and “Wait!”

Sheesh, she’s a bossy little one. I think I mentioned her other big commands “Take turn Mommy/Daddy/Neener!” and “Share!” Of course, by share what she really means is “Let Morella do it.”

I have a terrible kink my neck/shoulder. I discovered it this morning when I awoke to Neeners crying for an early snack, I could barely move my head to face her without excruciating pain. It’s been a long time since I have had a kink this bad and I really wish I had it in me to try out a chiropractor or a massage therapist or even acupuncture to see if they could magically take the pain away and make it better. Instead I took a couple tylenol throughout the day and am now ending it with a couple of margarita’s that Tim brewed up. It seems like the only thing that ever makes these neck kinks disappear is time and a good nights rest. I hope to get that tonight sleeping in my own bed.

On Sunday evening, after a morning spent at Mounds Dog Fest – where might have found our new family dog, we drove up to visit my Dad for a couple of days. I believe I have mentioned before that he lives out in the sticks, though I don’t know if I can truly say that since the road to his house was finally paved last year. It’s funny because they put a curb by his house and Tim likes to say “The only curb in Dells Dam.” Dells Dam is the local nickname for that neck of the woods. I don’t know why, I guess I should probably ask someone one of these days before anyone who knows anything is gone. Before we left I downloaded my first E-book to my Ipad after a fruitless search for the book at a Brick and Mortar store (Borders). It was easy and I was surprised at how convenient it was to read it on the laptop. For one, I was able to read it in the car! A first since I usually get car sick if I so much as read a couple paragraphs of anything. The book – The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls was my pick for the new book club I put together, our first meeting is next week, was wonderful. Now to just find a place to meet. I have two ideas…I’ll check into them tomorrow with all my loads of free time.

Anyway. So life at my Dad’s was of course stressful and not stressful. He has a bare pantry so any food we want usually has to be brought in. I didn’t do a whole lot of meal planning, every meal was sort of fly by my pants sort of affair. It’s hard to cook without a full pantry, and think of things that the kids would eat as well as the adults, and whether or not I would have the pans or dishes to prepare it. My Dad also has a wood stove in the living room. Yes, it does have a secondary metal casing around the actual wood stove, but it’s still not something you want your babies and toddler’s touching. Thankfully he only fired it up once near bedtime. Athena needed extra time up so Tim ended up just walking her around the kitchen table until she was ready for sleep. Meanwhile, I was laying in bed with a poor, exhausted Morella waiting for her to go to sleep.

Actually, getting the kids to sleep was the biggest source of stress. I was going to take a picture of our sleeping arrangements, but I forgot. Maybe there is a good shot of Neeners I took in the camera with that in the background. I cannot leave the kids alone in the upstairs quarters unless I am sure they are asleep, and we cannot leave out of earshot in case they wake up and decide to move around. It’s stuffy, everything is on the floor, the floors are creaky, there is one window that gets a lot of light and there are no doors to close. Essentially a good portion of our time is spent trying to get the kids to sleep, going to bed when they do and getting up when they do. Though there was a little bit of flexibility in that in that I took Athena and Tim had Morella. Last night, to celebrate the fact that it didn’t rain for a change, we started a fire in the pit in and invited the next door neighbor girls to come over and make smores and hang out. Morella’s new “fweinds” were aged 6 and 7, and was in utter little girl heaven with them. When they weren’t around she asked for them, listened for them and talked about them. Morella and the girls had a total blast staying up way past their bedtime playing outside until 10:30PM.

I just tell myself that these are the sort of experiences that mold good childhood memories. Despite extremely late bedtimes that last couple of times, we were able to get the girls down to bed by 9:15 tonight. I guess we are going to have to work on getting that closer to 8 since our Daddy Holiday is ending on Monday when Tim starts his new job. But let’s not think of that right now. We still have three more days.

Despite the all that rain and being stuck indoors for a good portion of the visit – we had some highlights.

–We visited my Mother on Tuesday for her 61st birthday. On the way we stopped at Borders in Eau Claire and got a few gifts, some great coffee treats for us and inside playtime for the girls. I had the gifts giftwrapped after telling off FIVE people for not following protocol and jumping in line ahead of me. The audacity! One woman said “Oh well, I didn’t know there were rules, you can go ahead.” And I did. Morella and Neeners were at the end of their rope.

