Suuuummer Time...
...and the living is eeeeeasy...
Though completely stuffed full of things to do and people to see and things to make and paintings to sell and consultations to fulfill. And it's good. I've also started The New Rules of Lifting for Women by Lou Schuler that sophiap recommended for me, and it's made for some really amazing workouts.
We're swimming nearly every day in the neighborhood pool, and the heat's been averaging in the low-90's, but today it was in the 70's and raining so hard it nearly put out the fireworks stand fireworks we were using at our neighbor's party. We also had a friend from Callahan's days (Johanna) show up at our doorstep and they're staying for the night before going to a family reunion.
It's busy like usual. *laughs* The party was the annual neighborhood party, but unusually, we actually got rain for the weekend. I remember in Seattle when the summer never really started until the 4th of July, here summer's been in full swing since May, and it's the middle of Jet's summer vacation. We're about halfway done, and it feels like the summer is halfway done. So for us to have an all-day rain fest is just unusual.
Friday was doing a really fun job for my consulting, then lunch, then play with Jet and swim so we wouldn't go nuts, and then go to Castle Rock, an hour and a half south and a little west of us to meet up with a friend of John's from his high school youth group, who also had the leader of that youth group coming to visit as well. It was amazing and fun and a little crazy. Everyone talked and talked and talked and we had dinner together and a short tour of the town and then drove the hour home again. Jet read most of the way there and back and it was intriguing to find that now that he has a pile of books from the library that he's interested in that he's just willing to read and read as much as he can get the time for.
Saturday we did Home Depot for the first Saturday project, Target to get contacts and other things, the Farmer's Market, and then the fireworks stand to pick a basket of Goodies that we brought to the party today. Then John, Jet, and I went to the Rec Center, after lunch, and as we were pulling in, an ambulance with two police escorts and a fire engine behind it all pulled out, sirens wailing, lights flashing and all that. Turned out something dire had happened in the swimming area, and they'd shut down all the swimming. We'd been planning on having Jet swim in the pool while John and I worked the weight room.
I've been doing the workout A at home, but the B workout really needed bar bells, not just buckets of water for weights the way I'd been doing it. So I was going to try out the weight room for the first time. And it was intimidating, a little. Still... when John gently pushed me up the stairs and said that he'd play with Jet and that I should at least look around, I put all my stuff away in a locker, went up to the weight room and just started doing the workout. With weights that were heavy enough I *still* ache today, in good ways. *laughs*
Took me about half an hour to work hard enough it took a little effort to get safely down the stairs. *laughs*
The boys took me home, I showered, and then got ready for the read-along for the Y!Gallery folks, and spent until 8 pm on the conference call. It went well, but, being the introvert that I am, the sheer interaction exhausted me entirely. Dinner called, and my boys, and we did what we planned to do, and then I put Jet to bed at the right time, and eventually got to bed myself.
Today started early 'cause I had to make coffee and John had his usual lovely homemade waffles and bacon. Yum...bacon. Creaked into church, made the necessary coffee, and then just sat and finished the lastest Dresden Files book, Changes. The title pretty much says it all and the fact that it's not a pun at all seems to reflect the fact that the content is rather different than in the other books. There are a lot of changes in this one, and it feels like all the things that Harry dodged before are coming back and hitting him hard. I dunno if I like that, but... it was amazingly well written, and the usual hundred miles a minute pacing. I love that about all of Butcher's books.
Then home, and waiting for the visitor and John smoked a mess of spareribs and made a coleslaw with cilantro and lime. Then we all headed to the party and ate while the sky darkened. Right at about 7, the skies just opened up an poured. The lightning outshone the fireworks for the longest time and the thunder boomed louder than any shell.
I went home about then, and putzed around a little, and then at about 8:30, I went back with coats for the boys, a coat on myself, and my Zippo lighter.
The Zippo proved very, very useful in the wind and the rain, as the chimney's MADE to keep the fire going even in the rain. So it lit and stayed lit for long enough to finally get the sparklers to light. It took a very long time, but once a sparkler's lit the others can be lit from it, and we had boxes and boxes of the things. We also lit tanks, a little spinning panda, the usual ground flowers, and a few fountains and cones that we had that were pretty bright and very loud.
When all those were done, it was 9:30 and we waited a little while and thought the town fireworks were canceled as the rain was coming down even harder.
As we were walking back home, the boom-THUD of really big shells started sounding, and Jet and the visiting boy and I raced upstairs to see what we could see. A tree was in the way of seeing all the fireworks, but we could see enough. So we stood there for nearly half an hour, watching the shells bloom and explode above and through a tree. *laughs* It was lovely, and the finale was a cloud of light! Beautiful, really.
Everyone's now asleep, and I'm pretty tired, too, but good. Content... I think. Though, perhaps it's just the sound of the rain. I missed that...
