7 Quick Takes

1.  Last night was our last swim meet of the season since we'll be leaving for the beach on Sunday.  It was a great meet, another win, and pleasant weather.  There was a storm in the area that passed us by, but it brought cloudy relief from the intense summer sun and cooling breezes.  Another bonus is that they had a smaller team so there were fewer heats and it was over extremely early.  It was still daylight which is pretty much unheard of.  A nice change from last week when we had the Longest Meet Ever.

2.  I haven't started packing yet for the beach, much to the shock of my neighbor who would be packed weeks in advance!  We'll spend today cleaning and organizing, so I can come home to a clean house, and tomorrow will be packing day.

Somehow it always gets done and we have it all together, except for those couple of times where we forgot to pack the youngest child's clothes.  Thank goodness she's big enough to pack her own clothes now and make sure her bag gets into the car!

3.  My SIL wants a lesson in sock knitting, so I've got that together.  In trying to find a project for myself, I've been combing through patterns that I have saved in a notebook and online.  I think I now have 4 projects on needles that I'm going to take with me!  Methinks it's a little much and I may have to commit to no more than 2 simple projects that don't require much thought.  Perhaps the lace that I had in mind may be too difficult for beach knitting with many interruptions.

4.  I had a scare this week when I got a blast email from American Heritage Girls saying "Are You Sure You're Registered for Convention?"  They said there were several "unfinished" registrations and if we didn't receive confirmation then we probably weren't registered.

Gulp.  That was me.  I just thought it would come a couple of weeks before the convention since we registered sooooo far in advance----like March.

After a couple of frantic emails, a frantic, pleading phone call, and a couple of anxious days, I finally got a message that I was indeed registered.  I still don't quite believe it's paid for since it hadn't shown up on the cc bill, but as long as they have me on the list, that's all that matters!

5.  My gmail account is swamped with Cathswap emails these days.  Do you know what Cathswap is?  It's a Yahoo group dedicated to buying and selling Catholic homeschool materials.  Everyone is buying and selling frantically to get ready for school.

No, not me.  Of course.  I did make up that list of books for sale, and sold a few locally, but I haven't posted them on Cathswap yet since I don't want people emailing me while we're on vacation.  I'll get to it in July, I guess.  But it seems like I'm so far behind already!!

6.  My neighbor that I've been walking with this week has one child and is constantly asking "how I do it".   I think aside from the sheer day-to-day work, she's thinking in terms of $$.  Well, it's not easy, but it's just what we do.  We never thought in terms of the money when thinking about another child; we just thought about how much they would bring to our lives.

Now that we have 2 in private school and 2 in college, the budget is pretty strained.  But I wouldn't have it any other way.  One good thing about such strain is that the kids appreciate what they do get, and they know that they have to work and save if they want something special.

We're all getting better at bargain hunting, too.  There really is some great stuff at the thrift stores.  You've just got to haunt them, practically.

I was thrilled the other day to get some cheap schoolbooks for Tom at the used book and uniform sale.  We also got 3 uniforms shirts and pants for a total of $20.50.  That's a huge savings, and they're like new, too.

7.  My 7 Quick Takes aren't very quick.  It seems I should take each of these things and make an entire blog post about them!  I'm thinking over this whole blogging thing this summer.  There are lots of conversations on the internets about how it fits in (or detracts from) the primary job of being a mother.  Reading blogs, more than my own actual blogging, takes up a lot of time in my day these days.  But that's because my kids are bigger; and now they're at swim team for most of the morning.  So, I have the uninterrupted time.  During school, I do this stuff more in the early a.m. before they're up, but I can still be sucked into the Black Hole of the Internet during the day!  If I had lots of little ones, I wonder what I'd be doing?  How would I balance it?  Would I balance it, or would it tip the scales (and probably in the wrong direction)?

I'll have lots of time to think about these things as I watch the waves roll onto the beach and my family playing in the surf.

I'll let you know what I think of when I get back!

Love ya!