We’re home from our trip and trying to get back into a routine of sorts.  We missed seeing The Boy by about 2 1/2 hours on Monday.  His trip left late in the afternoon but we didn’t get home until early evening.  Was so sad to have missed him.  I know that even if we’d made it in before he left we most likely would’ve only been able to see him for a few minutes.  But in the face of the fact that we’d been gone two weeks and he as going to be gone for a week after we got back, I’d have taken those few minutes.  I needed a hug, dagnabit.

So, we trudged home, unloaded the truck, had an easy dinner and a relaxing night.  Slept like the dead that first night.  Partly because everyone sleeps better in their own beds.  Partly because I hadn’t slept much at all the night before.

Let me make an aside for just a moment here.  I don’t know what happens at Beck’s house but I never manage to sleep well there.  I honestly have no idea why.  Of course it doesn’t help that I’ve had a ridiculously hard time with sleep lately anyhow.  Not sure what’s going on.  I know I need to add exercise to my weight loss at this point and I’m sure that will help with the sleep.  Just need to figure out how to squeeze that in.

So Tuesday I literally sat in front of my computer from the time I got up until the time I went to bed (at 3am).  Got up off and on to help the girls and fix meals.  I completely finished all the sneak peeks for the Alabama photo sessions.  I also finished the first shoot in it’s entirety.  We’d had a second mini-shoot for this family to fill in some shots we didn’t get the first time.  But all of their photos are now proofed and sent to them.  They’ll take some time to look at what they want to order and we’ll go from there.  I still have five other sessions to finish proofing so my plan is to stay here until I’m finished.  Nice thing is, my proofing is improving right along with my photography so time spent on each picture is greatly reduced.  We’re talking relatively speaking.  I used to spend FOREVER on each picture.  Now just about half of forever.

Just found out (moments ago) that The Boy’s trip was cancelled (after he’d been there for a day and a half) and he’ll be home today or tomorrow!  I can’t even begin to explain how happy that makes me.  We talked last night via instant messenger and I cried the entire time.  Not because I was unhappy but because missing him physically hurt.  I’m a very touchy feely person (with my family and close friends…not so much with anyone else HEH) and I literally felt his absence.  I’m crazy I know.  This isn’t new ground we’re covering here folks.

What else is going on……..hmmmm.  Summer is almost over and we’re getting ready to start the regular rhythm and hum of our days.  School, play rehearsals, church, work.  We’ve already gotten all our curriculum for the year.  Spent some time before we left on our trip to get the old stuff put away and the new stuff into the shelves.  I do need some new storage solutions though.  I don’t like it all out there in the open.  I’d like some closed storage (the pretty kind) where I can put away the school stuff and my dining room looks like a dining room again.  We don’t have enough room here to dedicate a space for our school things other than where it is now.  I guess we could figure out a way to put it into the office/odd room in the back but once both computers are in there we run out of room.  Steven’s desk is ENORMOUS so it doesn’t leave much space in that tiny room.  Plus I keep thinking that we’ll be moving in the foreseeable future and I don’t want to start moving things all around just to have to move to a new house and figure it out all over again.  But, I suppose figuring it out here and having a more usable, livable space in the time we have left here makes sense.

The images below inspire me to make the space part of our home.  Not just slap it up and deal with it.

This las bookshelf, I’d prefer it to have doors or at least a cover of some sort.

We don’t have near that amount of space to work with and even if we put the school room into the office downstairs and found somewhere else for the office to go, we’d have a very small space to work with.  But I love the feel of that room above.

The image below is a nice option for an office stoage.  Though mine would have to be black and red and white.  With some ladybugs thrown in.  :)

Except for that chair, oh my word, I LOVE this room!  I’d definitely want to add some chotchky here and there and warm it up a bit with some fabrics and lights.  Make the desk wood and we’d be well on our way to perfection!

I’ll give you three guesses what we did yesterday.

Did we solve world hunger?

Nope.

Did we build a windmill?

Nope.

Did we solve the world’s energy crisis?

Nope again.

Ok, since you’re having so much trouble figuring it out, I’ll let you in on it.  I thought all the visual clues might give it away, but then again maybe not.

We swam.  We played.  We discovered a gigantic bug that we couldn’t identify.

Oh, and we played with the dog again.

Spent most of yesterday in the pool, burning my scalp.  Heh.  Note to self, put sunscreen on head or wear a hat today.

Justin has a dog.  She is a cross between two different types of hunting dogs.  A Blue tick hound and something else.  Destructive little bugger.  And she’s nuts.  She spent the entire three hours we were outside running around the deck of the pool whining until someone splashed her.  She then proceeded to try her darndest to drink the splashes.  It got to be quite funny.

Despite all appearances, Flash is not vicious.  Her teeth and expression shout “I’m going to eat you for lunch little girl!” but honestly, she is harmless.  Slightly insane, but definitely harmless.

At one point I thought to myself that surely her bladder is about to explode from all this water.  In the three hours we were out there I think she went to the bathroom five times.

This one, for some reason, makes me laugh until I cry.  This angle looks like she’s about to consume some tasty toes for lunch.  Truly though her face is on the side of the toes.  I kept waiting for her to fall into the pool.  She gets so excited and starts to get closer and closer to the edge until she’s literally leaning over to reach.

At one point she did fall into the pool but Emily rescued her.  Apparently, Flash doesn’t know how to swim.

Ok, so that last picture there makes me feel slightly off kilter.  Heh.

But she did survive.  I promise.

I’m sure most of the photos from today will be pool related.  Maybe I’ll figure out a way to make it interesting.  :)