Thursday Evening of a Hot and Humid Day

Today wasn't the hottest day we've had so far this summer, but I swear it was the most humid. I've just about saturated the t-shirt and knit skirt I'm wearing in sweat and when I'm done blogging I'm going to go take the third shower of the day.

It's 10:20. The kids are in bed. At least two out of three of them are asleep. It's been a hectic day. I almost forgot to take the dog for a walk this evening.

I got up early, feeling much better than the night before when I'd been feeling flu-ish and had a sore throat. I got dressed in some ugly gardening clothes and ran over to the garden to weed and prune the tomatoes for an hour. The added water a week ago caused the fungus or bacteria that they're all sick with to come raging back--so I've been cutting off the diseased branches and using the opportunity to tie up the plants and get the tomatoes off the ground. I'm on the last square of the garden and the one that was arguably the biggest mess/host to the biggest problems. Therefore an hour only weeded another third of the square and I only got two more plants pruned and tied up. But that leaves me with two plants left to prune and tie and the ground under them to weed. I'm not sure when I'll get to that. Probably not tomorrow. I guess Saturday as there's a bunch of tomatoes ripening and another batch in the front yard and on my window sill. I'll make another small-ish batch of spaghetti sauce. The spaghetti sauce seems to do better when I'm not trying to can up too many tomatoes at once.

At any rate, around 8:30 I hurried and tidied up the plot, put the wheelbarrow and tools away in the garden shed, and raced back home. Grandma Gaye had overseen the dressing of the twins and they were all ready to go. I hopped in the shower and then into clean clothes, inadvertantly grabbing a tomato-stained shirt that I ended up wearing the rest of the day. I must have made a magnificent first impression more than once today.

The kids and I hurried out to the truck. First stop was the drive-through lane of the bank. Second stop was the doctor's office. We got two sets of kindergarten physical papers filled out and one set of 6th grade physical papers filled out. My plan to spread out all the shots over the year had worked and the kids weren't due for shots of any kind. The twins happily answered all of the doctor's questions. They like this doctor and he likes them. His twins are 21 years old. He says they still share clothes (and an apartment).

The boys were pronounced a healthy bunch and we left there to go back home. I did a load of dishes and the boys made themselves sandwiches. Gaye came home from spending a few hours working over at her house and had a sandwich, too. We had a short break and then it was nearing 1:00 pm, so we all piled back in the truck, Grandma Gaye, too, and headed over to the new school building.

The school was fabulous. In the last ten days the construction crew and teachers have worked feverishly to put the finishing touches on the place. The floor was laid, the carpet installed, the ceiling tiles placed, the windows washed, the desks arranged, LOCKERS INSTALLED for the middle school kids (Ooooh, every new 6th grader was in heaven--it was like at the BIG middle school! Only better--because they weren't actually going to be at the big middle school, and they STILL got lockers. Lockers! Look how big we are now!) and each one already labeled with the name of the inaugural middle schooler who would possess them.

The Kindy teacher had asked that we bring the kids' school supplies to the open house so she could have them all put away and labeled or arranged or something for the first day of school. So Max naturally wanted to bring HIS school supplies, even though his list had not said to do that. So he filled his new orange backpack with his supplies. I gave him permission to go out to the car and get his backpack and unload all his stuff into his locker. Nobody thought that was geeky. They all wished they'd thought to do the same thing.

Last year the fifth graders didn't fit in the old building. They had to rent a room in the building next door to the school and at the end of each day break down the tables they'd used and put EVERYTHING belonging to the class away in a storage room. This year as sixth graders they get one of the bigger classrooms and real desks. And the math program is new, too. I like it much better than the Everyday Math program the elementary kids use.

We stayed almost an hour, visiting with some of the other parents, looking around the new building, turning in some paperwork. The twinks spent most of it in the kindergarten room talking to their new teacher and playing with the legos that were out on one of the tables. The K's get their own bathroom IN their classroom and I'm thrilled about that, too.

Then, we came home, had a little down time, and waited for Chris to get home from his lunch meeting. By this time the heat and humidity were beyond oppressive and we all wished we had central air conditioning--but tomorrow is the big moving day as we and friends from church get everything belonging to Gaye OUT of storage and INTO her house. As part of that, we're moving our fridge that we brought with us from California up into our kitchen and moving the fridge that the previous owners left here out of the kitchen and into Gaye's kitchen. The two fridges are nearly the same age, but the CA fridge is bigger and the PA fridge is a better fit for Gaye's kitchen.

So Chris spent about two hours disassembling the CA fridge and getting it moved from the basement to the kitchen (via the driveway, up the front walk, and through the front door) and then I spent about three hours cleaning out two fridges, and moving the stuff from one fridge to the other. I don't clean out the fridge head to toe very often. I'm more of a spot cleaner I guess, so cleaning out the fridges was a big chore. You can miss a lot when you only clean up after big spills. Gaye kept wanting to help, but I felt strongly that they were my messes and anyway, it was a good opportunity to check the expiration dates on everything.

And so now it's a little past 11:00 pm and in spite of a thunderstorm that was supposed to bring in cool air, it still seems unbelievably hot and humid. I actually have some pretty serious work deadlines coming up (got a slew of emails to that point this afternoon) and since I couldn't find a babysitter for the twins for tomorrow, we've decided that I'll stay here and work all day while Chris and Gaye and the volunteers work on the move and then Saturday I'll put in hours helping unpack. Sunday is the Sabbath and then Monday will be another full day of work. Thank goodness for federal holidays--they really help me catch up when I'm behind a bit in work. Tuesday we'll take the kids to school and then meet other parent/friends at the Waffle Shop for a first-day-of-school breakfast. I expect to spend all of next week either working on this work project or unpacking boxes.

I'm looking forward to it actually. It's good to have work and it's good to have family to do things for and it's good to feel really hopeful (and only a little bit worried) about the upcoming school year. Max will NOT have a first-year teacher this year (although she's new to the school) and the twins will NOT have a first-year teacher for kindergarten and there's no reason to think that this isn't the year the kids will have teachers they love and a really fabulous time in school. I think we're about due for that. I'm ready for a year like that. (And I'm ready for the fall. For 55-degree temps and raking leaves and acorns and putting the garden to bed and another blanket on the beds. I'm ready for that, too!)