Well the clock is ticking away and every tick brings summer closer to an end. I don't mean to complain but summer has been sorely lacking here in the Midwest this year. Between the rain and the unseasonal cold it would seem as though summer has skipped on by us. This morning it was 55 degrees when I got up at 5am. That may seem really early but My Darling (who, by the way, found the temperature quite nice, crazy man) gets up at 3 am to be at work by 4 so my butt seems lazy in comparison. And lazy I was this morning. I was supposed to have gotten up with him to bake cookies (yes the infamous chocolate chip variety) and instead I slugged in bed until 5. The good news is there is still plenty of time to get the cookies and everything else I must do this morning done before I leave here at 9 (including the rarest of the rare act of posting in this dusty old diary).

Other than the less than ideal weather things are mostly good. The work atmosphere has settled somewhat. I'm not naive, I know the beast still lurks in plain sight waiting for another opportunity to strike but since it is out of my control I have decided to simply do my job to the best of my ability the way I always have and let the chips fall where they may. They can't afford to fire me at the moment since they are losing several servers to the new school year. It's the nature of this business that strangely takes management by surprise every year and they struggle to train new staff in time for the transition. Makes for lots of distraction from me.

We have made the best of the summer so far enjoying what outdoor activities we could. Darling has purchased a trailer for our bikes and Baby Boy loves riding around with us. He grins from ear to ear calling out "hi mommy" and waving. We also scored a used canoe (did I mention our fantastic fourth of July find?) and have had it out twice thus far. Baby boy sits (lounges) in the center of the boat languidly dragging his hand in the water. Periodically he lets loose a squeal of delight. Warms my heart to hear his laughter.

Baby Boy lives for the outdoors. "ouhsiide, ouhsiide" he pleads every morning when he awakens (when he is not beckoning for the tractor) and would, if allowed, spend the entire day running from one place to another with mommy trailing after. Much as I enjoy watching him, life requires attention and by that I mean my house, so he must suffer disappointment to allow for my chores and his feeding and nappage. I'm sure the disappointment is good for him, pity the child who gets everything he wants, boy is he in for a rude awaking.

The housework plods along (not the chores, but the home improvement/repair tasks). The Murphy bed continues to inch towards completion due to My Darlings diligence and no real contribution from me. I feel bad about that but soon it will be painting time and that will be all me. The half bath is still only one quarter bath as I work to finish the drywall repair before painting the walls and installing the new vanity. We have picked out a style we like which has been readily available in the store during the entire project and (if my luck holds) will still be available when we are ready to purchase it. After that we will turn our attention the the question "What shall we do with the upstairs bath?". It's original, which means it is currently sporting a salmon tub, toilet and almost salmon sink. Completing our 1970's motif is a brown counter top and jazzy brown print linoleum. Can you say yuck? We would like to find a way to convert the bath into two, a family bath and master bath. It is large but the resulting division might leave us with too small a space for both. This project is still far enough in the future to ignore for the moment.

Baby Boy sleeps till 7:30 most mornings but today he already making noises and turning on his music box so I am done for now. More than I expected to get down "on paper" so to speak.

Till next time.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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