Summer: Fri., 8/9

Well, I'm a little fried. It was a good week overall, but by tonight the exhaustion of solo-parenting since Sunday caught up with me. 

The girls had camp this morning. Lucia stayed for lunch and extra sewing time with a friend, then went with her to swim at the country club. Greta and I had lunch with friends and then her friend came over to play. 

Then it was Float Night at the pool. The girls had gotten giant floats--a parrot and a flamingo--but the logistics of trying to inflate and transport these giant, giant floats finally beat me down. The car-powered air compressor would have taken an hour to inflate them, the floats wouldn't actually fit in the car so I'd have to finish the inflating in the pool parking lot, I'd have to deflate them to fit them in the car to go home (which takes a ridiculous amount of time), etc. I just--couldn't do it. It was beyond what I was capable of doing today at 5pm. So they brought smaller floats. It was fine, it's always fun to see the pool filled with floats, but both kids were pretty tired by this time and the sister fun began fraying. 

We're all a little frayed tonight.

I'm also a little frayed because I've been working on book edits feverishly this week, getting up early to put in an hour before the kids wake up, then not moving from my desk while they're at sewing camp. Then BAM it's out of novel world, into the car with KidzBop playing, and back into summer world. Day after day. No real time to transition out of that headspace because I work right up to the moment I leave the house. I'll have next week of sewing-camp time, too, but that's the only remaining work time I'll have for the summer. So it'll be another intense five days. But I'm making progress. I'll be okay for my 8/31 deadline.

There's also activity and worry and uncertainty around the Pittsburgh Street house. I can't talk about anything publicly, but that's taking up a lot of emotional space too, a constant buzz in the background.

Plus I've had to, like, cook for and feed the children. And comb their increasingly pool-matted and chlorine-destroyed Barbie hair. The ends of their hair have become actually crispy when damp, which is a sure sign that summer is on its last legs. And there's a weird hollow tree stump next to the driveway that has been full of water for weeks, thick, murky, old rainwater that's breeding clouds of mosquitoes, and I know it's going to cost $1K to get it taken out. But that's a call I'm going to have to make on Monday, before some poor chipmunk or squirrel drowns in it. #homeownership

Now I'm going to pour a big glass of spiked seltzer and read a book and maybe work on a friendship bracelet. Andrew gets back tomorrow afternoon and I may have to just take a breather and go to Target by myself for a little while. Yep, it's a total cliche, and I'm fine with that. 

Wow! I guess I was overdue for a Straight Talk post. The gauzy nostalgia of our generally perfect summer days has parted tonight. I'm so freaking tired.