Three things — 8/25/11

Tags

birdseed, construction, cucumbers, milk, pat cuneo, porch, school, sugar, summer, vinegar, yoga

Three things I’m loving this week

1. Summer evenings on the porch. Happiness is sitting on the porch on a warm summer night chatting with Dan while the kids are in bed, the stars are out and a thousand insects provide the background music for a perfect evening.

2. Fresh cukes in milk, sugar & vinegar. Sounds gross, I know, but I love to cut up fresh cukes and toss them in a bowl with some vinegar, sugar and milk. They’re sweet and tangy and they stay crunchy.

3. Lunchtime yoga. Behrend offers yoga and pilates for faculty and staff at 12:15 twice a week for 45 minutes. How awesome is that? I always wanted to take a yoga or pilates class, but just couldn’t squeeze it into my day. A lunch-hour class just a 2-minute walk away makes it a whole lot easier. Namaste.

BONUS: Awesome ex bosses. My old boss Sheila sent this lovely dish planter to my office with the sweetest “Happy Birthday/Congrats on the New Job” note. So thoughtful of her to remember my big one is coming up.

 

Three things I’m not loving this week

1. Piggish birds. Kelly built a birdfeeder from a kit her grandmother gave her. She begged me to buy some birdseed to put in it. On the advice of former coworker, Pat Cuneo, I filled it with high quality black sunflower seed because he said it would attract the “good” colorful birds.  It does, like moths to a flame. Those pretty birds can empty that feeder in a 1/2 day. Not sure if I can hold up my end of that financial deal this winter.

2. Five closed roads. They’re putting in water lines or drainage pipes or something in our area and every day they close another road I used to use to go around them. At this point, five — count ’em — five of the roads I use to get around are closed.

PICK A ROAD and work on it. They’re like my kids with toys in every single room and not playing with any of them… just going through the house making a mess all over the dang place.

3. Last week of summer vacation. I’m dreading the start of another school year because it brings the morning rush with no more sleeping in until 6 a.m. for me. It also brings homework, school store, remembering who has gym or library on which days, backpacks to clean out, papers to keep straight, permission forms to sign and return and socks in the laundry again (no sandals allowed at school). Blech.

Husband tries on my shoes this week

Tags

clean house, kids, summer, vacation

My husband is on vacation all this week with the kids…by himself.

He was too busy trying to finish up the construction job at Gannon University this summer to take vacation on the weeks I was off and this, the last week the girls are on summer break, was the first chance he had to take time off.

You may think I’m upset about this, but I truly cannot wipe the smirk off my face.

Seriously. I just dropped a piece of my lunch salad into my lap because I was eating while I typed that & smiled so wide that food fell out (which is gross, but, hey, I’m in an office of my own now so I don’t have to worry about eating like a lady anymore. Booyah!).

I suspect this is going to be an eye-opening and exhausting week for my husband. And, sick as it is, I’m really going to enjoy this (tee, hee, hee).

Welcome to my life, man.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my kids and I love taking them to do fun stuff and I use 98 percent of my vacation time on them, but vacations with kids aren’t exactly relaxing. They’re a lot of work — breaking up fights, feeding them all the time, keeping them entertained, packing up food to go wherever we’re off too, etc.

He’s got a plan.

It started with taking them to Cook Forest to meet up with the rest of his family who were camping there this weekend. They were only staying one night and will be home by dinnertime tonight, but it left me with all day yesterday to be home alone.

Now, that’s a vacation.

But, of course, like I do with any vacation, I worked my butt off. I ran a 10K, did every single bit of laundry in the house, paid bills, caught up on miscellaneous housework and cleaned the joint from top to bottom.

Likely, it’s all in vain because as soon as they come home today, there will be piles of laundry, flip-flops tossed at every door, Kool-Aid spilled on the kitchen floor and toys strewn throughout the house.

I’ll have to remind Dan that part of his job as a SAHD this week is to keep the house clean and put a hot meal on the table at night.

This is going to be fun. 😉

I could get used to having a “manny.”