Summer Day 39: Doldrums Time

We have had a slew of days in which nothing at all has been going on.  We have all been slightly under the weather from either a mild cold or from a new pollen that has had everyone blowing their nose and Ben and Chandler complaining of sore throats.  We seem to be bouncing back after our long weekend at home.

It's time to start doing things to the house. I am waiting for a second estimate from a guy who came Saturday and waiting today for a third guy to show up to assess to give us his estimate.  After the roof, repaint, after that, flooring.  In there somewhere, replacing faucets, hanging interior doors and laying new shower tile.  And adding insulation.

I have been writing, 13 pages so far, which is not much, but 100% more than I had a week ago.  Chan is still working on the artwork, I have had a few new ideas to add to what we are doing.  I get SO bogged down in the details.  If I introduce a new character, I feel like their whole back story needs to be shared right then so their place in the overall story makes sense.  So I have all these character sheets where I am working up how families connect and how people know each other and where they live and so on.  I need that information, I am not sure if it's from being a kid and driving through where my grandparents lived and my grandmother pointing at every single house and farm and explaining how we were related to every person in the town or if it's just a hang-up from not knowing ANYONE in the town I live in now and needing to create a community somehow.  I am alone almost all of the time.

I got the kids re-registered with our cover school and Jake and I worked on his transcripts and Chan picked out what electives she wants to work on this year for her transcripts.  2 in high school and Jake graduates next spring and Ben starts 9th next year and I will have to start keeping transcripts for him.  I am AMAZED how fast it's all going.  I spent most of the week freaked out that I was failing them all and quizzing them non stop, which they graciously put up with since it's been my MO for over a decade now.  The only thing I can actually see being an issue is that Chan does NOT like math and Jake has some trouble writing a serious essay.  I have her going with a different math approach this summer to see if that helps and Jake has been working on his writing nearly every day.  Ben is working through a book I got that covers many things high schoolers struggle/are unfamiliar with but still need to know, we are all sitting down an hour every few days and going through a cultural literacy book together.  I have decided that Alabama literature taught in high school and college totally skipped anyone not white.  I know all of the names and references unless it's a black writer other than Maya Angelou, Alice Walker or Langston Hughes, and those I read on my own.

I have been working on the August trip, I think I have procured actual housing for us with a local family and the events are falling into place.

Matt used his points to get me a new camera so we can both use our older cameras with dive bags instead of buying 2 new underwater cameras.  This will save us around $500.  It does not have all the same features as my older camera but it does have a better zoom and it shoots square format, which I love.  Underwater cameras with anything over a 3x zoom cost well over $300 each, even ones with less features than a child-level point and shoot are more than a decent Canon point and shoot.  By using dive bags with camera housing (around $40 each) we can retain all the features on our 'land' cameras and by using our older cameras in the bags, if the bag fails, we will still have our newer cameras.  It's not perfect, but there's no money for expensive electronics that we will use a handful of times each year.  There is a 10% fail rate on the underwater cameras and the housing.  I'd rather brick a $100 point and shoot than a $400 dedicated underwater camera.

Look at all that fur, that's why I don't let her on the bed, little stinky shedder.

This week is looking forlorn.  My birthday is Wednesday, we have made no plans at all.  Matt did not want to celebrate his 40th, so I guess we don't get to celebrate my 39th.  For the first time in my life, I don't really care if anyone bothers to make a fuss. We have an appointment Friday to get haircuts and Suzette wants Emily home early, so we won't even get to hang out and do anything afterward. I had planned to get some photos of them with their new haircuts while we were still in the city.  That bums me out, since it's our only planned day out all week and suddenly it's set to someone else's schedule. They had to change when they could see Zachary's play from Saturday afternoon to Friday night for some reason.

That's it, I am working on some school stuff, writing, getting together a few ideas for the house, working our budget like crazy, exercising as much as I can and trying to get Ben to mow his section of the yard without the drama this time.  So while it's been a long stretch of nothing much with even more nothing in the forecast, it's still busy enough around here.