FOR TODAY Thursday, July 15, 2010

Outside my window… it’s slightly cloudy, and not nearly as hot as it has been.  Yesterday’s rain has cooled things off considerably.  Annie even complained of being cold this morning.   Everything is damp and muddy and most likely, I won’t have to water the garden today.

I am thinking…about packing for vacation!  We’ll be heading out to the beach on Saturday and we’re all very much looking forward to it.   This will be Cutie’s first time seeing the ocean.  But first I have tons of packing to do.  It’s no easy feat packing for 6 people–especially when one of them is a baby.   I’m trying to figure out a way to squeeze our oversized playpen in the car since the beach house isn’t babyproof.

I am thankful for… cooler weather!  It’s been so hot lately, and even though we do have air conditioners, we try to not turn them on unless we absolutely have to, and even with them on, my kitchen is always sweltering hot.  So yesterday and today have given us some wonderful relief.

From the kitchen… I’m going to make some refrigerator pickles today with the pickling cukes I picked from our garden the other day.  I also have a fairly large zucchini that I need to do something with–maybe I’ll make some zucchini bread to take on vacation?

I am wearing… khaki cropped pants and an orange tank top.  I’ve acutally been trying to dress a bit nicer lately.  A friend got me hooked on http://chicisimo.com.  It’s fun to see the different outfits people wear, and come up with new and different things out of my own closet.

I am creating… lesson plans!  I have most of our school stuff now, though I still need to get a few more things.  I really love this time of year–planning and dreaming up projects and lessons and books to read…it’s so exhilarating!

I am going… to buy some new sneakers for Cutie either tonight or tomorrow.  She is finally walking, so it’s time to get some shoes on her, especially since we’re going to be out and about the next several days.

I am reading… The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope.  I’m really enjoying it so far–it’s a pre-read for  Annie, and I think she’ll really like it as well.  I’ll probably bring the next Sookie Stackhouse novel with me to the beach–you’ve got to have a nice fluffy book for the beach!

I am hoping… to clear some space on my shelves soon to make room for new school stuff.

I am hearing… Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Wii game.

One of my favorite things… writing lesson plans–cause I’m a geek like that.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Get all the laundry done, get everyone packed…and head to the beach!

Here is picture for thought I am sharing…

A sweet picture I took of Annie--stopping to smell the roses.

It’s not that I don’t have  anything to blog about, there’s plenty going on.  I guess I just get too busy this time of year.  That seems ridiculous.  How could I be busier in the summer than during the school year?  I think I try to take advantage of less school and throw myself into projects–the garden, cleaning/reorganizing the house…I forget sometimes I even have a blog.

So what have we been up to?

Annie went to Jazzercise camp last week and preformed “Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” for their Jazzercise Idol.  She did an amazing job, especially considering that just a few years ago she was so painfully shy that she couldn’t talk in front of people–now she can get on stage and sing and dance!

We finished up scouts for the year–the twins are now going to be Bear cubs and Annie is a Cadette.   They don’t meet much in the summer, so we can just relax until the fall.  Rob is going to be taking over the Bears next year, so he needs the break!

Cutie has been doing weekly therapy, and it seems to be going well.  She’s still not walking more than a step or two here and there, and still no words, though she is babbling like crazy.  She also does this really cute thing where if she sees a flower or you say the word flower she’ll do her fake sneeze–basically she’ll just say, “ah ah ah ah ah!”  Very cute.  We saw a butterfly yesterday and she did her fake sneeze–apparently butterflies are very similar to flowers.

I’ve been on a mission to get the house in order before we start school in the fall.  I really want to redo the kitchen, but there are no funds for a full on makeover.  So I’m hoping to at least paint.  And I can definitely declutter!  I’ve already purged the arts and crafts bins and moved all of them to a large cabinet that was full of junk.  It felt good to get that mess taken care of.  I’d also like to repaint the living room, but that would require Rob to take down all the shelving he’s built on the walls, and I don’t think he’s up for that.

I’ve been doing lots of reading–so far this summer, I’ve read:

The Book of William: How Shakespeare’s First Folio Conquered the World by Paul Collins

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis (this was a read aloud)

The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

Q & A by Vikus Swarup

Prairie Tale: A Memoir by Melissa Gilbert

Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance by Sarah Poole

I went to the Used Book Superstore a few weeks ago when they were having their big kids book sale (all kids books for 69 cents!!!) and I got a ton of great stuff.  I managed to get 4 Prentice Hall Science books for Annie.  We now have middle school science covered for at least 2 years.  I have a 50% off coupon I need to use so I’m hoping to find the rest of the books we need for Sonlight Core 1+2 and 6.   I got the IG’s and about 70% of the books so far.

Our garden is doing pretty well–we’ve got several tomatoes, cukes and zucchini come in, and everything else seems to be growing nicely, except for the strawberries–I don’t know what went wrong there, but after the initial 7 or 8 berries we got, the plants just stopped growing fruit.  Maybe they’ll do better next year.   I’m hoping we can make some homemade pickles this year–we messed it up last year because we waited to long and the cukes were over ripe.  I’m hoping this year goes better.  We love pickles here and the kids are really excited to try making their own.

And that’s been our summer so far!  We’re looking forward to going to the beach in a couple of weeks, as well as the zoo, and next month my father will be in town for a visit, and we’re going to go to the Dinosaur State Park in CT.   And of course just lots of relaxing, reading, soaking up some sun, running through sprinklers, and hopefully some swimming (I’m planning to teach the kids how to swim this summer).

I hope everyone has a great summer!  I’ll try to blog more often, promise!