Where Has the Summer Gone

It's the last week of July and the boys start back to school in 5 weeks. Their break is officially half over. I apologize that I've been absent lately, I really intended to do better and post more regularly.

But then we had The Great Crash of 2008. Yup, our server. I didn't even have e-mail for about 10 days. I'm still sorting through the bookkeeping information that was lost and trying to restore it. The worst thing was that all my pictures from the last 4 years were stored on our server. Mr. Happy assured me that it was the safest place for them to be. It wasn't. Some have been found, but not very many. I'm very thankful that our pictures from China are safe, but now I've got a couple hundred pictures on my camera from the last month and I'm afraid to download them in case they disappear. A part of me is still hopeful that they will be found, but I think I'm slowly realizing that they're gone. I do have a lot of prints awaiting to be scrapbooked, so it isn't like I have no pictorial record of our lives over the last 4 years. But I can't think about it too much because it does bring me to tears.

So Tigger fell on Sunday while he was playing outside and had to get 3 stitches in his knee. He didn't even cry until I told him I was taking him to the hospital. And you know the weird thing? I didn't even get excited...no adrenaline coursed through my veins...and then I realized that this was the 7th episode of stitches/staples between the 3 boys. I guess it's become somewhat of the norm for us. Tigger is fine; he's back to his bouncy little self again. This morning he was even kneeling on his knee, which made my stomach flip, so I settled him on some pillows with the PS3 remote and told him to stay there for the day. Shouldn't be a problem.

Thumbelina is now sleeping in her own bedroom...without a TV and Anderson Cooper. Since I've been working at the barn 2 days a week, the grandmothers have been taking turns babysitting for me. When she is over at Millie's, she sleeps soundly in a dark room with the fan on. When she was home with my Muther, she wouldn't fall asleep until about 4:00 in the afternoon, which makes everybody grumpy. So then I started moving her playpen into my bedroom (I couldn't fold the stupid thing up and my bedroom is on the main floor), which worked really well for her. We'd take the playpen into our bedroom for afternoon naps, and then it would go back out to the living room for bedtime. And then one Sunday afternoon, Mr. Happy wanted to have a nap in our room, so he was able to wrestle with the playpen and get it folded enough to go up the stairs. Where she's been ever since. I feel like we're starting to approach a state of normal-ish-ness!

Zoomer will be 14 years old next week. Some days he is full of attitude and it's all I can do to restrain from strangling him, and other days I don't know how I get along without him. Which is why he hasn't been strangled yet. Of course you know I jest. Mostly. He and Fil will soon be travelling south of the border to witness in person a NASCAR race. It's a joint birthday present for the two of them, even though Fil's birthday is in January. It's just belated.

Shaggy got his hair all buzzed off the other day. Millie took the boys in for a haircut and Shaggy wanted a buzz cut. Millie said no, but the hairdresser said yes. Millie was furious. I'm thinking I should call up the place and just complain, because a hairdresser should have enough respect for the adult in charge of the child, to comply with the adult's wishes...not stand there arguing with the child against the adult and then doing it anyway when the adult's back is turned in conversation with somebody else. I know it's just hair and it will grow, but it's the principle of it all.

The office and the barn are keeping me very busy. I'm a little panicky over the start of school, because I don't know how I will keep up with work, work, housework, homework, and 4 kids. But that's tomorrow's problem. Mr. Happy keeps saying to me, "I fail to see how I'm supposed to hire somebody to come in to the barn and work full-time, when you're doing the work in a day and a half. I can't even hire somebody part-time." Sometimes I'm just too good at what I do. Heh.

I've missed you all - I don't even know what's happening in your lives! I'm still trying to manage my time more efficiently, and as a result, I'm only allowing myself 30 minutes of free-computer time a day. I know. I know. Impossible. But I'm really trying hard. So please forgive me for my absentness in the blog-world; maybe someday things will get back to how they once were.