Goodbye, July

I only meant to take a short break. Really.

But we're back, blog world! Summer camp is winding down, school starts in a few weeks, I'm quite a bit grayer than when summer started...

I think future Bela, Mae, and Gill will forgive my silence here, though. Not to say they haven't done anything worthy of these pages (they have). Not to say nothing of import has happened in our lives (it has. Oh, it has). But this has been such a strange summer. I've been buried here in this new house and every once in awhile lift my head up and another month has flown by.

No berry picking. No jam making. No trips to the dunes. Hardly any public pools (not necessarily a bad thing). No play dates - not for them, not for me. The girls wake, go happily off to camp, I return home and jump in to house work, when and where I can.

Chris thinks I should start a home renovation blog, and call it "one nap at a time." Why didn't anyone grab my shoulders and give me a good shaking when I decided to buy this house that needed so much work? With two older girls and a little baby who (until last night) has woken me at least twice a night for the last 8 months?

Well, little by little we are making progress. We have hired our good friend to help us with the things we really shouldn't do ourselves: re-working the electric, re-positioning through-the-wall air-conditioners, tearing down walls. Little by little I'm learning to do new things: removing plaster, insulating, hard-wiring lights.

We finally found the batteries to our camera, so a tour is in order. Soon. But not now. We are still living in total chaos. Our kitchen will be up and running in about 10 days, my estimate. In the meantime, we are still camping out in the little in-law apartment located in our basement.

Breathe in. Take a look around. Breathe out.

Whew.

PS - our back yard is full of crap: construction debris, houseplants that don't have a home, boxes. But our front  yard, well... it's all set up for some slip and slide. Life is good!

July

Yesterday, I found myself thigh deep in a giant dumpster. A dumpster I ordered to have parked out front of my new house while we're working on tearing out old wallpaper, ripping out a few walls, clearing out an attic and a garage. But I digress. I was in it. IN it. Looking for refrigerator doors that were mistakenly thrown away. Doors I needed if I wanted Com Ed to recycle the nasty nasty refrigerator I dragged out of the pantry and parked in the back yard. Again. I digress. I was in the dumpster. I couldn't find the doors.

And I just had my 7 year old daughter poor me a glass of wine while we (the girls and I. Chris is on another business trip) sit in our  basement waiting for Gillian to cry it out and fall asleep. Bela. She poured me a glass of wine.

You know what this means.

I won't be writing in here for awhile. I have some things that need tending to. Like cat pee in the basement. 1,001 boxes to unpack. A sewing room to set up. Some shelves to paint.

See you in a couple of weeks. Maybe. Maybe I'll have some photos.