New Year Crisis Time

The time between December 26 and about the first or second week of the new year is so weird.  First, there is the Christmas letdown.   Then the new year.  The cleaning out of the cubbies, cabinets and closets and rearranging of the toys and organizing my physical space.  When the physical space gets organized, I feel like I should be figuring out how to make my life, health, attitude, etc. better.

Usually at this time of year I buy a book about spiritual issues, de-junking, being more organized, or eating better.  I read it and fantasize how I am going to be a better me in the coming year.  I work on it for a while, then the old me sneaks back in my life, and screws up all my great planning.  

I feel like I am stuck in an attitude and motivational rut and I don't know how to get out.  I am eating really awful junky food.  I am craving it, eating a lot of it, and feeling bad afterward.  I weigh more now than I have ever weighed, except for the tail end of pregnancies.  I am feeling so out of energy, so out of motivation, so tired and so... blech.  

The annual "Be a Better Me" book purchase of this year is about eating better.  E-book this time!  Why clutter up my limited shelving?  One of my de-clutter books of New Year's past had a whole chapter dealing with paper / book clutter.

This is when my semi-annual home school personal crisis happens too.  It happens every August and every January.  These are the times of year when my confidence in my own educational philosophy fails.  We are unschooling-led.  Most people don't get it, or misunderstand it.  I have very specific reasons and stand behind my philosophy in every way, except for a week in August and a week or so in January, when, for some reason, I let everyone else influence my thinking.  Everyone else is jabbering about curricula, worksheets, co-ops, or whatever.  I sit here and I think, "My kids are insert ages  and they don't know  insert whatever book learnin' I wonder if they are missing out on , and they are going to be failures, or in therapy, or forever living in my camper.  Because I am not doing insert cool new and different curricula.  Or we don't do copy work.  Or I don't make them conjugate sentences.  Or write book reports.  Or I let them play too many video games.  Or they are reading poetry books instead of text books.  Or I let them choose what they'd like to learn.  Or my son's handwriting is awful and it's all my fault.  Oh, shit, next year is high school!  What am I doing????"  And the internal dialog goes on.  

I forget at these times that Archie has a job and makes and budgets his own money.  He knows more about science-y topics than I ever will.  All without any science textbooks.  He taught himself how to play the saxophone and he knows how to build his own computer from scratch and to make repairs.  I have to remind myself that Lawrence's reading level is waaaaay above his age peers.  All without 'reading' curricula.  And Lydia loves writing (without handwriting textbooks) and is finally turning the corner on her reading and she has an aptitude for art.  All these great accomplishments that indicate my kids will probably be fine in spite of my insecurities go straight out of my head during August and January.

I really do want to eat better and feel better.  I am really interested in not letting my life get too busy for my creative outlets, my friends, and my family.  I am really interested in being a better wife and mother.  I really want to make time to enjoy nature and other activities which make me feel closer to God.  I really want my small space on the planet to be tidy and well-organized.  I want all of this for 2016.

So, come on, regular non-holiday life.  Hurry back, confidence.  I don't know how much more self-doubt I can take.  

Unpublished Writings--Friends and Meltdowns

I found this piece I wrote last winter or early spring.  

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Since late December and January, we have a few families with young kids here at the campground.  It has been great for my little ones, as they now have friends to play with during the day.  They are longer term stayers, as they are traveling with their husbands, going where the work is.  One family is staying through June and one is deciding whether to move on in April when her husband’s work goes to Gulfport, or stay on longer here and have him commute.  I can understand why it would be a tough decision to leave, because there are very few campgrounds as nice and family-oriented as this one.  Both of the moms have told me how hard it is to find a campground where they can just let their kids go outside and play, where they will be safe.  There is no place like Presley’s! 

Having these families around has been mostly good for me, as it cuts down on the sibling fighting since the little ones are busy with their friends during downtime at home.  Both the moms are super nice and I enjoy chatting with them.  Last winter, we only had one family with kids here.  The two boys were Archie’s age.  They moved on last spring, and we still miss them very much.  Archie seems to have a difficult time bouncing back from goodbyes.  Unfortunately, goodbyes are an inevitable part of life.  I hope he is able to integrate in with some of the older summer kids when they arrive this year. 

Here are Archie's buds, Matthew and Hunter at an Easter function we had at our church.  The three amigos!

