Moi?

Oh, what? You think I'm supposed to be blogging?
I was under the impression I was supposed to be outside.

That's where I've been.
Outside.

All of the time.

So, if you need me... that's where I'll be... out.

My cell phone will be inside - let's face it, probably on silent, God only knows where. I'll be sweaty (hello humidity!) and happy and having fun with my munchkins or completely ignoring them while I search for fossilized sharks' teeth on the beach. I found 47 on our last trip. Yes, 47.

Pardon me, I have to go. The beach beckons.

Feeling Hot Hot Hot!

Man, we are good at summer around here. Other states might be good at winter with all of their snow and fires crackling in the fireplaces and whatnot, but man, when it comes to summer: we win.

The kids and I wore ourselves out at the pool yesterday. We spent the morning getting lunch packed and suits on and getting out the door. C went to swim lessons (and had a blast) and I was "that mom" who pretended to be sixteen and took off my coverup and lounged in the sunshine reading my book. It was glorious. Other moms sweltered in the heat and humidity chasing their kids and trying to find shade and all that jazz. I decided to embrace it and it was pretty heavenly. A book, a bathing suit, a ton of sun screen, a drink. I got half an hour all to myself to just lounge by the pool. Hmmm... maybe C needs more swim lessons...

After lessons we picked up N and headed back out to the pool. One of my bff's (Megan) and her kiddos met us there and we picnicked and played for hours. Hours!

When we got home Nils walked straight into his room, closed his door, and went to sleep (that guy) while C and I snuggled into my bed to chat and giggle. An hour later I woke up to find C and I had dozed off as well. Heaven.

We ate popsicles for snack. Homemade chicken nuggets for dinner while we watched The Parent Trap (Lindsey Lohan version - love it). Then we had to all spend time pretending a lizard had climbed in our mouths (Nils' idea). Bedtime and books.

Today, let's do it again. And we need to go to the grocery store... because tomorrow we're going to visit our friends who (wait for it...) run summer camp! Woo!

Yeah, we know how to do summer.

Scenes of Summer

It feels like it's been summer around here for quite some time. Is it not the middle of July? Huh... weird. I could have sworn it was. I'm thrilled that it isn't as we are having a great time. Going to Disney World and then the beach twice really threw us into summer mode around here, and things are going swimmingly. It seems everywhere I turn there are things that make me smile. Sure, the house is a mess (which I'm swimming upstream trying to clean it), but at least the mess is largely due to people having fun and using their creativity. We've watched little to no tv as we have all been have been too busy reading and playing and painting and creating and imagining. Ah, bliss.

I love when the tv is off. I'm convinced my children are far better behaved when they are getting out energy and creativity rather than zoning out in front of a screen. So, behavior around here has been pretty great lately too.

I can't remember the last time we ate dinner in the kitchen. Why would we when we can eat outside on our deck? A tablecloth, a "summer time" meal, dessert most nights, and candles that get promptly blown out by the wind, yes, we love eating on the deck. The lizards scamper around and we dream about what our deck dweller rabbit might be up to. And then we walk back inside carrying all of our plates and utensils, toss them into the sink, and clean up is nearly finished!



Bathing suits have been constantly drying in showers and laundry room. Watermelon is staining our clothing. A pile of "to be tie-dyed" has started in the kitchen.

Summer is in full swing around here and it's pretty darn swell.

Super Weekend (see what I did there... like Super Bowl but who cares about football)

Universal Law of Motherhood: when a child wakes a mother up before her alarm goes off that mother gets to drink one extra cup of coffee per twenty minutes of lost sleep.

That means today I'm looking at two extra cups.

We went to a birthday party at Build-A-Bear this weekend and Carolena may have had one of the best days of her life. It was right up her alley and she immediately announced that she too will have a Build-A-Bear birthday... you know... a million months from now when it's actually her birthday.

So, I spent yesterday morning creating a nap mat, skirt, and dress for her new Build-A-Bear puppy.
And sitting at the kitchen table with my new book (Illustration School: Let's Draw Cute Animals). I'm addicted. I wonder if they have some sort of anonymous group for being addicted to such a thing.

