angela_o

Summer is officially here if we go by the school calendar. Yesterday was the last day for Matthew and Natalie is now an official Middle School (8th grade) graduate. It's strange to contemplate that in the fall I'll have two high schoolers and two college students. I'd always heard people say that you really never feel that much older on the inside (which I totally didn't believe when I was a kid) and I continue to be amazed by how true that is. The inner me is apparently still about 17.

Eric went back to school last weekend and has finished the first week of his summer school class. He's stayed relatively stable for quite a while now and while I hope that trend continues, it's hard knowing that it could change at any moment. I've gotten much better at living in the moment, but it would be nice to feel more comfortable making longterm plans. Maybe I have to accept that I can make the plans, but there are no guarantees. Which is true for all of us, I suppose.

Julia is about to head into finals and will be home in a week. I love all my kids, but she's the one that's the most like me and it's always a pleasure to have her around. I intend to enjoy it since there are no guarantees that she'll be back home for any extended time periods after this summer.

I had some fun last night. I took Matthew and Natalie to see The Postal Service. Because we were in the midst of huge downpours from Tropical Storm Andrea the venue for the concert had to be changed and we ended up getting great seats. Much better than the ones we would have had at the original venue. It was M and N's first big outdoor and it was a blast. There's something about the ephemeral nature of live performance that really gets to me. I love cds and movies, but seeing art being performed and being part of that experience is really special. Plus, bonus points for being able to horrify your teenage daughter by dancing to the music.

Thanks for the book recommendations. I'll be checking them out. I'm also thinking about reading The Game of Thrones series this summer. Seeing all the sturm and drang fallout from the last aired episode has inspired me to see what all the fuss is about. I know not to get too attached to any character since it sounds like GRR Martin makes Joss look like a rank amateur in painful character demise. There are some benefits to being semi-spoiled.

Okay, one last question for you. I've been revisiting some old fandoms for fic and wanted to know, what do you think are the best fics from any of the fandoms that you've been involved in? The ur fics if you will. I'd love it if you'd share.

I just wanted to take a few moments to wish all of you a very merry Christmas.  And if you don't celebrate Christmas, may you have a very happy holiday season.  With all the sadness of recent weeks, it's important to remember the good things in our lives.  You, my LJ friends, are one of the good things in my life.

I'm happy to say that things have improved since my last post. No new kitten to replace Nicholas yet, but we'll see what happens on that front in the coming months.

( In no particular order, here are things that have made/are making me happy. )


How's life treating you all?

Yes, I've been MIA for some time now. Things on the home front continue to be quite stressful, but I'm taking it a day at a time and trying to make positive changes in my own life. I keep telling myself that things will get better. *fervently wishes*

However, I do have tickets to take the kids to see the "Hunger Games" at midnight release in IMAX. Anyone else seeing it tonight? I haven't seen anything in IMAX in forever. Let's hope it's not too overwhelming!

In other news, spring has definitely sprung around here. (Well, to be perfectly honest, some forsythia started to bloom in January which was more than a little disquieting.) But now things are abloom everywhere you look. Which means that pollen is also everywhere. Here's to beautiful flowers and minimal seasonal allergies!

One of my New Year's resolutions is to try at least one new recipe a month. I've made several crockpot recipes this month and today's was Split Pea Soup. It was tasty, but not everyone is excited about this change in culinary plans. Natalie, age 12, announced at dinner that "the crockpot was Satan's cooking tool". Who knew!

It's been a week since Julia went back to school and while I'm still a little blue, I'm doing better. We'll see how things go when we take Eric to the wilderness treatment program on Saturday.

In other news, the freakishly warm winter weather continues. I've seen more forsythia plants starting to bloom as well as some ornamental trees. I don't like this. Where's the snow??

#1 Daughter is home for Thanksgiving and wants to help decorate the Christmas tree before she heads back to school. That means purchasing the tree this weekend. The new house is considerably larger than the old one, thus there is more space to decorate. That means that for the first time ever, I'm putting up 2 full-sized trees. One in the formal living room (with my GE Classic colored lights) and one in the downstairs family room with white lights. I've never used white lights before, but the downstairs family room has the fireplace and my garland for around the fireplace has white lights and I can't in good conscience mix colored and white lights. (Yes, I have been told that I have Christmas Nazi tendencies. lol) So, I've purchased two trees and they're up in the stands. The white lights are on and the other tree will have lights put up later this evening after the branches have time to fall. I've hauled out the boxes and boxes of decorations and will get the kids to help put ornaments on later tonight.

I've also got the wreath and garlands up outside, but I have to decide how I'm doing those lights this year. Outside outlet placement isn't ideal.

This means that I'll be able to relax for the entire month of December, right?

*hums For the Beauty of the Earth*
To all my friends who celebrate, I hope that you're having a wonderful day full of good food and hospitable companions. To those outside of the US, I hope that you're having a spectacular Thursday!

Here, the turkey and the dressing are in the oven. The homemade mac and cheese is prepped and ready to bake. Deviled eggs are made and apple pie baking is about to get underway. Then it's just a matter of heating up the maple roasted sweet potatoes and the broccoli and putting out the cranberry sauce. It may be declasse, but it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without Ocean Spray.

Oh, went to see Breaking Dawn last night with my girls and a dear friend. Hilarity! Every time you thought it couldn't get more mockable, the movie proved you wrong. That takes a perverse sort of genius.

I got my Bon Iver tickets today. It's going to be over 100 tomorrow and the concert is at an outdoor venue, but I'm willing to brave the heat for Justin Vernon's voice. I'm thinking copious consumption of cool beverages will be the key.

Then, the next day, we're headed to the beach for a week. I'm way behind on my reading for the year, so the hope is that I can really indulge in some quality book time. Vacation is a very good thing.

Music, beach, and books. It's hard to get better than that!

I'm with the kids in our seats waiting for the Harry Potter movie to start. I'm dressed as Bellatrix. Julia is Astoria Greengrass. Natalie is Tonks (the book variety with pink hair). Eric is a Hogwarts student.
Matthew refused to dress up so he's our token Muggle.

What are you doing this evening?

The state of me:

I'm being a slug right now laying on my bed in the air conditioning listening to the birds chattering outside in the 95 degree heat.  

I bought new flowers for the patio and they need to be repotted, but I'm thinking I may wait for the sun to go down tonight.  Laziness has a lot to recommend it at the moment.  

I'm waiting for UPS to deliver my package from Amazon which will contain the latest Janet Evanovich and the new Bon Iver cd. "Holocene" is already my new favorite song and I'm excited to delve into the rest of the record. 

Hubby and I celebrated our 24th anniversary this week and went out for a fancy dinner last night.  It was fun getting dressed up and eating yummy food.  Although I might need to start thinking about getting some exercise in the not-too-distant future.

I've been in a reading drought lately.  Anything that my FL can recommend?

Finally, what's the state of you?