3 More Business Days Till I Get My Life Back!!!

It's 5:45 in the morning, I'm sitting up in bed chatting with my sweetie, who is busy getting dressed for work. I start telling him about our visit to the vet yesterday, a subject I think he'll find interesting, seeing as he's the reason we have all these dogs. He turns to me and says, with a huge grin, "Oh my god your life is boring! I'm really sorry!" and we both crack up because it is so damn true.

Ok, I'm sorry all you fabulous home-schooling mothers, who I have tremendous respect for. So before we go any further, let me just say that what you are doing is magnificent work, a wonderful use of your time and energy, and your children will be better for it.

Whew. Not that there's anything wrong with home schooling, but I WOULD LOSE MY MIND if I had to have these kids around me 24/7 for 52 weeks a year. I am totally the Staples ad, singing "It's the best time of the year," to myself each time I pick up another new folder or box of pencils. I CAN'T WAIT to shove their little behinds on to that bus and get back to my real life.

Ok, the puppies and bunnies have created a nice diversion. (Did I mention that said sweetie brought home ANOTHER PUPPY on Sunday? This one all the way from New Jersey?) Loved spending time with my whole family on vacation, especially the part where I got to read on the beach. But I am SO READY to move on to fall. Can't you see it in the ALL CAPS that I keep writing in?

Oh, and since I'm offending people with this post, I might as well fess up to another sin. It suddenly occurred to me the other day, while putting out cat food, that the cat might be pregnant. I know - I should know how these things work by now - but our focus was always on trying to get animals (including humans) pregnant, not trying to avoid it. Come to find out, via a quick visit to the vet, that I kind of blew it with the cat. Vet offered a solution, which I jumped at. Am I a horrible person? Which brings us back to where we started. You probably would be bored by the vet conversation too. But thanks for making the effort.

Mama, Can I Keep Them?

While attempting to sell one more puppy (move them out!) the nature aspect of our home got totally out of control. There were two puppies racing around the back and a couple more running up and down the stairs to the deck. Suddenly we hear this very strange noise.

"Go and check that out," my sweetie says to the 11-year old. She doesn't move. We hear the noise again, and it appears to be coming from the racing puppies. "No really, go and see what is going on," and he gives her a little push.

"Daddy?!" she cries and he goes rushing over.

"Get me some towels!" he says. I run into the basement and grab a bunch of dog towels, wondering what the heck I'm getting into. I run back out and discover that our sweet puppies have pulled some newborn rabbits out of their burrow and are carrying them around the yard.

I gently picked one up and cradled it in the towel. I've never seen such tiny things. There are two of them, eyes still shut, about 3 inches long each, with tiny little ears that are just starting to sprout. The kids come flying over to see them and ask the inevitable: "Mama, can I keep them? Please?!"

We searched around the yard and found a few more in the nest, which is across from the bulkhead door for our basement. We tucked the tiny sweeties back into their grassy beds and set up a portable dog pen around it to keep the puppies away. I've been taking little sneaky peaks into the nest each day. Today their eyes are open and a tiny foot kicked at me when I lifted the grass.

Down Time

I'm in a frenzy of unwashed laundry, trying to push it through the system before we leave on vacation tomorrow. I am finding that there are few things that I treasure more than those quiet moments on vacation with my family. Like the quiet when my honey and I have our reading lights on, going blind trying to read because we couldn't possibly sleep because it's so early, while the kids toss and turn and slowly go to sleep. Or the quiet hug that happens because one kid is cold with blue lips and the other two aren't ready to get out yet.

I'm trying to take it all in, because I know that when I blink it will be over. They'll be jumping in cars with their friends, moving into apartments and going to the beach with their own families. In the meantime, better wash me some more swimsuits.

And You Think You Have Pet Hair Issues!

It's at least 90 degrees out. Russell's brushing dogs this afternoon and this is what my porch looks like at the moment. The collies are dropping their winter coats. Pretty awesome, isn't it? And this is just from the first two. There are seven more to go!

Don't have much to say about this - I think in this case the picture is worth at least 10,000 words. Just looking at it makes me hot. I'm going to get a glass of ice water now.

The Freedom of the Big Fail

I made an incredibly ugly shed this week. I didn't mean to – it was supposed to be fabulous. In fact, I secretly pride myself on having an incredible color sense. On my mom's side there were generations of Scottish weavers, and I imagine myself to be the beneficiary of their collective artistic magic. I don't announce this to people, but I think it, when I'm all alone.

So we have this shed in our backyard. A standard wooden shed, which doesn't have to be painted, but had weathered to kind of an ugly blackish brown. I followed Martha's advice and picked out colors after lots of deliberation. I painted swatches to see them in all kinds of light. I looked at it for days, soliciting opinions and only listening to the ones I liked. (Isn't that always the way?) Then I painted and I got help from a variety of inexperienced young painters.

Check out my ugly shed! Everyone's been really quiet about it - a sure sign that it's ugly. Finally today I got a comment that I think kind of sums it up. My friend had called me artistic a few minutes before. Then I showed him the shed.

"Wow! What are you going to paint it?" he said.

"I just painted it. I think I don't like it," I replied – to give him room to say he liked it.

"It's awful – someone else picked the colors?"

"Nope – all me - and you just called me artistic, remember?"

"Yeah...well your artistry is really with words, you know?"

I don't always give myself permission to have the big ugly failure. I'm worried about what people will think of me and hate to draw attention to myself. I make the small quiet tidy choice, instead of the bold, potentially horrific one. And I'd like to thank my sweet husband for being pretty nice about the ugly shed. I am trying to fix it, it just might take me a while to figure out how. Now that I'm properly humbled, I'd love your suggestions.

I Love the Name Stephen Hawking, Don't You?

You never know what you're going to hear when you're driving kids in the car. As you turn the key, you become magically invisible and they talk as if they are alone. And it starts young – even toddlers are not immune.

This was the conversation that I got to overhear as we went to school recently:

"I love the name Stephen Hawking, don't you?" says one first grade twin to his sister.

"Is that what you're going to name your baby?"

"Maybe. Especially if it's a boy. He has ALS, so he is in a wheelchair. He talks with a machine."

"I'm not going to name my baby Stephen Hawking."

"That's ok."

Life Off the A-List

Someone tracked dog doo on the carpet and up the stairs yesterday. I scrubbed up that mess, and followed it up with a few more minutes cleaning up cat yorp. This is my life. All the while I mused about something my friend told me at lunchtime – my town has an A-list.

My life has been spent pretty much off the A-list. I was the kid everyone fought to have on the other team in kick ball. Never a cheerleader, didn't make homecoming queen, passed over for a sorority. Don't get me wrong - I've had my share of friends - good ones. I'm quite happy and I think pretty well-adjusted. But I find myself being envious of the people who are invited to all the right everything, and yet I'm a little uncomfortable once I'm actually in the room.

In my imagination, A-listers never have to deal with mundane matters like bodily fluids. They have people calling them for intimate dinners, cocktail parties and weekends away. Their children get invited to all the nice birthday parties and their houses are always clean, with fabulous furniture.

I have a lot of ambition too, but the social kind, or maybe it's just social savvy, got left out of my DNA. I'm left with my own day dreams about becoming a back-up singer, what I'd make to win a Project Runway challenge, and my Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Like my bathrobe?