Where We Were

Just about every time I've sat down to work on the blog this week, I've started out with "So...Where were we...?". It's summertime and I'm feeling scattered. John's teaching, the kids have a couple of hours of scheduled activities every week and I've got some commitments to keep--it's not that we have no schedule, it's that the schedule changes so frequently, I feel busy all the time and I want bedtime to be at 7:30 just like during the school year. 8 o'clock then. OK, OK 9. What are you kids still doing awake at 10:25? I can't quite bring myself to take off my watch and dive headfirst into summer, but it's clear it has swallowed us whole.So, where were we?

Much of the last 2 weeks has been unseasonably, record-settingly sunny and warm. Mid-70s at the coast (some 10 degrees above average for the season) and well into the 80s at our place barely inland. Acclimated as we are to very small variations in temperature (high-40s in the dead of winter, high-60s in the height of summer), this is sweltering. Especially when our power went out over the weekend and it was just too hot and sticky and stuffy to do anything but seek relief at the beach. Our bedrooms, without the fans we've usually got running on warm days, were unbearable even after nightfall so we camped out--to the children's immense delight--in our playroom downstairs.Every time we go to the beach, the kids act like tourists who have heard tell of a wonderland of waves and driftwood and seashells and crab carcasses and dead birds and sand but who did not believe that such a (sandy) paradise could truly exist. It's the most incredible, fun place they have ever been--even when we go twice in one week. These children of mine are easy to please. I'm grateful for the way they remind me to be open to the adventure and awe of it all.
Then they bicker all the way home from the beach, there's sand tracked all over the car and into the house, wet, sandy clothes need to be washed, I listen to the news on the radio while I make dinner: the mood can change so quickly.Thank goodness I took my camera. More on flickr, of course.