–Stopped by a grocery store and got Mom a cake, diet coke and a bucket of strawberries from a farm where I had my first real job ever — picking strawberries. I used to get up at 5 and ride my bike a couple of miles to that place. It strikes me as odd that whenever June comes around at they sell those strawberries at stands, my Mom and step-dad always go on and on about “that’s the place that you used to work”! with a degree of pride. Let me state, for the record, that at the the time they thought I was ridiculous for getting myself a job, much less riding bike there. They constantly nagged me about how this better not cost them in welfare benefits if I was making too much. Then of course, they “borrowed’ that money quite a bit.

–Mom had a great birthday, I think. Tim got some pizza for us and subway sandwich for Mom (she has an ulcer) downtown and we spent the afternoon looking at old photos while Tim kept Morella entertained. No small feat for a napless wonder like herself. Well, I hope she had a good time.

–My little bro Andrew came over and visited for two days. It was awesome to see him since it’s been a year since the last time. As usual, he is a man of few words, but then again is a 19 year old dude. He’s going back to school this fall — even better.

–We went to the park of my childhood, followed by a treat at A&W and a trip to the library where I had a very positive NIP experience. Who says’ Neillsville, WI is backwater?

–Visited my Dad’s longtime friend La Vere and his wife Mary – they own a farm and have begun selling pork products. They were great and gave us a little tour of the farm. I can’t believe how massive pigs get. I was also surprised to learn that they can have litters every 4 months, and how fast they grow. However, the part that sort of creeped me out was when we were in the area where pigs go for a while before being slaughtered. Athena did a little screech and all the pigs stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at her. It was silent for almost 10 seconds at tens of little piggy eyes checked her out. LaVere said “Oh pigs are so inquisitive.” I have heard that pigs are intelligent, but I don’t think I ever really realized what extent until now. They also seemed incredibly friendly. That said, we still bought a bunch of Dells Dam pork products on our way out. Helping out local farmers, y’all. I’ll try to bury that intelligent animal thing in some dark recess of my mind.

–Andrew’s Mom Lori stopped by for a visit and had dinner with us last night. She brought me a first aid kit for the car (fantastic! I only had a little dollar bin kit in there) and a crafting book. Though I haven’t crafted in a while, I still like collecting them and look forward to the day when I can do a little more. Morella referred to Lori as the “nice Mommy” later in the night (as opposed to her sister, mother of her two little girl friends who lives next door for the time being). Lori is one my favorite people in Wisconsin.

–Morella watched her second full length movie — Ponyo (which I had gotten from Netflix). I wonder if she is getting to the age now where she can and wants to watch full length movies. Hm. She really enjoyed it though.

–Athena stood independently for a second or two for the first time this weekend. Now she keeps doing it whenever she has a chance to pull herself up on something. I just love how proud she is when she does it. She is such a fearless ham. (uh oh, there we go with the pork references already)

Okay, this post is taking forever to write, my neck is killing me and I wanted to take a shower before bedtime. Hanging out in the woods is some dirty work. There is a lot to do tomorrow — for one we are meeting the dog tomorrow before the adoption is finalized. The dog is a beagle and lab mix, so it has some short legs. That in mind I came up with the following two possible names: Falcor and Bilbo. (I discarded Frodo because that is used just too much). We are leaning towards Falcor because that is what Morella likes best.

Today was an awesome summer day. It started with Morella walking into our room to wake us up. It’s uncanny how Athena can go from zonked to sitting up and bright eyed the second flutter of her eyes upon waking, which she always does when Morella walks in. I decided that I wanted to go out for breakfast since our opportunities to do so without big crowds was fast ending. We decided on Lazy Jane’s. I then took a shower with the door closed! Got the girls dressed in adorable summer dresses and headed to Lazy Jane’s for delicious gravy and biscuits with eggs, a raspberry scone and wonderfully rich coffee. They have an excellent kid’s section upstairs so Morella played while we lingered over our brunch and Athena screeched happily between mouthfuls of sausage and orange.