The families here are mostly great because they respect a quiet, family-only morning.  In general, we start slowly and do our inside things like coloring, documentaries, reading, playing games, etc. My neighbor Crys told me that *my* kids seem to be the catalysts for all outside play.  It is all quiet and still in the campground until the Dutton kids emerge.  It doesn’t take long before all the other kids come outside as well.  She told me that days when I work and we aren’t here, she doesn’t see anyone playing outside!   

With new kids, we have had a couple of hiccups with regard to boundaries.  I enjoy an excellent relationship with my neighbor, Susan.  She seems to enjoy my family and I really value her friendship and presence in my life.  Shortly after the new families arrived, the kids started pushing boundaries with her and I have had to correct that.  No climbing on Miss Susan’s golf cart.  No going on her screened-in porch when she isn’t home, or you aren’t invited.  Stuff my little ones already know, but seem to have forgotten now that they have a gang of kids to run with.  I think we have conquered this particular hiccup, but my little ones still ‘forget’ family rules on occasion when they are running with other kids.  Mostly, they ‘forget’ to come and tell me they are going to the beach to play in the sand.  I don’t mind, but if they are going to be near the water, I want to know about it so I can pay a little extra attention and know where to check on them.

Setting my own boundaries with the other children has been a challenge for me as well.  I don’t mind passing out snacks or drinks, or making a couple of sandwiches for other children every now and then.  However, it was beginning to get out of my comfort zone.  I knew it was bad when Archie began to refer to our house as The Dutton Café.  The Dutton Café?  Really?  It started out as one asking for a snack.  Which was totally fine.  Then the older one saw that the younger one had a snack and asked for one too.  The next day, the little one asked for a sandwich.  Then the older one, upon finding out that the younger had a sandwich, needed one too.  But she needed grilled cheese.  Ummm…alright.  The older one seemed to have a hard time stopping after that.  It was oranges, crackers, granola bars, sandwiches, drinks, for the next several days.  Can I come in your camper?  What kind of snacks do you have?  Can I come in your camper?  Will you make me a grilled cheese?  Can I come in your camper?  Will you make me an ice cream malt?  All the while, Archie would chuckle and make fun of me about the Dutton Café being opened for business. 

This went on for a little while.  I had a stash of bottled water outside under my camper (because campground water is gross all by itself) for me to drink.  My kids would rather have sugared up beverages, so I keep a supply of tea made for them.  When Lawrence and the older girl came back from playing in the dirt pile, I asked Archie to help bring all their toys back.  He brought back seven! seven bottles of partially drunk bottled waters from the dirt pile where Lawrence and she was playing.  For the two of them.  Seven of them!  Boy, was I mad!  Part of it is my own baggage:  that I feel slightly guilty for paying money for something as silly as bottled water, so it is something I value.  And they wasted seven bottles and didn’t even drink them all!  I really let them have it.  I know I over-reacted and made a bigger deal of it than it should have been, but I was done with the boundary-pushing, help yourself-ness.  I had the older girl take all seven waters back to her house, with the hopes that her mom would notice she was bringing back so much water and question her.  I know, a very passive-aggressive and non-confrontational way to handle a grievance, but really!  Seven bottles of water!  And a couple were only opened with one sip out of them! 

The good thing that came out of my little melt-down was that it has effectively shut down the Dutton Café for good.  The oldest did ask for an orange a few days later, but I told her very curtly that we aren’t doing snacks right now, it is time for playing outside.  And that has been that.   I really don’t mind giving, but I don’t want to be expected to give all the time.  And to give stuff I don’t want to give.

I learned not long after that episode that she has been “a little pushy” with the campground owner who kindly hands out free ice cream to kids on occasion.  I have told my kids that under no circumstances were they to *ask* Mr. Lynn for ice cream.  If he would like to offer them the gift of ice cream, then they could accept the gift with appreciation, but we do not ask for things like that.  And he does offer, quite frequently.

Not only does this kid ask for ice cream from the campground owner on a regular basis, but she also asks for drinks, candy and chips.  Archie read her the riot act after he heard her asking for ice cream one day.  But I don’t think it helped.  I suppose her mom doesn’t realize this is going on.  But either way, I certainly set my boundaries.

And of course, Susan and Archie made fun of me for being all stingy with my water, and have brought it up on more than a few occasions!   Susan also knocks on my camper door, puts on a sad face and asks if I have any oranges.  Sometimes, when I go in her house to feed her dog when she isn’t home, I put an orange on her counter!  See?  I’m a giver.  Really, I am!

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2015  All of the families referenced here have moved on, as of June 2015.  Some kids we were really sad to see go.  Others...well...

