Scoreboard

So, here's what went down in July.

Son: summer soccer (in 100+ degrees).
Me: teaching.
Daughter: gymanstics team training (in Y gym with 2 AC units out).
Me: more teaching.
Son: nature camp with university biology folks.
Me: catching a defiant plagiarist.
Daughter: Made the top level for swim lessons. Learned to do a flip turn.
Me: did actually bike to work for a week.
Hubby: stayed up late gaming.
Son: claymation camp, followed by invention camp. Made elaborate roller coasters and video of a bank robbery.
Me: wore flip flops to all classes after the first week. Bought farmer's market produce from students.
Son: came home from "outdoor adventure camp" with heat exhaustion. Cried.
Daughter: began the Harry Potter series.
Son: saw the seventh film, three times. Cost us a fortune.
Me: more teaching. And an entire two seasons of Damages. (Yes, I unplugged but not from my beloved Netflix, which was the only thing that got me through summer school.)
Hubby: stayed up late gaming.
Me: learned to make GF bread from scratch. Learned the secret to enjoying baking is to stay on Atkins, where I have lost 20 pounds. Baking is now a lot more fun.
Daughter: Made this discovery: "Wait. So that's where I came from?!"
Son: Began a Yugio collection and formed a duelling club. Had a "Platform 9 3/4 party" to celebrate being 9 3/4 years old. Harry Potter robes worn by all (except one creative Sirius Black who had a face-painted beard and a dog nose). Many killing curses hurled around the yard, in between Quidditch and Potions class. Restroom renamed The Room of Requirement.
Daughter: learned how to put a ring sprinkler on her head and chase everyone at said party. Then filled the birdbath, colored it with green food coloring left over from Potions class, and everyone stuck their faces in the "Pensieve." Sirius Black went home with green eyebrows.
Hubby: Ran Potions class and a Quidditch match, and then stayed up late gaming.
Me: Hurt my wrist playing Scrabble on my Kindle.

Wonder what August will bring? Hard to top that!

Back in Biz

Hi all! Hope your Julys were fun/productive. I hoped to be back blogging a week ago but instead went on a writing retreat to a friend's cabin on the far, far side of Missouri, with no internet connection. So my "unplugged" extended an extra week, and just as well! I am now 25K words into my YA dystopian novel. (Pause for self-congratulations here.)

In case you're wondering/jealous, here is how the writing retreat(s) work. I team up with a colleague from work who also likes to write, mostly academically. We go about once a year. The last time we took an entire week and drove to her sister's cabin on the far, far side of Missouri was over two years ago, and I spent it editing my academic book (bleuch!). If we "only" have a 3-day weekend, we instead rent a cabin much closer (but still in Missouri, because it's purdy).

We split the meal plans, and shop for extravagant foodstuffs. We go for a walk every day that weather permits. We get straight to our respective work right after breakfast, break for lunch, and then continue to work until 6pm. Then, we have a glass of wine, compare notes about our day's work/frustrations, make a gourmet feast, and settle in for a movie. My favorite movie of this trip was re-watching Whale Rider, in case you were wondering.

On the way there and back we passed Mansfield, the later life home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, about whom I wrote earlier. We resisted going to visit, because my mother is visiting from the Antipodes later this year, and I would like to see the Ingalls houses for the first time with her and my daughter. Daughter has become entranced by the experience of reading Little House with me this month, and I have the TV pilot for the series awaiting the end of the first book.

I look forward to reading your blogs over the next day or two, and resuming the writing and parenting business as usual!

99 Bottles of Pop on the Wall...

Our annual vacation spawned the following variations of "Bingo" (yellow cars, excluding trucks, buses and motorcycles):

Bing... no. Translation: it doesn't count if I can see for myself the car isn't yellow after all.

Fingo. Translation: fake bingo, or: that car looked yellow, and totally had me fooled. But it's white. Or tan.

Chingo. Translation: you are a cheater. I had that one first.

Squingo. Translation: squirrel!

Gringo. Translation: green car. Just to change it up a bit, and make my parents turn both ways to see who overheard me.

**
And, for the remainder of the month of July we are fun-electronics free. Translation: I don't get my Netflix, facebook, or blogs. Hubby doesn't get online gaming. Kids have no xbox, nintendo, wii, dvds (except the magic instructions one), or tv. So, dear readers, I'm signing off temporarily. See you August 1. I will be sure to back up and read your blogs for these next 3 weeks after I'm back.

Happy writing, all!

Well No, But She Was Tired

Son was invited to the skating rink after drama camp. Next day, I told Son he was missed.

Me: You know, your sister cried for ages after you left for skating last night.
Son: For how long?
Me: Fifteen minutes or so.
Son: Well, but that's not her record.

Last week was the busiest of the summer, and although it was all "fun" (or, you know, income earning), I'm glad to see the back of it. We had:

1. first week of hubby's summer class (at 8am, no less)
2. first week of mine
3. only week of Son's British soccer camp, every morning
4. first week of swim classes which only Daughter got to attend (see previous entry)
5. first of two weeks of afternoon drama camp
6. first week of summer soccer league (two practices and a game, all on week nights of course)
7. doctor's appointment for scout camp physicals (early in the blasted morning, due to 3 and 4 above)
8. a scout hike
9. gymnastics*
   
   *I felt like a cruel parent taking Daughter from drama camp to make her weekly gymnastics appointment. It was a tough decision to have her in summer gym at all, but she has physical therapy needs and gym serves them. It was a tougher decision to take her from one busy activity into another (change of clothes and all), but since drama camp is two weeks long I decided she should not miss two weeks in a row (being therapy, and all) and took her. And there were: two kids, two teachers, and the entire 5,000 sq foot gymnasium for them to work in. It's not often I go from "awful mother" to "vindicated mother" so quickly, but it's the one time all week I could have cried about our schedule, for the right reasons!