The dog days of summer have set in. I never complained about the nice, cool, wet spring we had because I was saving my complaining for the face-meltingly hot summer I knew was coming. This is when I believe in global warming. And it's just warming up, so to speak. At least it's a DRY heat (ha ha. A little Utah humor there. But seriously, at least it IS dry. I spent many summers in the North and the humidity just about kills a body.)
The kids spend much of their days at the pool keeping cool and getting sunburned. Their sunburns turn into tans, which Husband and I think is really unusual because he and I have fair skin that only burns and peels. Child Four had a tan 3 seconds after she stepped into the sun, it seemed. Where did that come from? When I was younger and we took vacations in California, I did get severely burnt a couple times, but never did it turn into a tan. All my friends back at home in the North would say, "You just spent two weeks in California and you're not tanned??" I am still glow-in-the-dark to this day. Of course, I don't spend a lot of time sunbathing or swimming. I could fix the swimming part but trying on bathing suits is simply too depressing.
Speaking of hating to try on swimming suits, I rowed 2300 meters on Monday morning, early. It took me 20 minutes because I was taking it nice and easy. The new rowing machine is great. Even after all these years my body remembered the rhythm of pulling the port-side oar -- the stretch in your back, the little dip of the handle, the controlled glide back up the slide. I imagined being in the water, the birds crying, the sound of the little waves slapping against the side of the boat, the creak of the oarlock. It was so nice.
And then, three minutes later, the first child showed up. Two minutes after that, another. Then another. You get the picture. I reminded myself that a good workout means you can still carry on a conversation, which is what I was fated to do for the next 17 minutes. Oldest Child was kind enough to take Child Six for a walk in his stroller, which he absolutely loves to do, so at least I wasn't listening to him scream with rage about being relegated to his new playpen.
After about ten minutes I also remembered the burning sensation in my muscles, the raspy feeling in my lungs, the heat in my face.
I still loved it.
I fixed the vacuum cleaner.
I mention it because I am so proud to have accomplished it, although, in the end, it wasn't a hard thing to do. I usually save those kinds of things for Husband to do as I have such strong faith in his ability to fix anything or find a solution to any problem. He is extemely clever like that. But this time he wasn't here and the vacuum wouldn't suck. The kids, of course, did what they were supposed to do and didn't care that all the little bits were just falling back out of the vacuum when they turned it off. That really bothered me, so I had a little look-see and found that someone had vacuumed up a sock, which was balled up and wedged in the hose. Of course it wasn't within reach of either end.
Never throw away wire hangers. You don't have to use them for clothes, but just don't throw them away. They solve so many problems. I used one as a hook to carefully and slowly pull the sock out. It took a while, but now the vacuum cleaner sucks again. It's strange that I felt so good about such a little thing.
Husband is down to the last two weeks of teaching his class. Soon those sixth graders will graduate to become seventh graders and he will hope that he did everything possible to prepare them for the rigors of junior high. (Let's all release a collective shudder at the memories of those years.) Then he has three weeks off, although one week will be spent in the school preparing for the new class.
Husband has decided to take an Extended Contract, which means that he will teach two different tracks at the same time. His is a year-round school with four different tracks of students. (We're in Utah; we have too many kids in these buildings to teach them all at once.) So next year he will have to keep track of which group of kids has learned what and make sure they are all taught all the things they need, which will take massive organizational skills and lots of work on curriculum. Plus, he's moving down to fifth grade, so he can't rely on the lessons he used for his last classes. He will get paid more but will be really busy. What teacher isn't busy, I wonder? There's always work to do.
We decided to take our first official family vacation during his first week off and rent a cabin. It's a reasonable price and far enough away to feel like a vacation. The kids are soooo excited. We decided to stay for four nights and five days. I'm looking forward to it.
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