Unpublished Drafts Part 3--What I did Last Summer Part 3

Apparently I was too forgetful and disorganized to finish the third part of something I wrote back in 2010, circa itty bitty baby Lydia!

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Mid-Summertime 2010

When we drove back to Cincinnati in June, we took my niece Analise with us.  She had requested a year previous to spend some time with us in Cincy.  I figured since we would be back down in Alabama two weeks later, this would be a golden opportunity for her. 

We didn't get to do as much as I had hoped with her--having two little ones that must tag along everywhere cramps one's style somewhat.  But I did the best I could.  I hope she had a good time anyway.  I really enjoyed having her here.  She was very helpful with the little kids; always willing to hold one while I dealt with the other one.   Things got a bit hairy between her and Archie the second week, but that is to be expected living in such tight quarters.  We had her in the room with Archie and Lawrence. 

We stopped at a gas station that had this gorilla out front, so we used it as a photo opportunity.  Lawrence was very frightened of the gorilla and wouldn't turn his back on it to get in any pictures.  Archie looks very afraid here, doesn't he???

Prevously Unpublished Drafts Part 2--Camaro Cruise

Another unpublished draft post I found.  August-ish of 2011, maybe?  Looks like from We went on a driving cruise with the Camaro Club near Cincinnati.  The first stop was some bar where we would take a really cool picture of a whole bunch of Camaros all together.  All the Camaros in this picture are all facing the same way.  Except Phillip's.  We are the oddballs again!  Go figure.

I think this was taken while we were all waiting for the Anderson Ferry to cross the Ohio River.

A ferry chock full of Camaros!

Awww!  Baby Lydia!

This was at a restaurant we went to toward the end of the cruise.

Sunset over the Ohio River.

This is the beginning of many ridiculous facial expressions Archie now does during just about every picture.

Drafts I found Part 1

While trying to straighten out my blog and tidy everything to begin again and move some things to yearbook form, I noticed I had several 'draft' posts that never published for whatever reason.  This one had just a bunch of pictures uploaded, but no text.  My guess is that this was winter of 2013, our last winter in Cincinnati.  Lawrence LOVED sledding!  

                             

One or more of the kids sledded down the hills in our backyard and ended up under the fallen tree and in the creek bed!

Apparently I was working on my crocheted TARDIS at this time.  It is a finished wall hanging now.

Enjoying Paradise

While out on the water, my thinking is clear and I have all these great ideas occur to me, most of which I forget by bedtime, or even when I pull up on the shoreline.  Here is something that came to me in the silence of ‘up the creek’ that stuck around in my head:

My neighbor, my very first friend here at Presley’s; someone who I became closest to outside of my own family, moved recently to a house on Dauphin Island.  (I am still recovering from the feeling of devastation.)   She always has lots of super nice outdoorsy gear.  It made me a little sad for her that she lived here at Presleys and only occasionally took part in the activities that make this place heaven on earth.  She has a few really cool bikes, but she only occasionally went bike riding.  She has really nice kayaks, but only kayaked occasionally.  She was the person who turned me on to paddle boarding, but my paddle board that I got two months ago has seen more water than hers ever has in the year that she had it.   She is always very busy and goes lots of places and does lots of things, but it seemed to me she didn’t take time to enjoy the perks of living here in Paradise.  I hope she takes the time to enjoy the perks of living on Dauphin Island. I know I miss her very much here.

My thought that occurred to me when I was out on the water was that I have been too busy and have not been enjoying the perks of living here in Paradise.  Last Tuesday, while hurrying back from Archie’s music lesson in Biloxi to catch the very end of Lawrence’s baseball game, I got a speeding ticket.  The really irritating part was that I got the ticket juuust as I was about to turn into the ballpark driveway.  The State Trooper held me up for an eternity.  And I only caught a half inning before the game ended.   And now, I have something else on my plate—to juggle my time to go downtown and pay my ticket.  Settling my business with kids or without kids.  That is the question. 

I have been hurrying around too much.  I cannot be everywhere and I have been over-scheduled.  I have taken zero naps in my hammock on these perfect 70 degree temps lately.  I have not been ‘on patrol’ in my golf cart, telling stories with my neighbors for ages. 

Some of the activities we have going on are dragging me down.  I yell at the kids to ‘hurry up and get ready’ so we won’t be late, and then I speed to get there.  Really, if it is like pulling teeth for them to get ready to go, then maybe we shouldn’t be doing said activity.  So I dropped out of one activity (which made me feel instant relief).  One activity ended, and one will be ending after the beginning of December. 

