balance.

So...turns out when you go and get yourself a jobby job a lot of things fall by the wayside.

Like your blog.

And dusting.

This summer will forever be etched in my memory as

"that summer when I went back to work and became a crazy person."

Or a craziER person, as the case may be.

I am trying to learn how to do it all:

be a wife and a mom and a teacher and a person who can manage to

get all three kids to soccer and music and still buy groceries and clean the house

and do the laundry and plan lessons and exercise and wash my face at night

and feed the animals and take my vitamins.

So far?

I'm not doing so great.

And did I mention that I've only been back to work for a little over a week?

Yeah.

This whole life/work balance thing is going to be tough.

So, if I'm not here much,

you can probably guess why.

I hope the kids remember this summer not as the one when mom

sure did let us watch a lot of tv so she could get work done,

but the one where we camped and ziplined and cheered for the Giants

and grew crazy inches taller

and swam and swam and swam.

Thanks, summer.

And the craziness begins....

bye, summer.

Poof...summer is over.

Pretty much, anyway.

This summer has gone by faster than any I can remember.

It makes me a little sad.

But it has been a good couple of months.

Lots of swimming.

Specifically, cold-weather swimming.
This was a chilly summer!


Ice cream eating.
{cotton candy flavored.  gag.}



Front porch sitting.
{but not enough...we should have done more of that.}



Anniversary-celebrating:
twenty one years together, fourteen married.
{child bride, i tell you.}
Cleaning out a closet I found dozens and dozens and DOZENS of old letters and pictures
we had written each other.
...sigh...



High school reunion-ing.
Twenty years already?  Crazy.


Zucchini bread making.
Lots and lots of zucchini this summer
has meant zucchini bread for breakfast.
There are worse things.



Baseballing.
Our huge baseball fan Colin was in heaven.



I'm pretty sure there's no better view at any ballpark.

Book-reading.



Back-to-school shoe buying.
{um...how is this possible?}



Donut-eating.



No dogs on the furniture rule-breaking.
{she was so comfy...how could i make her get down?}



And, most unexpectedly for me,
back to work prepping.

Yep.  It's back to teaching for me.

This summer's end marks the beginning of a lot of changes here at casa de laundry.

I'm thankful for this low-key summer I've had with the kids.
I'm going to refer back to it often when things get uber crazy here in a couple of weeks.
At the beginning of the summer I was so sad we didn't have any big
vacations planned.
Now I can see God had everything planned just perfectly.
He's really awesome like that.

Happy last days of summer, y'all.
Carpe diem.