I'm Baaackkk

Well, maybe I am.

At least I'm here for now. What have we been up to this summer? Too many things to write about right now. I really got out of my good routines over the summer. We had so many things going on, family visiting, and little mini-vacations (a couple that were spontaneous, which was nice). The weather has been so strange, too. We had temps in the 90s in June and so far August has been way cooler than normal. We've had so much rain this summer that it has been hard to keep up with the yard and I just let a lot of my flower beds practically go to the weeds.

Andrew turned 20, so we're back to only one teenager in the house again. Thomas has worked much less overtime as the bad economy finally touched his job. But that means he's been home on the weekends, so we've been taking advantage of that -- see the mini-vacation line above! He just almost changed jobs because he saw a bad trend happening at work, but at the last minute changed his mind. And we're glad he did. There are some changes coming where he works, but we don't now believe they are going to affect him adversely. In any event, he'll ride it out and then we'll go from there.

I got back into following FlyLady this past month. I'm so glad I did. I really needed her fussing at me to get me to get my routines set up again so things will go smoothly when classes start full-time for Eler Beth next week. Also I've been doing a lot of writing -- just not here! --, and having everything organized has made it much easier to write regularly. I have two manuscripts sent off to a published-author acquaintance of mine for critiquing, and I'm very happy to finally have them finished to my satisfaction. Now we'll just see what we'll see, as my Mom would say.

And speaking of my Mom, I spent the day with her on Saturday while Thomas and Eler Beth took my nephew and his wife and son fishing all day. My Mom is 85 and she just about wore me out just from watching her on Saturday. When we got there she made everyone breakfast, which included sausage-gravy and home made biscuits. Then before anyone else could get to them she started doing the dishes. Then she was snapping beans, making cherry preserves, sorting through some pictures and scrapbook items, and more. Then she finished by making dinner, of course. The whole time I was there she was busy with something. (I didn't just sit there idle, while she was busy, so please don't think I did! lol) My sister Barbara said that the day before Mom had started cleaning off the back porch and then washing down the siding on the front of the house from the front porch, up as high as she could reach. If Barbara hadn't come along when she did, Mom probably would have gotten out a ladder and finished it up! Well, maybe not, but we just never know with that one! I asked her about that and told her she had no business doing that kind of cleaning outside (quaking in my shoes as I was saying it, of course!), and she told me that the siding was dirty and needed the dead bugs washed off it, so she DID have business doing it too! And so I shut up.

She does have days when she's tired and just "does nothing much", or so she says, but I have an idea that even on those days she does more than most of us do!

So, anyway, I've had a busy summer and I hope to write here a bit more as things get into a good routine again. I have lots of ideas for entries, if I would just write them!

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer months, or getting settled back into the school routine. Please take care, and I'll try to drop by soon.