I typically get out on the water (weather permitting) every “at home” day.  I know that living in Paradise is a fragile thing.  Anything can happen and circumstances could change without any notice or planning.  I love living here and have absolutely no plans to return to sticks n bricks.  But the fact is that this isn’t my land.  I am borrowing it.  So in the event we have to leave Paradise, I want to know that I took the time to fully enjoy being here; that I have no regrets.  I want to get the most out of my time, and continue to enjoy my community.  I want to remember that when I had a lake, river and creek as my yard, I always took the time to sit in my kayak or paddle on my board, even if it was only for thirty minutes at a time.  I am never as happy driving away from Paradise as I am driving toward it.  When I make the curve in the road and see the lake and the campers and the trees, I feel relieved to be home again.  Yes, my indoor space is small, and we get in each other’s way at times.  We can’t have as many ‘things’ as other people because we just don’t have the space to put it.  But it is my own little slice of Paradise here on earth and I need to be more mindful of that and take the time to enjoy it.  

Finding My Positivity

My vacation life has been getting too busy lately.  Somehow, during our camping vacation life, I have managed to get myself scheduled almost every day.  Lately, my attitude is to just 'get through' things.  If I can just 'get through' Christmas, then it will be better.  If I can just 'get through' church tax time, then it will be better.  Now, I find myself trying to 'get through' Easter.  I am not enjoying any of those events when I have to 'get through' them.  I have found something to 'get through' every week for the past few months.  More things just keep piling up for me to get through than I can get checked off the list.

Others' expectation of me (as well as the expectation I have of myself) is too high.  I have discovered more this past month that I am terrible at than I ever thought possible.  I am tired and my attitude stinks.  I don't have inspiration to write, and no time for it either.  No time for any of my creative outlets.  I haven't been taking care of myself and my migraines have increased to about two per week.  Four days out of seven, I have a migraine, which can be either mild or excruciating. This is a crazy way to live!  I live at a lake, for goodness sake!  What happened to my beach-time way of life?

On an afternoon therapeutic kayak trip a couple of days ago, I decided that I have had enough.  I want my old positive attitude back.  I made an appointment to get back on track with my migraine medications...despite the fact that I really don't have time to see the doctor.  Facebook has been a huge waste of my energies.  I like keeping up with my friends near and far, but I can't take all the negativity.  I began weeding out all the negative people, people with too many political agendas, and all news outlets from my newsfeed.  I am done with reading and watching news until I am feeling better.  So I will not be well-informed, but hopefully I will be feeling happier.  And I'd like very much to post at least one small thing per day, even if it is only one small sentence or picture on my blog about our life that day.  Because my kids are getting bigger and I am entirely too busy.  I'd like to remember how stinkin' cute they are and stuff they say.

Lawrence has been reading books to Lydia at bedtime.  Lawrence and I read books together, then he gets in bed and reads to Lydia.  I don't know why Lydia won't read with me.  Here, they read themselves to sleep.  And Molly Golly the Dolly too.

 

 

How Low Points Can Become High Points

As I tell everyone who asks, living in a popup was either really great or really terrible.  There was no middle ground for me.  I worked hard on having a good attitude during the really terrible parts--the days upon days of rain, having to make decisions before the storms whether to put the house down or keep it up, and then enduring said storms (such as hail) at night because they were never during the day, it seemed.  The having stuff all over the place but nowhere to put anything, etc.  Only twice during our year-long popup living did I have a breaking point where I just didn't see how I could go on.  The good really did outweigh the bad, because I would have never been able to choose this life if we only had bad times.  And of course, with time comes perspective and the ability to see the positive through the negative.  

A very sweet couple from West Virginia happened upon me during a melting down point I had last year.  We were still in the popup and it was about this time of year when we had just finished battling cold weather (and the freak ice storm that occurred) and I was trying to re-organize our living space.  One of the passers-through was offering to wash all the campers in the campground (for a fee, of course).  Our camper was disgustingly dirty from living under a pecan tree for several months and it was still too cold for me to wash it.  Keeping it clean was keeping me sane, so I hired him to brighten up the dwelling a bit.  This meant that I had to move all of our belongings that we kept outside away from the camper or stow them inside the camper.  This took quite a while, as belongings seem to accumulate and multiply every time I turn my head.  So my stuff was everywhere.  And I waited.  And waited.  And reflected upon the fact that I had paid this jerkface $100 in advance to do something he was not going to show up to do.

