It's Officially Summer Break - Just Not For Me (and ten other random facts)

Fact #1: I'm sick. It started about a week ago and then got bad over the weekend. I have a sore throat and cough, my eyes are watering like crazy, and I have fluid in my ears. It feels wrong to be sick like this when summer is upon us. I feel like I should be eating soup, but it's too hot for soup.

Fact #2: The kids are out of school, and I am not. I've done this before, but it's harder this time. I'm taking more classes than I have in the past, and my kids are older and more demanding (namely the two-year-old who insists on being held all day. I do most of my computer work with one hand while holding Eva's legs with the other so she can't kick the keyboard).

 

{School work}

Fact #3: I'm hoping that the aforementioned two-year-old will start taking some decent afternoon naps at home now that I don't have to pick the older kids up from school every day. Eva has had to live her life "on the go," and it has really messed up her sleep.

Fact #4: Scotty started a new job last week. I made him stand on the porch for a "first day" photo, just like I do for the kids. He wasn't exactly thrilled, but he is a good sport.  

Fact #5: The new job brought some changes. For one, Scotty has to wear suits every day. That's a big step up from his previous ward robe of collared sports team shirts that he gets for free. We had to buy a new car (Scotty had been driving a work truck), and Scotty had to get a passport. 

Fact #6: On Sunday I met Durga. She's a friend from my blogging community of yesteryear. When I started blogging (in 2005!!!), the only people who really read blogs were other bloggers, so I had my little populace of people I connected with online. I've had the chance to meet some in person, and there are some I'm still in touch with on social media whom I've never met. Durga lives in Australia, but she is in the U.S. on "holiday," and she happened to be close by, so I crashed the house where she was having dinner. 

I wish I could have sat across from her for hours and listened to her talk (that accent!) but it was a quick, ten-minute hello, and then off we went. I was on my way home from a weekend trip out of town, and I was sick, tired, and sunburned. I didn't want to pass up the chance to meet an old friend from across the ocean, though. 

Fact #7: Meeting people like that used to terrify me, but now it's become an exciting part of my norm. I still get a little nervous when I meet someone, but it's always a good experience. Now that I'm in school online, I have relationships with class mates that I've never met, and the day will soon come where I will get to meet a few of them. 

Fact #8: The hard part is when you have a great "online" relationship with someone, and when you meet in person, you crash and burn. That has happened, too!

Fact #9: Last week I found a loft bed on clearance at Sam's Club, and without thinking, I bought it for Zoe. It was the display, and it needed some repairs, but I knew Scotty was up to the task. What I didn't know was that they weren't going to take it apart for us. So when we came back that night to pick it up, they brought it out fully assembled (but they only put the bolts in half-way) and lifted it into our trailer with a forklift.

Luckily, Scotty had brought some tie downs or we never would have gotten the thing home. We drove twenty minutes on back roads to get it home. It takes up half the bedroom. Things appear smaller in a warehouse than they do in a tiny bedroom. 

Fact #10: Speaking of van experiences, this was our parking spot at a swimming pool over the weekend. 

Scotty climbed in and out of the passenger side, and he opted to leave the dumpster lid open to avoid having someone come open it and slam the lids on the van.