August 5: Lovely, lovely days. . .

Maybe it's because of our late start on vacation, but I feel like I am just now starting to settle into the right vacation groove. Lyle is in CT, Andy is working steadily on various lawn jobs, and Nate is working and looking towards Bates (Aug. 24, babeeeeee!), which leaves me with a nice . . . what do I call a routine that is not a routine but which I am learning to love? summer, I guess. The weather has been lovely, and I have been enjoying the quiet and shady coolness that we get here during the summer afternoons. I've been working on two pairs of pj pants for certain twins whose b'day is coming up, so I've been busy since Saturday, but I do love the ability to organize my days the way I want to organize them!

Then again, the fact that it is August has forced me to look at some things I. Want. To. Get. Done, so today I woke up at 6:15, ran (yay, me! So proud and pleased that I can run pretty much first thing these days!), showered, then got my long-delayed blood test from last year done, came home, and it was 8 am! I have been working steadily with Casey, though not always face-to-face, but we have both been reliable about doing our assigned work, so that's great.

Andy and I have decided that Lyle will take A's Corolla to school with him, mostly because, when we thought about it, it was the solution that left the fewest number of loose ends/questions/stressful details to tie up, so we went with it! Andy will drive the Camry (we owe about $500 on it and then it's all ours!) until he decides it's time for a change OR it dies, so we'll have one less car sitting in the driveway most of the winter, which is great. It's funny how just having that small decision made makes me feel good. My brain doesn't need to keep turning the question over and over, wondering if we can rent, or Sam could drive, or. . . . Yay!

And on Sunday Andy and I drove down to get the truck from Mom's and tied in a visit to see our new nieces at Maine Medical, where they'll be for about a week, probably. They are tiny, but they do look like babies, not fetuses, which is a clear indication that they are much healthier than many of the poor babies in the NICU. What an amazing event in our family. . . wow. Just plain wonderful. I need to decide on a stocking pattern and then get started--maybe while we drive N down to Bates!

Julie arrives for our SECOND child-free visit this summer, which should be great. She's had a tough go recently, with the loss of a neighbor to cancer and a sick Tuffy, so it'll be nice to have her up for a while of heavy vacationing. AND: funny to think that a year ago on Saturday, Nate and I went down to get Camilla from UNE. Wow.

So I could take several more weeks of lovely weather and total control of my time and decisions, but its fleeting quality is partly what makes summer so wonderful. Tonight A and I are going to see "Chef" at Reel Pizza with my Hebron classmate, Jeanne K. . . . more fun! Yay!