Settling in to Summer

This has been our first full week with no school. Big Girl's last day was Wednesday of last week, and with preparing for a guest and the triathlon over the weekend, I was way too busy to even think about what we'd do with our empty summer days.

So far I think we're doing great. Tuesdays will be our pool days, I think. We went on Tuesday this week, took our lunches there for a pool picnic, and it was great. Mondays will be grocery shopping days. We did that this week, and I told the girls that if they were good at the grocery store (I gave a specific description of what "good" meant to me), then we'd do something fun when we came home. They met my expectations, and earned a game time when we came home, after everything was put away. I've decided this is a good way to get help with putting the groceries away. Those little girls were so ready for a game, they'd have done just about anything to get me finished so I'd come play!

Thursdays are piano lesson days. This means we go over to my mom & dad's house so my mom can teach Big Girl her piano lesson. This is what we have done today. During the lesson time, I took Little Girl outside to play on the new swing that Dad put up recently. It's a very nice swing, supported by long chains hanging from a very sturdy tree branch. It was fun.

Mom and Dad's place is just up the road from where my middle school and high school band director now works, so I stopped by for a little while after the lesson was over since I saw his truck out in the parking lot of the school. This has been the sum total of our relationship in the many years since I graduated. I see his truck, so I stop in and say hi. I have always been welcomed with a big smile and a hearty chuckle. While I was there, the choir director came in too, so I got to meet him. The more contacts I can make in the middle school choir world right now, the better... It may not help, but it certainly can't hurt.

Our usual pattern is to go to Chick-fil-a on Wednesday evenings for dinner, and so far we're sticking with that. We don't really have agenda items for the daytime on Wednesdays or Fridays, so those will be my laundry days, or project days. I have several projects I'm working on, and as I finish them, I'll share pictures and such. I just am not ready to blog about them yet.

This is going to be a good summer, even if my girls do fight over who gets to mix the pretend cupcakes. (That was yesterday's tragedy... I don't see why pretend batter can't be mixed twice, but then I'm not 4 or 6 years old.)

For some strange reason I have a Rush song in my head today. "Stick it Out," which we have on Different Stages. The riff is catchy. I think that song came on my iPod recently or something. I can't think of why I'd be listening to that in any other context... (The video I linked is concert footage, and the song doesn't start for a minute after the video starts.) For a three-piece band, they make an amazing sound. It doesn't hurt that all three of them are virtuosos on their instruments. They definitely don't sound like anyone else.