One Month Later

How can a month have gone by since my last post? This raises the question of whether, in the name of habit-building and accountability and whatnot, I should just post what we had for dinner or breakfast every day, or whether I should just take a picture of the same thing and post that. Man oh man have I been slacking.

I have an excuse, but it's a super boring one. I have been working like mad. Jim got a job, also, which means that the awesome epicurious dinners have come to an abrupt halt. Crap! I mean, Yea! His job is rather far away. So there is a new routine being built, of who drops off whom and when, and who picks up whom (and then the other whom) and when, and what will be prepared for dinner, except, oh, I needed to buy that before I prepare it, I guess, and then who will WORK TILL ELEVEN EVERY NIGHT?! Why yes, I am a mite touchy on the overwork issue.

But of course many great things have been happening. Naomi loves Kindergarten. I already blew my capslock allotment on that last paragraph, or of course I would have typed that Naomi LOVES kindergarten. She really does. She is so into it I feel like I am doing her a favor every day, taking her there. And this delights me up and down, except for occasionally when I am tired and hungry at the end of the day and she is there, digging in the dirt with some fifth grader at the after school program, and begging me if she can just stay a little longer. Ug.

We have already been to one ice cream social, which I bet you a hundred dollars both girls will remember for the rest of their lives, just because it was crowded with jovial people and there was ice cream with m-n-ms to put on top and they ran around willy nilly with their friends and hunted around for teachers Naomi knew so they could all shout hello. Tomorrow I'm going to a principal's coffee, whatever that means, and I've also received an email about getting involved with the planning and execution of the Harvest Dance (which I have to admit sounds pretty rad). So yeah, basically our whole family has joined a cult. Your tax dollars at work!

The weather has turned, from...enh... to eh. I mean, now it's gray and rainy. We're all reconciled. Whatever. There's something comforting about knowing that all hope is lost. In the weather sense. We are coming up on the fifth anniversary of our move here, so that has got to have some bearing on my reaction. Another sunny day or two (or, let's be honest, 14) might result in us getting another three or four cherry tomatoes from our sad little garden. I don't have high hopes, let's just say. And again, that's OK.

Speaking of the back yard, as we kind of were, there is a rodent living in our shed. This goes beyond blech and straight to horror movie, because I have seen the thing and though it is not quite as large as those creatures in the fire swamp, it is not exactly going to be winning the lead in any adorable children's books. Jim tried a medieval skewering trap of some kind, which the beast laughed right off. Last night our vanquisher set up something like a tray of super power sticky stuff, the idea being that the rodent gets trapped in the stuff. So large is our rodent, though, that even though he is stuck in the sticky stuff, the tray of sticky stuff is not where Jim left it. So, ugh ugh ugh, the thing is clomping around the shed with one giant foot. I have no idea what is going to happen next with the rodent. It can't leave through its little shed exit with that big thing on its foot, right? Pretty soon, someone is going to have to go in there and have a giant rodent showdown. Volunteers?

Muriel is finally getting the hang of preschool. She has really bumped the coloring and letter tracing up a notch. Seriously, though, she is always on her game in the cuteness department. She has a trademark wave she gives to anyone who makes eye contact. I don't think it's fair to all of you to go on and on about how cute Muriel is. Just take my word for it.

So tired. Not working any more tonight... But some day soon we will have some kind of family experience, and photograph it, and things will get back to normal with this so called blog. Till then, good night friends!