Here's the volunteer pumpkin.
We are growing a few things in containers this summer with moderate success, including a pumpkin that's on the gravel not 5 feet from this one. I guess our volunteer pumpkin from the pasture last year that those jerk neighbor kids smashed before Halloween has lived to fight another year. That, or we are terrible at mowing the lawn. Hmm. We recently renewed our lease so we are staying put for another year. No job in sight, but we think with the low cost of living, it's worth staying. Also that way if we move either for my job or for rotations, we've had some continuity for the kid. She is still sad we had to move. I bet she will be for years to come.
I did finally pick some rotations. 4 of them would be out of town so the other 4 would be close to home, if I magically get all my first choices. 3 of those 4 are close enough that I could come home on weekends at least. It is mostly terrifying to look the end of this degree in the face. Possibly totally terrifying. In 2 years I'll have my license (I really hope) and be working at a really real job. Wahoo! Eeeeeeep! My goal in scheduling the out of town rotations is to match them to school breaks so maybe the family could come with me for at least part of the rotation. Imagining the spouse has a job either with flexibility or none at all, at least.
The other earth-shattering thing around here is the reality of no more daycare. We have a schedule that the kid fights tooth & nail for some reason, but if we stick with it, it's a good schedule. Pleasant even. We have visited the nature center an insane amount of times but the visitors' center stopped being scary after the third visit, so it's much more fun now. The kid's field journal is pretty snazzy and has pictures she's drawn of a few bugs, birds, and plants.
We went on a crazy trip (with my mother) to visit my grandma and yet again I didn't get any candid pictures of her with the kid. Sigh. The posed shots are nice though. We camped outside in a tent in rather cool weather and had a generally good time. Little Monster got a really amazing full body rash that looked like she'd been dusted in red candy sugar but it cleared up once it was treated properly. I suspect foreign laundry soap as the culprit. She also got about 5 bug bites which was by far the fewest of any of us. We fished and caught nothing but almost one fish that escaped inches below the surface. Good vacation. Our best decision was putting my mom in the back of the van during the long drive so they could chatter away. It meant I drove the whole way (erg) but we were all happier.
I'm notably failing at my summer goals and there's a post coming up about that. Woooooo and such. Today I was so excited to start running, and then I tripped on an evil wheeled contraption and wounded my bad hip. Ugh. Hopefully it's just a little bruised so I can get back to walking (and running maybe) soon.
Did you notice the Encyclopedia Brown reference? That boy detective is quite the hit around here. Junie B & Encyclopedia all the time. Oh that kid. She's getting so big! Both of them are!
It actually sounds like you are making the most of the summer despite the stress. I'm impressed that the kid has a field journal! Kudos to you!
ReplyDeleteI bet you're rocking the No Daycare thing better than you know. Sounds like a lot of summer fun is actually happening. And now I want to go smash a pumpkin in my yard and see if next year I too can have a sidewalk pumpkin! ;)
ReplyDeleteThe best part of year 1 of the pumpkin volunteer is that almost 2 years ago, it was fed to the livestock. When it sprouted in their pasture, we discovered that while pumpkins are tasty, the vine was not. It got enormous when the critters were sold with leaves 30 inches wide. We picked 4 pumpkins when we moved my folks out in September. It's a feisty pumpkin... that I now have to mow around!
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