Blessed Litha!

Wow...I can't believe Midsummer is already here! We had the most phenominal Litha. Monday night I skipped yoga and baked lemon herb cookies with the lemon balm from our garden. We lit the torches in the backyard and sat outside munching on cookies and leaving cookies out for the faeries, who decided to make an appearance. I really wasn't thinking we'd see any this year at Litha, but there they were...little flashes of light everywhere. We allowed the boys to run around naked in the backyard (it was dark enough). Boy, they just lit right up when we said it was ok for them to be naked. And to see them running through the tall plants, with the faeries. It was totally cool.

Tuesday we got the boys up at 5:30 a.m. and headed over to one of the city parking ramps to watch the sun rise. The city was so quiet. It was nice to hear the birds singing, sip hot chocolate, and watch the sun "wake up" as Connor said. Depending on the weather, we'll have to bundle up and do it for Yule too. Then we came back and Mel made us breakfast burritos. After breakfast Mel and Dominic walked to the river to do some "fishing" (aka casting).

After they got home it was time for Connor and Duncan to have their morning nap, and Mel and I got to sit and relax on the couch for a bit. Once the boys woke up we packed up sandwiches and went to Fenner. We saw butterflies, dragonflies, frogs, turtles, fish, hawks, and deer...it was great fun. We really need to start doing that on a weekly basis.

It was the best day we've had in awhile. We did so much stuff and the boys were so good. Tuesday night got a little stressful (we closed on our refinance - the notary was soooo slow and didn't really know what she was doing), but now that's done too.

I'm so happy things are starting to settle down. Our finances are all taken care of, the boys are starting to get used to the long work days, so Mel is in a better mood. All in all, life is good.

Mondays SUCK

Man, I hate Mondays. Yesterday was particularly bad, though. We started summer hours here at the office...Monday - Thursday, 7 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Yes, that's right, I do have Fridays off for the next 8 weeks, but the long days suck sewage. My poor husband, home alone with the boys for 10 1/2 hours...it's such a hard adjustment.

And on top of today being the first day of summer hours, AND it being a yoga night for me (which means more time home alone with the boys), Mel had to deal with the highly incompetent plumbers from J & J (the supply line to our hot water heater was spraying water everywhere - something they just repaired 6 months ago). That alone puts him in a bad mood. It's such a disruption to the daily schedule to have people in the house. The boys have a tendancy to go a little nuts when their schedule is thrown out the window. Oh, and on top of all that, I had to take diapers home because we ran out. Mel was certainly in a funk the whole day.

Mel is an incredibly talented, artistic, interesting, intelligent man...but man is he moody. Once he gets into a funk it takes days to get out. I tried to do what I could to help. I got Burger King for dinner on my way home from work (which I couldn't eat because of yoga). Took Duncan upstairs with me so Mel could eat and have a break for the 30 minutes I was home between work and yoga. I picked up a new CD for him while I was at yoga class, picked up beer on my way home from yoga...along with breakfast and lunch for tomorrow. It helped a little, he was starting to shake it off, but then got upset when I wasn't paying attention to him. He wanted to talk and catch up on the day. But unfortunately, this was at 10 p.m. I was completely wiped out. I needed to go to sleep. And so, I went to bed and Mel got into a worse funk.

A little about my day. It started at 4:45 a.m. - a little bit earlier than usual, and work was much more stressful and crazy than usual. With the long hours, our lunch hour gets cut to 30 minutes, but I had errands to run and had to get diapers, so lunch was a very busy, rushed time, followed by more chaos in the afternoon. I was granted the honor of being the main contact for summer school this year...my days are filled with calls from people asking questions, people coming in to register, and dealing with my boss, who is now (two days before teachers start work) working on putting together the packet for teachers and asking about getting supplies for them (ordering can't be done until July 1 now - our system shuts down for pretty much the whole month of June). It was one of those "I'm walking out the door and not coming back" days. As you can imagine, my day sucked almost as much as Mel's day. Come 10 p.m. I had nothing left to give. But with Mel already being in a funk, he wasn't in a place to really care what kind of day I'd had.

And he woke up in a funk this morning. I'm sure by the time I get home, with no interruptions to the day, and the food that I picked up last night, he will have pulled himself out of it. And with my boss being out of the office today (he's in the weekly Cabinet meeting), hopefully I will have an easier day too. I really hope the boys are good for him. They seemed to be pretty happy when I left this morning.

Connor starts gymnastics tonight...a class that he loves. My plan is to have Mel go to class with him. The class is Tuesday and Thursday for the next three weeks. I thought it would be nice for Mel to have a break and get out of the house a couple times during the week. I'm optimistic that Mel will want to go to class with Connor and the household will be in good spirits when I get home. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. :0)

New Beginnings

This will be a new experience for me. I try to write in my personal journal daily, but mostly that turns into just my daily tarot reading. But now with the school year coming to an end, hopefully work will be less busy and I'll have time to update this. My goal is to write at least once every two weeks...high expectations, huh. ;0)

This summer is going to be a time of changes for my family. I have one sister (Chandi) moving to Spain, and another sister (Alexis) moving about an hour away to attend CMU. I'm quite happy for them both. But unfortunately for us, Alexis is our most dependable babysitter. The boys LOVE her, and I know she will be sorely missed by us all (not to say that Chandi won't be missed too...but we just don't see her as often - she already lives a couple hours away).

I really admire Chandi for going out on her own. She so needs this and I'm hopeful she finds whatever it is that she's looking for. Someday Mel (my husband) and I want to travel. We have a long list of countries we'd like to visit (Japan, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Australia & New Zealand, Thailand, India) along with a long list of states within the US that we'd like to visit. However, that won't be happening for years...not until the boys are much older. It'll be interesting to see how well we manage with just our trip to Disney World this fall.

Someday we want to move out of this state. Michigan is a nice place to visit, there are some great beaches and gorgeous forests, but I don't like living here. The winter is too long and the summer is too short (although, fall is nice). We'd love to move to the west coast (Washington or Oregon) or to Hawaii. Actually, Hawaii would be our dream location. To have our own little organic farm, run totally on solar energy, and build our own tire house. ::sigh:: That would be fantastic.