Summer

I have a love/hate relationship with summer. I love having my girls home with me and I love not having so many meetings and such that only occur during the school year. But somehow, I am always busier during the summer than during the school year. Maybe I'm not really busier, but my expectations are that summer is a time of relaxation and it really isn't. For years, Hubby told me I had it wrong. He said that as a SAHM (Stay at Home Mom) summer would be my busy time of year. And I guess I agreed with that when the girls were younger. I had to provide some structure to their days. And the summer has always been when I tried to teach the girls some 'real life skills'. They have to make dinners (from planning a balanced meal, to getting the ingredients on the grocery list, to making it) and they always have a sewing project. At first it was just something like a pillow but each year I wanted them to do a more intricate project. In addition, the summer was when we cleaned out closets, etc. But as they got older (21 and 17), I guess I imagined that things would be less on me and more on them. Not so. In fact, this year I'm doing all the sewing! They picked the patterns and material, but I'm doing the sewing. To be fair, the Imp has done the pinning the pattern and cutting it out and the Singer works 40 hours a week plus has a 40 minute commute each way. And somehow extra stuff always gets thrown in. But even with all the stuff, I still love summer.

The Imp is off for a week. She's helping to run a retreat-type week for other teens. She helps train the teens to be retreat-helpers during the year. It's a great way to spend a week and it has given her great confidence in her skills and has helped her know things to help her stay firm in and being able to defend her faith. This is her 4th year. They have theme nights. This year one night is Famous Characters. Her friends all decided to go as Disney characters, so her friends are Cinderella, Belle, Sleeping Beauty and Ariel. The Imp gets to be Tinkerbell. That's amusing in lots of ways, since the Singer has always had a love of Tink and has tons of Tinkerbell stuff. But once you stop to think about it, Tinkerbell is a great fit. Tink has got an attitude, as does the Imp and truthfully, the Imp just isn't "Disney Princess" material. So this week I had the honor (right!) of making her a Tinkerbell costume! Working with tulle isn't as easy as one would imagine. But I got it done. I can't wait to see the pictures!

Both girls are getting excited about going to World Youth Day. They leave on August 12 and return on the 22. Both girls will be missing the first days of school, but I think the experience is well worth it. Yesterday we found out that their group was given the opportunity of picking 3 participants to sit in the FRONT ROW of seats at the prayer vigil with the Pope. The Singer was picked as one of the three! What a thrill! The Singer is studying theology and spent this past semester studying many of Benedict's writings and is a big fan. She's so excited, I'm not sure she'll sleep between now and then. I'm so happy for her. She refers to Pope Benedict as El Papa or Benny.

I'm sitting here in a darken house as it storms outside. It began about 7 this morning. I love listening to the rain and am thrilled with the rainfall, as we desperately need it.  However...I have errands to run and don't really enjoy driving and running in the rain.  We actually got rain last night, too, so the roads have standing water.  But I won't complain.