Though completely stuffed full of things to do and people to see and things to make and paintings to sell and consultations to fulfill. And it's good. I've also started The New Rules of Lifting for Women by Lou Schuler that sophiap recommended for me, and it's made for some really amazing workouts.
We're swimming nearly every day in the neighborhood pool, and the heat's been averaging in the low-90's, but today it was in the 70's and raining so hard it nearly put out the fireworks stand fireworks we were using at our neighbor's party. We also had a friend from Callahan's days (Johanna) show up at our doorstep and they're staying for the night before going to a family reunion.
It's busy like usual. *laughs* The party was the annual neighborhood party, but unusually, we actually got rain for the weekend. I remember in Seattle when the summer never really started until the 4th of July, here summer's been in full swing since May, and it's the middle of Jet's summer vacation. We're about halfway done, and it feels like the summer is halfway done. So for us to have an all-day rain fest is just unusual.
Friday was doing a really fun job for my consulting, then lunch, then play with Jet and swim so we wouldn't go nuts, and then go to Castle Rock, an hour and a half south and a little west of us to meet up with a friend of John's from his high school youth group, who also had the leader of that youth group coming to visit as well. It was amazing and fun and a little crazy. Everyone talked and talked and talked and we had dinner together and a short tour of the town and then drove the hour home again. Jet read most of the way there and back and it was intriguing to find that now that he has a pile of books from the library that he's interested in that he's just willing to read and read as much as he can get the time for.
Saturday we did Home Depot for the first Saturday project, Target to get contacts and other things, the Farmer's Market, and then the fireworks stand to pick a basket of Goodies that we brought to the party today. Then John, Jet, and I went to the Rec Center, after lunch, and as we were pulling in, an ambulance with two police escorts and a fire engine behind it all pulled out, sirens wailing, lights flashing and all that. Turned out something dire had happened in the swimming area, and they'd shut down all the swimming. We'd been planning on having Jet swim in the pool while John and I worked the weight room.
I've been doing the workout A at home, but the B workout really needed bar bells, not just buckets of water for weights the way I'd been doing it. So I was going to try out the weight room for the first time. And it was intimidating, a little. Still... when John gently pushed me up the stairs and said that he'd play with Jet and that I should at least look around, I put all my stuff away in a locker, went up to the weight room and just started doing the workout. With weights that were heavy enough I *still* ache today, in good ways. *laughs*
Took me about half an hour to work hard enough it took a little effort to get safely down the stairs. *laughs*
The boys took me home, I showered, and then got ready for the read-along for the Y!Gallery folks, and spent until 8 pm on the conference call. It went well, but, being the introvert that I am, the sheer interaction exhausted me entirely. Dinner called, and my boys, and we did what we planned to do, and then I put Jet to bed at the right time, and eventually got to bed myself.
Today started early 'cause I had to make coffee and John had his usual lovely homemade waffles and bacon. Yum...bacon. Creaked into church, made the necessary coffee, and then just sat and finished the lastest Dresden Files book, Changes. The title pretty much says it all and the fact that it's not a pun at all seems to reflect the fact that the content is rather different than in the other books. There are a lot of changes in this one, and it feels like all the things that Harry dodged before are coming back and hitting him hard. I dunno if I like that, but... it was amazingly well written, and the usual hundred miles a minute pacing. I love that about all of Butcher's books.
Then home, and waiting for the visitor and John smoked a mess of spareribs and made a coleslaw with cilantro and lime. Then we all headed to the party and ate while the sky darkened. Right at about 7, the skies just opened up an poured. The lightning outshone the fireworks for the longest time and the thunder boomed louder than any shell.
I went home about then, and putzed around a little, and then at about 8:30, I went back with coats for the boys, a coat on myself, and my Zippo lighter.
The Zippo proved very, very useful in the wind and the rain, as the chimney's MADE to keep the fire going even in the rain. So it lit and stayed lit for long enough to finally get the sparklers to light. It took a very long time, but once a sparkler's lit the others can be lit from it, and we had boxes and boxes of the things. We also lit tanks, a little spinning panda, the usual ground flowers, and a few fountains and cones that we had that were pretty bright and very loud.
When all those were done, it was 9:30 and we waited a little while and thought the town fireworks were canceled as the rain was coming down even harder.
As we were walking back home, the boom-THUD of really big shells started sounding, and Jet and the visiting boy and I raced upstairs to see what we could see. A tree was in the way of seeing all the fireworks, but we could see enough. So we stood there for nearly half an hour, watching the shells bloom and explode above and through a tree. *laughs* It was lovely, and the finale was a cloud of light! Beautiful, really.
Everyone's now asleep, and I'm pretty tired, too, but good. Content... I think. Though, perhaps it's just the sound of the rain. I missed that...