summertime

So, my google reader is down to a mere 125 posts! Woohoo! Progress!

Think I should change that goofy Easter picture up there? Well, I'd love to, but my camera cable is STILL MISSING, and I'm very, very unhappy about that!

We are settling into summer here. It's hot. Hottie hot hot. Temperatures in the 90's. Heat index was 105 yesterday. This is why we don't take 3 months off in the summer. Summers are *miserable* here. We are winding down our school year though. Kain will be done next week. Maria will too, mostly, though she'll still have some Latin to finish up. After the 4th, I will begin my Big Summertime Project...purging, painting, and organizing the schoolroom. It is in REALLY tragic need of an overhaul. I already bought the paint. On an impulse. I'm not happy with the colors. But it's too late, because I can't think what else to do with the paint I bought and I can't really think of what colors I really want to use, which is why I bought these colors to begin with...lemon grass and fern green. It hurts just to type them. We'll see how it turns out. It is a big tall room with a vaulted ceiling, so my plan is to paint one color on the top third of the walls and another on the bottom 2/3rds. And then run our timeline between the two colors. Oh well...anything has to be better than what is on there now,,,dirty white.

We are switched over, officially, to our summer schedule, which means I'm letting the big kids sleep in later. The littles and I are going outside as soon as we get up and fed in the morning. In fact, I'm heading right out when I'm done with this post. It's the only time I can stand to be outside, and somebody has to water the weeds taking over the vegetable garden.

Seriously, every spring I get all giddy with the garden thing. I love getting outdoors when it starts to warm up, and I can't wait until the last frost date passes so I can get out and start planting. And then I remember...I hate to sweat. I hate the heat. Hate. So June roles around, and I start avoiding the garden. So, I'm trying getting out first thing in the morning this year. So far, it's helping. It's like the procrastination center in my brain is still in bed or something. Which makes sense. It's still tired from putting off bedtime last night.

We have yellow squash growing in the garden for the first time this year. I would take PICTURES for you if I could UPLOAD them onto the COMPUTER, but I CAN'T. The yellow squash is a winner though. Big and bold, huge yellow flowers that magically morph into slender squash. The kids are fascinated. John was also very surprised to learn that the vegetables form from the actual flowers. He never knew this! City boy.... We have already harvested a small crop of beans, and we have a few green tomatoes out there too. My peppers are doing very well, which is exciting, because I managed to kill them for the last two years. There's no peppers on there yet though.

In other summer news, we are grilling out on the weekends when John is off work, and since parish religion classes are done for the summer, the kids get to stay up late on Saturday night and catch fireflies (classes were early Sunday mornings). I'd take PICTURES for you if I could....well, you know.

We are going to the pool a couple of times a week, and the library for summer reading program activities a couple of times a week. We've been to the lake and hope to get back at least a couple more times before summer's end. And the kids are waiting anxiously for VBS. We *love* us some VBS. This year they are doing it in the evenings instead of during the day. Is that weird? I've never seen that before. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's going to run until 8:30, which is pretty late for my gang...three of my four are usually in bed by then. They are hoping that having it in the evenings will allow more people to attend, people who have to work and can't get their kids there during the day. Which is nice I guess, except I don't know if it'll make much of a difference. From my own "working parent with small children" days, I can say that I never would have had my child out that late on an evening that we had to get up and go to daycare/work the next day. And it's only going to be three days instead of five this year. So...I guess we'll see. Nobody asked my opinion, and we would go whenever they had it, because my kids love love love VBS.

Ok, well, that's all the summer ramblings I have for now. I'm headed out to weed the forsythia bushes. I always catch up on the front yard first, for the neighbors' sake. My forsythia bushes are a new addition. We just added them this spring. I'd show you the PICTURES if I could...well, you know.