As I opened the fridge to get a snack while I was coming to this awful conclusion, I noticed that the yogurt seemed unusually warm.  As did the cheese, the milk, and everything else I had bought the previous day when I went grocery shopping.  The refrigerator was broken!!!  Again!!!  The very same refrigerator we bought only a few months earlier because of our previous refrigerator breaking. The very same refrigerator we didn't have any documentation of purchasing because where in the hell am I going to put documentation in all this mess?  And I had just gone grocery shopping the previous day, so there was another $100 down the tubes in bad food.  And a new dorm type refrigerator was going to cost about $150.  Not only was the cost troubling me--it was only mid-morning and already I was down about $350!  Imagine what the rest of the day was going to cost!  It was the trouble of it all.  The pain-in-the-ass-ness of it all.

I sat in Lawrence's car seat which was on the porch of the next camping space beside my car, and just cried.  I can say with certainty that this was the absolute lowest point I have experienced in this adventure.  It all was very solvable in hindsight, but I felt beaten down, after so many hard experiences in such short a period of time.  I had no energy left and lost all hope that morning, as I sat there, squeezed into Lawrence's car seat. 

So Rick and his wife from West Virginia, staying a few spots down from us happened to catch me there, feeling very sorry for myself.  I saw him coming, so I quickly got up and went inside my very disheveled popup (because I was preparing for a camper washing that I was now sure wasn't going to happen) to hide.  Then came a knock at the door.  You can't hide and pretend you are *not* inside a popup because, well, of the canvas walls and everything.  And the kids running about.  Kind of a giveaway that someone is home.  So there I was stuck.  I had to open the door.  And there was Rick, who asked to come in.  This was hard for me, because while we lived small, I tried very hard to be organized and clean.  And my camper was neither of those things as I was waiting for Billy, the jerkface camper cleaner to come.  Rick gave me a hug and asked me to tell him about my very, very bad day.  He left and sent his very sweet wife to see about me. 

After she left, I was better, and beginning to accept my circumstances and decide what to do from here.  I was now $350 down, but I decided I would salvage what I could from this day.  I started to reorganize and decided I would clean the tree gunk off of my camper myself for starters.  The white canvas was brown with tree gunk.  Even if nothing else good was happening, I was going to have white canvas again.  

As I was hooking up the water hose, here comes our Mr. Cowboy driving up with a full-sized refrigerator in the scoop of his John Deere tractor!  He got off the tractor and said to me, "Don't you know that cowboys always come to the rescue?"  Rick had told him of our plight.  Cowboy had a refrigerator in a barn on the property somewhere.  He told me not to worry about buying a new one, that I could use it as long as I wanted. I only needed to clean it up and it would be ready to go!  Cowboy and Rick set it up for me on my porch under the awning. The compressor hummed and it was soon chugging out that sweet coldness.  If you were thinking of it in terms of a house fridge, it was on the smaller size, but was perfect for us.  Compared to our dorm fridge, it meant I could grocery shop less because I now had a full-sized freezer for veggies and *gasp* ice cream!  The day was looking up exponentially!  

After Cowboy and Rick left and as I was cleaning my new-to-me refrigerator, guess who showed up????  Billy, the jerkface who was trying to stiff me out of $100!  I think, but do not know for certain, that some of the men in the campground must have strongly suggested he show up and do the job I had paid him to do, because he not only cleaned my camper, but he cleaned my car too, and then disappeared from the campground altogether.  

Good neighbours have a way of turning my very lowest points into high points.  I was sorry to see our West Virginians leave that spring.  Imagine my surprise when they turned up again a few weeks ago!  Apparently, Presley's is on their travel circuit and they come here every December or thereabouts, and stay til April or so.  

They said that our family has been on their minds throughout the year and they were extremely happy and relieved to see us in our new fifth wheel home!  It's funny, I have heard that from a number of people who have come and gone and come back again.  It may be transient here with people coming and going, but it is really great to live in a place where people are good neighbours and they are rooting for the success and happiness of our family!

This is our camper after the addition of the refrigerator.  I told Phillip all we needed now was a sofa outdoors on the deck to fulfill our full redneck potential!  :-)

Happy 13th! A Brand New Teenager!