Yesterday I heard the magical words, "Enjoy the quiet house!" as Chris and the kids hopped out to go check on his new fish at work. I, very wisely, spent the time with my new drawing book and Mr. Toad. A sequel not written by the author of the first book is certainly open to some skepticism... but wow... Mr. Horwood did it. The Willows in Winter is fabulous. A keeper for sure.

AND Carolena and I had a "just the girls" outing yesterday. Lunch at Chick-Fil-A (her choice) and a trip to the mall. C got two dresses and a cute pair of Converse which came with a handshake that she would learn to tie them. She kept her part of the deal and worked on it when we got home... but teaching a lefty to tie her shoes evidently confounds me and we might have to bring in an expert for shoe tying lessons (*ahem*UncleTrent!*ahem). After shoes and dresses we hit up Claire's. Ohh yeahhh. At one point C screeched in happiness, "I found a locket!!! Just like in Annie. I didn't know these were real! I thought it was just in Annie!"

So now she owns a $7 locket.

I finally managed to hang out with one of my very favorite people (we rarely get to see one another due to schedules). We got casually dressed up (as in nice shoes with jeans) and went out to eat. Mom heaven. Well, except for when she told me her family's quest to move into the country has finally come to fruition and they'll be moving before next school year. An hour and a half away. At the time I was caught up in her excitement (and still am), but it hit me when I got home and I cried. My very best friend in Katy is moving. I think this is an okay time for an "oh shit" except that I am so insanely happy for her that if it fell through I would be sad and disappointed. Plus, now I will be able to go visit her cool farm house and her future chickens and such. Life was awesome back when she and I used to be able to hang out several times a week though.

Last night I fell asleep in front of the fire (it's okay, Chris was awake as it was like 740) and am starting the day with those two extra cups o'joe on the horizon thanks to Nils. So, yeah, I'd say today looks promising.

Ah ha ha ha Stayin' Alive Stayin' Alive

Hey, Blog. I'm alive. I'm kind of sick of my blog and Facebook. Perhaps for no other reason than my grouchy Svendsen gene. I AM related to Ed the Red after all. I don't know. To quote my cousin as a child, "One dalmatian. A hundred dalmatians. Dog. Dog. Dog. I don't know."

After going to the writer's conference recently, and signging up Carolena for ballet ($$$$$) I'm trying to spend my writing time in a more productive manner and sending off to publications. Yes, really. I'm just stumbling around though. I have no real direction or purpose. Maybe that will come someday. Really, I have a degree in theology and should be writing in that capacity... but that's intimidating. Rejection in the theological ring sounds painful. For now, getting rejected from a woman's magazine sounds far less hurtful. Plus, they pay a dollar a word and that sounds like one story would cover ballet. Damn, two would practically cover vacation.

I'm not in a funk or a bad mood. I'm just sick of the summer. *gasp*  say it ain't so! There will come a point in the year when my friends in places farther north are sick of the winter. They'll be ready to go outside and play. That's where we are. I'm ready to be outside again and not sweaty on every single inch of my body. Just getting kids in and out of the car makes us all soaked. I'm ready for fall. You know, fall, when it's still hot but the humidity has dropped just enough for us to sit outside with coffee and not put ice in it.

Last year Kelly told me that it was time for her eldest to either start Kindergarten or find work as a hired hand on a whaling ship. I realize we're talking Pre-K here... but I'm beginning to see what she was talking about. C is sick of summer too. We've exhausted the fun. Too much fun is no longer fun. Plus our friends the Double H's are here: HOT and HUMID. The pool is luke-warm. The splashpad is shooting out lava. C is antsy. She's ready for school to start again. Hell, had it been up to her, we never would have stopped for summer.

We've still got a sizeable chunk of summer in our house as kids don't go back until after Labor Day. So, I've got to think... what would Mr. Toad do...? "Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing!" Perhaps we need another adventure.

Simpy Symphonic

I found out yesterday morning that the Houston Symphony's summer series would play in Katy that same evening. And you know what I love about Chris? That I mentioned it to him and his response was, "have fun!"

