The Storm Before the Calm

You know how it is when you go on a short-haul flight and it seems like the captain comes on announcing the descent mere seconds after you've drained the cup of Coke and the attendants are all scurrying around with those garbage bags trying to clean up before the seatbelt sign goes on?

Pretty much someone just announced the descent of summer, even though we barely got started.

The kids had a FABulous time at camp. Apparently The Boy's less-than-excited look in the picture was because he didn't want to be in a picture, not because he didn't want to be at camp. Phew. All told we lost one pair of flip-flops and gained two mild rashes from the lake. But we also gained loving up Jesus and counselors and new friends and hilarious Bible verse songs for impromptu concerts, so it was definitely a win.

And now we're turning our sights towards August. And, of course, as soon as you say August, you might as well say back-to-school-do-the-jeans-still-fit-football-equipment-costs-HOW-much?!.


We've all been on many separate adventures this summer, but so far La Famille PM has yet to adventure all four of us. But huzzah, next Friday we embark on a week-long trek to the Upper Peninsula (Michigan, I think? The Husband is the official planner and knower-of-what's-going-on).

But before that, I have to get through the next six days. And they're gonna be a doozy.

First off, it's home improvement week. We're busily getting our basement bedroom and bathroom ready, in part because we've got family coming to town, but also because we're going to have a long-term visitor starting end of August. We're getting an intern - our kids' schools import student teachers from France to help in the classrooms and work with the munchkins' pronunciation, and the interns are hosted by school families. Ours is coming from September through January and we're super excited.

The Husband's been busy ripping down shelves and patching walls while I took a trip to my favourite place around tonight - the paint aisle. We pretty much have to get everything done before we leave since as soon as we get back Hotel PM starts to hit pretty high occupancy, so there's a definite deadline.

However, it'll be a solo deadline - The Husband travels next week. Which means I'm on duty for pick-up/drop-off at tennis camp, ferrying to the orthodontist, completing aforementioned home improvements, and keeping the house clean/kids fed while getting the laundry ready for packing up to go.

Oh, and madly try to finish up my temporary project at work since I'm going back to my regularly-scheduled duties after my holiday.

Oh, and also be here when the plumber comes since what was supposed to be a "can you unclog the shower drain cuz The Girl and I have long hair?" call turned into a "oh man, I've never seen anything this bad and I need to replace it and there's no panel and we'll have to cut the floor and maybe we'll need to cut into the wall."

(Apparently it is standard to have an access panel to reach one's tub drain from the back and 99% of houses have one. Apparently we are the 1%.)

[Guess that's what happens when you live in an old house with over 100 years of DIY and "code? we don't need no stinking code" under its belt.]

So I'll be driving and cooking and laundering and writing design documents and painting and hanging out with Steve the plumber and packing and all around wearing that well-worn Super PM cape for the next week.

But no worries - vacation's coming, woot!