I started blogging over 13 years ago in an effort to help my parents keep up with their firstborn grandchild. That was before the days of social media and the ease of digital photography. It was so cumbersome and nearly impossible to upload photos off a digital camera onto my computer and then email to my parents because of the large file sizes. It was also around that same time that everyone began blogging. Many of my friends with newborns had started a blog so I did, too. Over the years, most of those friends no longer blog. And many would say that blogging is "going out of style." It might be. But it's still been the easiest way for my family and friends afar to keep up with us so that's why I've tried to keep up with it. But now I have another reason. My blog will one day be published into a book for each of my children. While these children will ALWAYS be my children and my babies, I am very well aware that we are quickly in a transition of sorts.
My oldest is about to begin his 9th grade year. He has four (short) years left of high school and then I have no idea where the Lord may take him. I feel such a burden right now to invest as much as I can into these days and these little people. There are still SO MANY things I want to tell them, share with them, teach them, show them, remind them. There are things I hope they'll remember, and things I hope they'll forget. Obviously I write here what I want them to remember. It has gotten harder and harder to set aside the time to keep up here, but I want to be more diligent in that. So I'm going to start a new thing. My goal is, every Friday, to do a little week in review . . . just everyday life, funny things or anecdotes, ordinary (and not so) happenings around here.
This week was our last before the start of a new school year. Since we were on vacation the last three weeks, we spent this week doing all the end-of-summer-beginning-of-the-school-year things. We ended the day at DQ with ice cream.
When we got home that afternoon, Mason and I sat down to finish summer reading. If it was up to me, we would've been done two weeks ago. But someone isn't as motivated as I am. We're reading and all of a sudden Mason screams, "MOM!!! THERE'S AN ALLIGATOR IN THE BACKYARD!!!" I'll bet that's not something you hear at your house everyday! So, yeah. That's not something I want to hear at my house either!
I mean, I can't even. I don't even know what to say about this. I guess file that under "things I never thought I'd see in my yard." (And, no, we are not Swamp People.). This guy was quite feisty. One of us (I'll let you guess who, but we all know it's not me or the children!) could've lost a finger!
It's also worth mentioning that our power was also out. I'm sure people think I exaggerate about our power being out, but we lose electricity ALL. THE. TIME. We had sandwiches for supper on Monday night because the original meal I'd planned wasn't "power out" friendly. And, just so you know, we lost power again Wednesday night and were without it until early the next morning. Yes, it was hot. We also lost power this morning right after I washed my hair and was trying to dry it. So, no, I am not exaggerating. It goes out at least once a week. Right now we're currently at three times for this week. I'm not even making that up.
Tuesday morning the girls had appointments for a hair cut. After that we went to pick up the pants I'd purchased online the night before and received a confirmation for. But when we got to the store, I was told they "didn't have that size in stock." That's nice. Wish you wouldn't have sent me that confirmation! That was a 45-minute drive that was a waste of time. So we hit up some more stores that we hadn't the day before. Mason finally looked at me and said he didn't care how short the pants were because he was just sick of trying them on and was ready to go. So we came home with a pair that he agreed to "make do" with in case nothing else worked out before the first day of school next week.
I also spent a lot of time sorting books and supplies and making sure we have everything we need for the new school year. My UPS guy either really loves me or really hates me. This represents two days worth of shipments. By the time all was said and done and ordered, we had twice this much delivered to the house. It all arrived while I was out of town, but it wasn't until this week that I had time to unpack all of the boxes.
The first two stacks are for Mason. His biology and geometry books are awfully thick. And we have a lot of reading ahead of us. The next two stacks belong to Hannah Kate and the last to Ellie. Yeah, this is pretty daunting. But I have to remind myself that we won't get through this the first day or the first week or even the first month. We have all school year for these books, and, just like every year before, we will get through it page by page day by day.
And now it's Friday. I can tell you Mason does indeed now have khaki pants that fit! Everything I ordered at the beginning of the week arrived last night, and we have two pair that fit. Now I just have to return all the others that don't! We finally picked up Hannah Kate's uniform skorts today (don't even get me started on that long story!). So now everyone has books, clothes and shoes. Summer reading and essays are finished. I think we're ready.