Afterward, we headed out to revisit a garage sale I had been to yesterday. The woman (whom my friend described as Queen Carnie — she runs all the midway carnivals in town) said she would have oodles of girl clothes the next day, along with several princess dress up things. Sadly, when I arrived she had nothing extra and was gone. Her Mom was there today though and it’s quite obvious that she is a hoarder (the daughter also said it yesterday when her Mother was not around). I wonder if the Mom showed up and made things hard for the daughter to add to the sale, or if the daughter was just overwhelmed by a last minute garage sale. In any case, there was nothing new. So I decided to go Happy Bambino to get some more diaper liners for Athena. Athena had fallen asleep on the way to the repeat sale and stayed that way. I stopped at another yard sale on the way to the store and scored a Little People zoo and train set, with all the animals, food and people for only $5.00. It’s great because I got a Little People barn last week for $2 and a the complete first run of Noah’s Ark animals and people for $3, add that to the Ark that Morella got from her grandparents and you are looking at a great collection. Morella spent all afternoon and evening playing with it when she was in the house. Her favorite game is “Where’s Mommy?” loosely based off of Piglet and Momma by Margaret Wild. A little animal will wander around aimless calling out “Mommy! Mommy! Where are you?”

Eventually I made it to Happy Bambino where Athena and Tim stayed in the car while I ran in with Morella. “ran” is a strong word…I got my liners and while looking around for the resale diaper items Morella told me she had to use the bathroom. I dropped my liners off at the counter and took her back, passing a room with a bunch of merchandise. I got a closer look when we were finished with the restroom and saw it was a big clearance sale going on. I found four handmade soaps for $1.70 each, and something I didn’t really need but really wanted — a pouch type sling. It was 50% off … so cheap! The bjorn is awesome, and Ergo is actually a little harder to use in the side carry position than I would like it to be, so I thought that a pouch sling would be lightweight, easier to carry in the diaper bag, and cover up unsightly bulges better than the Bjorn or Ergo (both of which accentuate how fat if you are). Later on when I got home I realized that I had bought a small/medium. Nuts! I quickly went back to see if I could exchange it for a bigger size, but saw that they were out and that was it. They had slings like the maya wrap — but I didn’t want to deal with that — I wanted a pouch type sling. I decided to just add a panel myself and make it bigger. I cut out the material this afternoon and cut the carrier — I plan on sewing it after I am done with this post.

We spent the afternoon playing in the back yard in the little blow up pool. The pool that seems to attract earwigs and holes. I covered one hole with some packaging tape and that seemed to work fine. It’s not like the pool is filled with a ton of water anyway. Just enough for the girls to get wet and play. Around 3 they crashed out. I went to Hyvee to get Morella some more of her milk and stuff for dinner since it was too hot to cook. I stopped at Ace afterward to buy some pink paint for Morella’s new night table ($2) and step up foot stool ($3) that we got for the bathroom. While I was there I got one of those plastic pools for the backyard. It’ll just be easier to care for than the blow up one. I am going to take that with us to Dad’s with a pack of electric tape. I don’t imagine it will survive the trip back home, but it will give us something to do while we are there! I never see hard plastic pools at garage sales. I wonder why….

When I got back I saw that our friend Matt had already come over to help with the taking down, lifting over a fence and reassembling of a playset that our single, childfree new backyard neighbor gave us. The playset was installed about 3 years ago and is in pretty good condition. It will just need to be sealed and painted. In the meantime, I took off the big kid swings and put in the two bucket seats I have acquired (the blue one was free from my friend Emily and the red one was $3 at a thrift sale). I have imagined so many fun things that we are going to do with it over the years and look forward to seeing what sorts of adventures the girls will think of. I think I need to make some cookies to go around as thanks!

The kids got up late and I feed them a cold dinner. We went outside and watched Morella be super excited about the set and Athena be thrilled about more pulling up to standing. We made some margarita’s, moved the party inside and the girls stayed up past 9:00! I just had to document this day. This great day we had while Tim had a month off between jobs when our babies were still babies enjoying the beginning of summer together as a family. My little, awesome, fabulous, great family.

We are so blessed.

Oh and here is a photo of the roses that bloomed in the front by the entrance.

PS. Tim turned on the air conditioning, so my sultry summer day has ended. Sure the AC is nice, but I like a little stifling heat, especially after those long cold winters.

I need it. I feel like I have so many half projects floating around and running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. Tim’s time is fast finishing. I just realized today that it’s the 9th. The NINTH!

Thursday: Tim is gone all day at a new company sponsored Brewers game. It’ll be good for him to meet and get to know his new coworkers in a relaxed environment like this. Really, you couldn’t ask for a better start.

