It's been a while

Hasn't it? I apologize to my few readers. I haven't been all that busy, but I have been enjoying the lack of school and girl scouts. Bella has been enjoying it, as well, and has been staying up far too late. She seems to have a knack for knowing just when I'm about to tell her to go to bed, and when she senses that coming she'll come up to me, give me a big hug and say, "Mom, I think we need to have some girl time right now". How can I argue with that? So we play Wii - usually Cooking Mama, and some Lego Star Wars, but the player perspective on Lego Star Wars makes me queasy after ten or fifteen minutes. Sometimes she reads to me, sometimes we just snuggle on the couch and watch TV, or we will do some needlepointing or some crafts. Lots of fun.


I am feeling a little blue, my friends. I think I'm a bit depressed. I've been trying to address it myself before I seek medical intervention - changing my diet around a little, trying to make sure I get more/enough sleep, get some exercise, things like that. I'm hoping those steps work.


I took Bella to the bookstore yesterday with her summer reading assignment and let her pick out books. We picked a few books off her assigned list, and then I told her she could pick out one other book of her choosing, as long as it was a chapter book. She browsed through the beginning chapter readers, and after a moment exclaimed, "Everything is fairies and princesses! I have lots of those already!". She didn't want more Junie B. Jones books or Magic Tree House books, so I was helping her try to find something and we came across the Franny K. Stein series, about a little girl mad scientist. Much to my amusement, she opted for one of those books. And she loved it! She is planning on 'reviewing' it on her website tonight, since she finished it in the car on the way home. She laughed out loud more than once while reading it, and actually read a couple of the more amusing passages out loud to us. I read it, too, after we got home, and I liked it. It had a great message about staying true to yourself, even if you're a little different. And parts of it made me laugh out loud, like this:

She was just about to tell the girls how Chompalina could bite the heads
off their dolls when she noticed something. Their dolls were all kind of...sweet
and pretty. They all had long hair and flowery dresses. Not a single one of them
oozed uck. They didn't ooze anything. Franny made a note to herself: Pretty,
non-head biting dolls, it said. And less oozing.

Or this one, possibly Bella's favorite passage in the whole book:

The kids just stood there. They didn't know how to help. A few tried
crying. A few tried screaming. One tried wetting his pants, although later on he
admitted he had no idea why he thought that might help.

That's funny stuff, especially if you're seven.


Summer is in full force here in rainy Florida, where the temperature is in the nineties by 9am and the humidity makes you feel like you're stepping into a hot tub everytime you step outside. You can't go outside during the afternoon because it's too hot, and you can't go outside in the evenings because you get eaten alive by mosquitos. My little stretch of porch is alive with nature, and by nature I mean angry stinging insects that chase you back inside the second you step out. I sprayed a couple of wasps' nests a couple of weeks ago, and we already have four more. The joy of swamp living. All this and hurricanes, too! I should write ads for the department of tourism.

I hope everyone has a lovely summer weekend!