Friday

Just back from 3 days at the beach. The kids are sitting in the dark watching Tivo'd episodes of "The Mentalist." Obviously, everyone is exhausted. We camped, ate and swam and had 3 hour stomachaches (Nephew10). Boy15 got a sunburn and then shivered for 15 minutes. Following that he was fine. 2" Mosquitos that will not be deterred by a little Deet. Wait, I'm giving the downside, aren't I?

The upside: Old Orchard Beach in Maine. Nice beach. The kids had a skim board and several body surfing boards. We had great weather until today when it rained all the way home. We had eye candy at the next campsite. A hot, young (French?) couple. Chris says Old Orchard Beach is Canada's Florida. Many French speaking people, the majority. We had lobster rolls and strawberry rhubarb pie.

Wednesday

We are on our way out to the beach today. This takes extreme effort for 13 people to get ready for camping out two nights. Actually my SIL Donna is doing the brunt of the work. Thank you Donna.

Yesterday we spent hanging out around the homestead in the pool. The next door neighbors are minor league ball players and so that was cool. One had been on the Marlins two years and is bumped down. The former Yankee wasn't over here but he lives next door also. I'm wearing Cubs regalia. My camera battery was dead and blogger is not uploading expediently enough for me today so you won't see any future MLB prospects.

We had some English language lectures from my dad on the origins of English. We read the American Heritage Dictionary and enjoyed it this morning (not the whole thing). I went to Walgreen's twice. Walked in the woods about an hour with Betsy and Donna. It was good to move around a little bit.

Day Five of Vaca

Five days away from the computer, my bike, and The Bachelorette. I feel so naked. I seem to have misplaced my vacation pics on the labbie (laptop)but will keep looking for some postings. I plan to write about gas prices on my other blog, how exciting! I'm ignoring my relatives I only see once a year to blog. They are the majority of my readers, so go figure. They thought I was crazy that I felt the NEED to blog when we are all together.



Here is Niece2Months. Looks like Pat is telling her a great joke!



This is Cousin It, aka Nephew11. I feel much better now I got something posted and found my pictures afterall.

Unemployment

This picture was taken at a work going away party for Angie and me last Friday. (Angie is my good-young buddy who is also a mental health case manager and went through the whole MSW program with me). This is my good friend Beth, the nurse, who left the agency last November after 15 years. It was much sadder than me leaving. I was wrecked when she quit to take a job in hospice. But everything has worked out well afterall for both of us.

My third day of unemployment and I am sure glad we're going on vacation tomorrow. I am not getting anything done. I exercise early in the morning, maybe clean up a little around the house, take a nap, go out to lunch, take another nappy, have some coffee, make dinner, sit on the porch, ride my bike and that's about it. I might throw in a load of laundry if I feel like it. I guess I am one of those people who needs to work to be productive. See, I would have done all that stuff (minus one of the naps) and worked an 8 hour day normally.

August 13 I start my internship in a special education cooperative. I am looking forward to a fast paced job and learning a lot of new stuff. I am hoping to take on some new projects in my schools like perhaps a bullying program or a book club or academic coaching/mentoring. Who knows??



This is Angie, who is leaving work Friday to also start a school social work internship in another city. Boo hoo. She taught me how to really use a cell phone and other useful information that people in their 20's know.

New Blog

I started a new blog. If you like to read about cheapskates and saving money, you can try it out. It is listed on the right edge of this blog as "The Parsimonious Soldier."

Bday Boy

I like this picture better.

Yesterday it was nice to have a holiday. It seemed like a lot of people had the day off and some didn't. It felt like Saturday all day. So it's great that today is actually Saturday. Last night we had a picnic at the park with my parents, some old friends of theirs and Betsy and her family, 12 in all. Afterwards we went for a drive around Pennington Point, a little area out in the country where my parents' friends used to live in the 60's. Both houses were still there and Janet loves to tell how I used to stay with her when I was 3 or 4 years old. She had her own kids later on, but I remember loving to visit them in the country because Janet loved us kids so much. Unfortunately, the Victorian they had was vacant and run down. It appeared that vagrants had been living there recently as there was cat food, beer cans, and party CD's strewn about the yard and the windows were open.

Games

After Boy15's birthday Tuesday evening we played Mad Gab. It was kind of a bust. So, Boy15 went off to play with his Ipod Touch and Grandma and Boy21 played a card game that looked like Advanced War. I wanted to learn to play this, but I got distracted and forgot about it. My sister has an Ipod Touch but doesn't know how to use it. After one day with Boy15, Nephew10 says "Mom, can I go online and get some apps for this?"

Tomorrow is aerobics at 5:40 a.m., a tutorial for Betsy on downloading some crap to her Ipod, getting an electrical recliner chair out of my parents van, into their house and down into the basement (don't ask) and a picnic in the park. I am too cheap to reserve a shelter for $30 so I guess we will drive around the parks until we find one.