Just because...

My mostly nice older brother just sent this to me.  Taken with his cell phone at a parents orientation meeting at a reputable university.  I'm thinking this parent either was up too late, has no interest in higher education, or just happened to wander in the double-doors thinking there'd be free ham sandwiches.  Anyway, thanks mostly nice older brother for the chuckle.

The camper went away again tonight.  Funny thing how I get attached to things.  That camper has only had two years in our family and I feel a distinct attachment to it.  Always feel sorry to see it go off to the storage place until the next venture.  Lucky for it and for us we have two adventures yet to go before the snow flies.

We can't complain about the weather.  I was wondering about small talk and what people say when the weather is perfect.

My tomatoes are humongous.  Well the plants anyway.  But the tomatoes themselves - although somewhat large, are slow to turn deep cherrry-red.  There's a nasty weed somewhere in my garden because every time I come out of there I itch like the heebie-jeebies.  And then it gets all red and serious looking.

We are down to the last two weeks of the kids' summer.  Are they happy about it?  Not really.  Am I?  Not really. Sorta.  There's always that melancholy of sadness when the house is empty again for eight hours/day.

I really don't like to see family that lives far away.  And we have more than several in our family that live beyond reach nearly.  Like you see them twice/year at best.  And I don't like to see them.  Because... when you do see them, you have all these overwhelming feelings about how much you miss them.  You share genetics.  And thoughts.  And hilarious times.  And serious talks.  And then they are... gone.  For a very, very long time again.  And you feel lonely.  Because someone(s) you love live far away.  I know it would be much harder if they weren't where they should be.  They all have bloomed where they were planted.  But it's hard once again to say goodbye and be left with wonderful memories of wonderful people.

We've really pulled one of the MYP's legs here...   You see the other night, daughter #1 needed to come downstairs to tell me about an itch or something trivial.  When she was going up I told her to tell daughter #2 that she, daughter #1 was going to sleep in our bedroom.  She added, 'I'll get my pillow too to really fool her'.  So she went up and got her pillow and peeked her head into daughter #2's room and said, 'I'm going to sleep in mom and dad's room tonight!'.  Daughter #2 came unglued.  WHAT?  She came downstairs.  Tears pouring down her little cheeks.  She was talking loud and fast through her tears about us favoring daughter #1 and how unfair life was. I felt guilty for laughing at her incredible reaction.  Then I quickly told her it was a joke.  Daughter #1 was snickering.  And Daughter #2 was flooded with relief that she wasn't missing out.  Silly kids.  Silly mom.

This is enough my dear peeps.