Long lost update

Let’s pretend I’ve been regularly posting so it’s not strange that I haven’t done so in a while. Also that perhaps I’ve just been having too much fun living life and having a husband that is home. You should not read that line at all sarcastically, because while it is still and adjustment, having Simon home every night is capital-A Awesome! Plus he goes to bed at 9:30 so I still have a bulk of the evenings to myself. 🙂 It’s a good gig.

Simon has just headed off to a two-night 80s concert extravaganza with long-time friend Nick. I am so glad they have each other for these things, because I would not joyously be joining him in seeing Firehouse, Skidrow, WInger, Tesla, Def Leppard and Kiss. No thank you. Liam is at my parents’ house for grandma and grandpa bonding (which sounds like he just got to run errands with grandpa yesterday) and tomorrow Jack and I go to Lansing for the night and then I bring Liam back with me on Sunday so Jack can have his turn with errand running and slushie drinking to his heart’s content.

Thankfully, Jack is currently having a play date because yesterday was intense… just he and I all afternoon with me trying to get work done while he spent 5 minutes at a time occupying his own attention between bugging me to entertain him. I can only do so many puzzles, make so many plastic cooties and draw so many pictures for him to decorate. We tried reading Harry Potter – he made it to page 2 before running off to find something else to do. We also had kindergarten visitation where Jack managed to make off with plastic coins from the cash register. Thankfully I had already alerted his [saintly] teacher of his propensity for kleptomania and she assured me she has had other students with the same problem… though I still feel like I need to get her a stellar back-to-school survival gift just so she remembers that when my child is jumping on her last nerve. In related news, I’ve been reading “Raising Your Spirited Child” and no surprise, I have two spirited children. Go figure, because Simon and I are such un-spirited people.

Work is good – I’ve been doing quite a few design projects that have been fun and creatively inspiring which feels pretty darn good if I’m honest. I just celebrated my 14th anniversary with the company… hard to believe when it often feels like just yesterday when I was starting there but 14 years is a very long time. And aside from the year in Chicago, I’ve lived half my life in GR now… and that feels nice.

Simon and I saw David Gray last weekend over by Detroit and it was a wonderful concert – outdoor venue, all the old favorites along with the new stuff and a night out with my hubby. I realized that like my work anniversary, I’ve been listening to David Gray for 14 years. I never tire of seeing him in concert though I am now of the opinion that he should stick to standing with his guitar and sitting at the piano rather than dancing during his concerts – a dancer he is not, unless he is going for a spastic, modern dance delivery, similar to Delores O’Riordan of the Cranberries (she still sticks out as the strangest singer who mistakenly was dancing that I have ever seen perform). I’ve got no more concerts on the calendar for this year and that’s a little sad but I have faith that something will come up…

For Liam’s birthday weekend we hosted three parties in one day and aside from a little [initial] snafu with the slushie machine, I’d say everything went off as planned (which is to say, successfully). Yes, we did hand out a few bandaids and there was a bloody nose situation, but you kind of expect that with a bunch of kids and free reign (with adult supervision) of a bounce house. I realize it seems crazy to host three parties in one day but it honestly didn’t cause me any more stress than hosting one thing that day… because when necessary, I can plan ahead and be prepared. 🙂 Plus the morning and evening gatherings were potluck so while we hosted a whole bunch of people, we had more scaled back food prep than what we could have. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat and loved that even though we were spent, at the end of the night, Simon and I were still laughing as we struggled to get the deflated bounce house loaded into the back of our minivan (does that mental picture get any more suburban yuppie?).

School starts the Tuesday after Labor Day so we just have to make it through next week without incident and we can write off summer 2014 as a success in our family history book. We didn’t take any huge vacations, travel great distances or even make it to the beach more than once but we had fun, we started a new chapter with having Simon on a regular day schedule and we marked many items off our summer bucket list! We really just need to host a lemonade stand and then I think my kids will be fully content. For five minutes.