Friday – Free and clear so far.
Saturday – Waterfront Marquette Water Festival. Tim’s old man drinking night (In lieu of Hilary’s really awesome boat 30th birthday party. Okay, I’m lame, but I just can’t figure out doing it with Neeners without someone (namely everyone involved but me) suffering. It’s in Milwaukee so I don’t know how I could do it while nursing. Athena always wakes up between 11-12 to nurse and it’s one of her biggest nursing sessions of the day. It’s the 4:00 feeding that I could probably drop, but that doesn’t do me any good.)
Sunday – Dogfest then driving to my Dad’s for a couple of days.
Monday – Driving from my Dad’s to my Mom’s for her birthday.
Tuesday – Dad’s
Wednesday – Dad’s
Thursday – Dad’s and then driving home.
Friday –
Saturday – 1st Birthday party in Appleton
Sunday –
Monday – Tim’s first day back at work. Out the door from 7 until 6 now, Monday through Friday until the end of time.

Sigh. In other news, I have a new baby sitter. The con is that she’s in high school and it’s only a summer gig, so I will have to find someone new again in the fall. Who knows maybe I won’t need one then…though as Hilary once said “If offered time, always take it.” So I might. Life with the girls has gotten a ton easier since they are older. You know in the whole scope of things though, they are still little.

Okay. It’s like almost 6:30 and we haven’t eaten dinner. Our whole schedule is thrown off right now by an hour or two. Oh Tim bought his electric assist bike today. Morella will only wear princess dresses. I took Athena’s 10 month photo, but still need to figure out which one to take. She is crying in almost all of them — I hope all this fuss is because she is working on a tooth. It would be nice. I should do a nice update for her too. I ordered her birthday invitations today. Oh so let that be said…

Save the Date for Neener’s 1st Birthday party
Saturday, August 7th – afternoon

It’ll be awesome.

Maybe I wouldn’t so bummed about time running out so fast if so much of it wasn’t spent at my Dad’s just sitting around doing nothing. I’m too much of a Mom right now to sit around and do nothing with two little kids, who like to have things to do. Plus, my dad is depressed a good part of the time, the only toys are the ones that we bring and they aren’t at an age where they can explore the woods or do other things like that without constant supervision. Heck, climbing up the stairs to the attic requires a close hand. Then I gotta think of all the meals i have to prepare with a bare pantry — so that is extra planning on what to bring/cook and possibly what pans to bring. Complain complain complain. I know. It’s selfish of me, but I really wish that Barb were still there (even though she was unhappy). Having a woman on the premises makes things so much easier — for me. I have a billion things I could do at home, but you know I won’t always have a billion moments to hang out at my Dad’s, so yeah. I’m sure it will be worth it, right?

I am having a terrible time editing this post in explorer…I’ll have to come back to it. It doesn’t help that Athena is crying her head off. But here are some pictures

My name is Ash the mash I have no cash
But to play with a rag that’s my bag
With hair so long, you just can’t go wrong
With looks like mine, it’s a crime
Pooping in the dark is an art
And spinning my wheels like a cart
My legs are long and lean
And by looking at me – you know what I mean
I snort like a bull, run like a deer
And take on all comers with no fear.
And so cheer on and on my friend,
With my good looks there just no end.

.

.

.

Type written note on yellowed paper found in the suitcase. Cinnamon Ashley was my grandmother’s little white dog that lived for 17 years. The “ode” is written by my father.

Having Tim home has been pretty awesome. It’s sad that the second week is almost over but on the other hand, I am happy that there are two more weeks of it. Today I took the girls with me to the Mom’s club monthly meeting, where I have been elected treasurer. It’s a role I don’t really want but a part of me things “Just do it, it’ll be good for you.” It was a pretty low key meeting as only the board members showed up. We brainstormed a bit on how to make the meetings more exciting to attend. I find that kind of funny considering that I rarely go to meetings prior to being elected. Morella spent a good portion of it standing off to the side watching the older kids play and eating a ring pop. However, by the end of it she was running around chasing and being chased. Meanwhile, Neeners sat in the middle of it all and rubbed her feet back and forth furiously and happily shrieking. After the meeting I packed the kids up and headed to Hyvee to buy Morella’s weekly milk. Usually we have lunch — today was a pulled pork sandwich and corn bread type side and a small side of fruit. It was good and I didn’t have to cook. We left for home afterward as Athena desperately needed a nap. So did Morella for that matter, but she never took one.

