I am borrowing the title of this post from other bloggers. It seems to be appropriate for this post. I have been a bad blogger the last week. Our summer has had an interesting start and we have yet to hit our stride. I have been spending days gardening, working on couponing deals and getting organized. We are hosting a Thrill of the Grill House Party for Oscar Mayer, a larger family garage sale and are getting ready for upcoming vacation. Life is good but busy!!!!!!
Closets are being cleaned out, hot spots de-cluttered and the back yard is getting whipped back into shape. Steve and the kids have been working this week on cleaning out and setting up our pool for the summer. Rumor has it summer is on it's way but I am a tad skeptical at this point. I do love that the pool is ready to go should it really come.
It would seem that I owe an apology to our local bird population. It was suspected that birds were eating up our garden when in reality we have a snail and slug infestation like nothing I have ever seen. All along our northern property line across the fence is a field of ivy. Slugs in particular love ivy. Yay us. They ate all 16 of my pickling cucumber plants and 14 out of 18 pepper plants. They also ate just about every green bean plant that came up. I couldn't believe it. We have never had a problem before. We tried some organic options but in the end had to settle with slug bait. Almost three dozen slugs and one HUGE snail later we seem to have the problem under control. I have begun re-planting and so far, so good. Now if only the sun could come every now and then and we would be golden.
Our kids finished up their first round of homeschool testing for the state since we started home educating. I am relieved to report that they are learning, thriving even. All of you teachers out there understand when I say you never know how much they are retaining. You hope for it but the proof is in the pudding. Even two of mine who struggled big time with math when they came home both scored above grade level in that subject. What a relief!
Already I feel that summer break is getting away from me. I am trying to find a way to slow down and enjoy the season.The rest of the year I am focused on schooling, feeding and cleaning. During the summer its feeding, buying school supplies and gardening for food. As busy and hard work as it is I still love it. It can be frustrating, mind numbing and hard but it is also enjoyable and rewarding and I cannot imagine having it any other way.
On that note I think the dishwasher needs to be run. Happy Wednesday!
I pray, think and plan, decompress or sort things out. Add to that the benefit of money saved and less wear on the clothing and linens and you have worthwhile summer chore. I can do this for only 3-4 months a year where we live and I look forward to it every year. I suppose it might lose it's luster if I could do it all year round. But this way, it is something different from the norm, something simple and something very enjoyable.
I run out of clothespins by the time I get to the socks so the deck works just as well. I do go out and flip them to dry the other side at some point. You would think there wouldn't be so many socks to wash in the summer but we are in the Pacific Northwest and with seven people, well, you do the math. That's a lot of socks no matter what time of year it is.