I am taking a pause from my past ponderings to commemorate the beginning of a new chapter in our family:  the brand new teenager!  Here is his very first picture as a teen:

I was reading an article that week about how parents might find the teen years frustrating in part because they are having trouble letting go of the wide-eyed child filled with wonder stage.  I have noticed for a while now that I enjoy talking to my son about more adult-y topics and our conversations show me how deeply he thinks and feels things.  His sense of humour is great, and his compassion for others gives me hope for the future.  I am enjoying getting to know him in a whole new way. We bump heads on occasion about attitudes and pushing limits, but all in all, I am confident in the outstanding, independent person he is and will become.  I want to focus on appreciating his current stage of life, instead of mourning a past one and consequently being resentful because he isn't a docile five year old anymore.  I'm not saying teen years can be all sunshine and rainbows, but I also think perspective can dictate whether they are all storms and hurricanes.  But what do I know?  I have been the parent of this teen for all of 8 days now!  

I wasn't sure how to 'do' Archie's birthday this year.  My little ones are happy with the family bellowing out the Happy Birthday song, eating some cake, and opening some presents.  The older the kids get, the more difficult birthdays are to navigate for me.  Friends:  Do their families like us enough to break up their weekend to bring their kid out to wherever the party place is and hang out for a couple of hours?  I am always worried the answer might be "no" and no one will show up.  Thus far, that hasn't happened, but you never know.  Especially since we seem to be at a transition stage in life. Yes, I suppose people like us, but do they 'like us' like us?  So I feel wary of inviting people.

When my folks mentioned wanting to camp with us this fall at Dauphin Island, I jumped on the chance to turn it into a crazy camping birthday weekend and scheduled it for the weekend after Archie's birthday.  *That's* what we'll do for Archie's birthday!  Camping!  Because we just don't do enough of that, right?  :-)

Lydia has this odd 'rule' that one does not turn the next number year until the birthday person has had their cake.  I don't know why or how she came up with this, but Lawrence was six for four days before his birthday party took place.  So she kept insisting to him (and anyone else who would listen) that he was still five because he didn't have his cake yet.  She did the same thing to me when I turned forty.  So you can bet that she kept telling Archie that he was still twelve because he didn't have his cake. My mom, anticipating this, had them make birthday cupcakes that morning while I was at work.  Lydia *still* gave him a hard time because the rest of the family didn't have the cake yet.  Archie took this in better stride than Lawrence did!  

Since we were camping on Thursday night and wouldn't be at church on Sunday, I couldn't get out of work on Wednesday.  I left early to take Archie to lunch for his birthday.  Here he is butchering his sushi with chopsticks.  I guess he needs to do sushi more often to develop better chopstick skills!

While I would have preferred to spend the rest of our afternoon together doing fun stuff, my responsibilities called and we had to run stupid errands.  I had to cook the church dinner and buy the food for camping and the shrimp boil, as well as a few other errands.  So I drug him along for all that.  I promised a trip to the bookstore for next Wednesday since the little ones would be at Mom and Dad's.  I did let him pick out the cake for the church dinner. I put candles on it and the Wednesday Night church group sang Happy Birthday to him.  The little boy in the picture next to Lydia is her little friend, Courtland.   Oh, and P.S. This cake still did not suffice as *the* birthday cake, because we didn't do presents afterward.  Alas, Archie was still twelve according to Lydia.

Phillip wasn't at church due to car issues and I had to pick him up at work.  It was on the way home when he asked how my day was that I realized I had done very little of what *I* wanted to do that day.  I had misspent the vast majority of my time and felt resentful that very little of the day had gone to the person who I wanted to spend it with.  Action minus passion equals obligation.  With the exception of the lunch I enjoyed with my son, all of the day went to obligations that I did not feel passionate about.  Something I will keep in mind for the future.

Archie is enjoying his new (to him) laptop computer for his birthday.  He got it a month ago due to the impending demise of the other one.  It is feeble and hanging on by a thread.  I didn't want to wait til it keeled over and died, because I'd like to reinstall the operating system to see if that revives it enough to use it as a back up computer to watch movies on or whatever.  

We did make it to the bookstore for birthday browsing on the following Wednesday (yesterday).  He bought the Nicholas Flamel book series.  I found a Jerry Reed cd and the Liberty Kids cartoon series, so the bookstore trip was a success.  We spent a few hours there and enjoyed ourselves.  I wish I had the time and attention span to read all the books I found interesting! Perhaps that will come one day. Or I'll be like the guy at the end of the Twilight Zone episode that the whole world blew up except for the library and him.  He finally had time to read all the stuff he ever wanted.  Then he stepped on his coke bottle glasses.  He finally had the time, but then he couldn't see.   

The birthday campout post will be coming soon.