We did make her lay down for awhile to be quiet and hopefully asleep. During that time I snuck off and picked up Lowen to do some garage sales. We hit about 12 of them and got great tip on a huge neighborhood sale starting tomorrow. Sadly, Lowen has to work, but I don’t! In fact, I am going to leave the kids at home and go to these sales by myself. I felt sort of guilty about this for about a 1/2 an hour before I thought “Screw it, it’s one of my favorite things to do, and when else am I going to hit such a rummage jackpot kidless?” I had a great time shopping Lowen — she’s a born natural, and I got some great stuff. A bunch of 2-3T underwear and socks for 10 cents each, great quality 3T clothes for Morella next year, at least six pairs of quality tights — something both girls will be wearing by next year until they are four. One of the big benefits to having girls so close in age, I think. I am fairly certain that Athena will pretty much be Morella’s size by next year.

I won’t bore you with details on all my great finds…but I will say this. It’s so easy to be so generous by finding things for friends and family when you can do it garage sailing. In fact, just this week I finally sent my Mom a box of clothes I had gotten for a steal that she received on Tuesday. My Mom never buys clothes and wears everything until they are rags. She is always so happy to get clothes from me. I try to keep an eye out for stuff for my brothers too since they are big and tall, as well as friends of mine who I know can’t get the time to really rummage. It’s a win win, I tell you.

For the last three nights, thanks to menufortheweek.com — Tim has made dinner. Delicious dinners. It’s been so awesome to not have to cook for three whole days in a row. I have managed to find time to make Morella pair of Hochunk style moccasins and even bead them (not yet finished). I am having such a wonderful time making them and watching movies and TV. I feel a little like my old self is starting to return. We are making great headway on the house, and even put in a front garden with flowers and tomatoes. We still need to put in bricks to make a border, but that will happen. Our front rose bush has sprouted an incredible amount of deep red flowers. This is the most flowers that it has ever produced! Maybe it’s a sign that things are going well in this house.

We looked at and thought about buying a car — a Mazda 5. While the price was good, I just couldn’t stomach buying a new car when we expressly didn’t need on yet. Instead, Tim and I thought more about how he can ride bike to work at his new job. He took a test drive today and it took him 1 hour 6 minutes to get there, and 1 hour and 15 minutes coming back. We do plan on him getting an electric assist bike, so that should shave about 10 minutes off, I hope. Our hope, is that by the time snow falls on the ground and he can’t ride that we’ll have figured out some carpooling option. We have a friend (Laima) that works in Verona, so we are thinking of asking her if she would be interested in carpooling once a week. Or maybe one of Tim’s new coworkers lives downtown and would be interested in carpooling…We are going to wait and see. If anything, we’ll have saved a bunch of money for a great downpayment if we do buy one.

Hold on — Morella is crying. — It was a bad dream. I used the moment to retrieve the moccassin I was working on beading. I had forgotten it in her room when I showed Karen it this evening.

Karen’s last week is next week. I’m sad that she is going to be leaving us (though still being our neighbor). She was offered a full time nanny position for the summer. I can’t beat that! The three other leads I possibly had haven’t panned out so now I am thinking I will have to actually place an advertisement on the University job boards and hire someone. Boo. I am not sure when I’ll do it. I entertained the idea of just letting it go — but what would that serve? Tim is going to be away from the house even more, I’ll need that little extra help more than ever. I think I’ll place an ad soon so that I can interview the people without kids. Maybe. I don’t know. I just feel like I might be doing this all over again come Fall when whoever I find goes back to school. I wish I had a friend who had two kids, who was willing to swap hours with me (Sarah). That would just be so much easier. I’ll have to think on this some more. I don’t want to pay the price for sittercity when the UW is free.

Well, I have a bunch of pictures i am going to post sometime. It’s hard to be motivated to write when you are so busy with life…but at the same time I don’t want to forget this awesome summer I am having. The battery on this laptop is going faster that it used to. I know, use the Ipad, but I have a hard time typing long things on it. Okay. I have an old leather suitcase with pictures, a few letters and other random things I got from the old shed at my grandmother’s when I there last week that I want to go through. There is yet another new tenant that my brother is letting live in the house that he was given when my grandmother died. He trashes it, lets someone else move in and they fix it up and then he kicks them out, trashes it…rinse and repeat. I have let this stuff sit in the shed for over 7 years. That is plenty long enough for me to claim rights.