He's not a "you're going tonight tonight?!" kind of husband. He's not a "you're leaving me home alone with the kids and I have to get them bathed and in bed by myself?!" kind of dad. He's not even a "who are you going with?" kind of guy. He's a "have a great time! Wish I could go too!" keeper of a dude. Those time when he is a whiner (sorry Chris) it's usually because he wants to go too and not because he wants to hold me back. I digress... the point is...

I went!

None of my friends were free, but I didn't really anticipate that anyone would respond to a 10am text inviting them to a symphony performance that night. But something about going to my first Weight Watcher's meeting was empowering in an "I do what I want" kind of way (yeah, like I needed more of that side to my personality). Or perhaps that's why I went to ww in the first place? Whatever, I feel a little like Mole lately, "The Mole never heard a word he was saying. Absorbed in the new life he was entering upon, intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, the scents and the sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a paw in the water and dreamed long waking dreams." When I hear of something I want to do, I want to do it! So I do! And it's made life grand.

The Houston Symphony was ten minutes from my house. It was free. It was calling to me. So I threw on a summery outfit, tossed a good book in my purse, and headed out. I got there nice and early and grabbed a seat front row center.

I'm convinced that this is in fact not prime seating for the symphony, but figured, what the hell. When else will I ever get the chance to sit front center to view the Houston Symphony?!

It was fabulous of course. Beautiful. Powerful. Symphonic. During a Q&A with the conductor I learned that when a seat comes open in the Houston Symphony they entertain around 200 auditions. 200! for one seat! There are 89 members (most of them were there last night) and evidently, the words "symphony," "philharmonic," and "orchestra" are all synonyms. The conductor said that the three are interchangeable and assigned to a group by the founders. Good to know!

Well, "see the Houston Symphony perform" wasn't on my 2015 to-do list, but it should have been. Best summer ever continues and it's only June 10th! Wednesday, what adventures will you bring?

“after all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.”

When it's fall, fall is my favorite season. When it's "winter," "winter" is my favorite (it gets quotation marks because... well... Texas) but, man oh man, when summer comes...

 

There's just something about summer. I think it's because I live in a southern state on the coast that just makes it so darn easy to celebrate summer. I love the fall, but its hard to do fall-like things everyday when you're still wearing short sleeves and sweating buckets. In fact, just read that sentence again and substitute the word "winter" in for fall. Spring is fun... but mainly as a precursor to the jubilant summer. In fact, right now it technically still is spring... but we're calling it summer. We start the summer season early and stretch it out for as long as possible because we've got a lot of hot and sweaty months to spend along the waterfronts down here.

As mentioned and mentioned and mentioned, we kicked off summer '15 with one of my favorite vacations ever. We came back home and immediately went into my "rule" of doing something fun and summer-y every single day. So, we got a new kid pool (last year's cracked) and put up a clothes line for hanging wet clothes and towels. Carolena really wants to start hanging all of our clothes on it from the washing machine. I could totally dig that if it weren't going to be more work for me... but I mean... I'm barely keeping Mount Everest at bay here. Perhaps I'll throw the sheets out there sometimes. That does sound wonderful.

The pool has been thoroughly inaugurated through both a party with Carolena's school friends (a smashing success except for the moment when I realized there were sugar ants in the cupcakes. Did I mention the friends with "cake ladies" were there?) and a family impromptu water fight last night. Taco dinner is postponed to tonight and peanut butter sandwiches were consumed yesterday as we spent all of dinner time waging a water war in our backyard.

I told Chris and Carolena that I want our house to stay clean all summer so that any time we ever want to invite friends over we can. So far so good. The goal is to have people over on a whim any time we feel like it. I see that Tuesday is Donald Duck's birthday and Thursday is Kamehameha Day (luau anyone?) and Sunday is National Bourbon Day and Strawberry Shortcake Day so it looks like we have a lot to celebrate just this week alone.

I plan for us to spend the summer with iced teas and mint juleps and lemonade and popsicles and cookouts and the bubble machine and good books and good friends and our back deck and the splash pad and the ymca and the beach and well... you get the picture. Join me if you're interested.

“This day was the first of many similar ones for the emancipated Mole, each of them longer and full of interest as the ripening summer moved onward. He learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of running water; and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the wind went whispering so constantly among them.” The Wind in the Willows