Gorgeous good morning

Oh what a good night of sleep can do! Yesterday's rain washed away the attendant humidity, and this morning dawned crisp and blue. The boys slept well and were darling, mostly- to completely-naked banshees before I left (to yoga!). I love their perky little butts; they won't always be cute or what I want to see in the morning! Have a great Saturday! I have a recipe-writing class and then dinner out at Unum with T. A review will follow.

Delicious, tired

Wow you guys, I am wiped out. Do you know what I learned this week? That the few hours of babysitting I had Monday/Tuesday were not enough. Since Wednesday morning I have done nothing on my own personal to-do/want list. Not one darn thing. Despite my efforts to not over-schedule the children, it appears we had gymnastics, chess and baseball practice within 72 hours as well as a class play, absurd amounts of laundry, some pets that apparently want attention, and so forth. At 5:30p tonight, I told the kids that they better keep on with their Tic-Tac-Toe game because if I didn't shower, a) my greasy hair would literally slither out of my head, b) I would go crazy from yukkiness, or c) both+. They swore they'd not open the front door so I took the opportunity to give my legs a cursory shave and my hair a MUCH-needed wash. When I emerged I found, to my jump-out-the-window dismay, that T had texted to say that he wouldn't be home until at least 7:30p. Mother of....Bath- and bed-time solo again. I bathed the kids in a less than detailed way and then informed them that Jack would be reading the goodnight stories whilst I took a load off downstairs. With wine.

It had to be done, peeps. They were fine. Had a ball.

I also informed T that I would not be doing bath- or bed-time at any point this weekend.

On a more positive note, I made a bitchin' dinner of seared halibut with mango-lime salsa and my now-finalist-nominated caramelized fennel, leek and orange salad. SO good, HIT the spot. I also enjoyed a bit more wine, brainstormed with a dear friend about what she should do with the zucchini she'd just mandolined (I suggested mojito zuc; apparently it was a total success), conversed with a dear pen-pal friend, Karen, about her birthday (which is now), and then, for the first time(!), spoke to my F52 long-distance friend, boulangere, aka Cyn.

Tomorrow, the boys are heading to T's parents' house for the day and an overnight. This is incredible, and I am thrilled. They are so great but god, the noise and talking are wearing. Like a bayou wake against un-wharfed land; rough!

This morning

It's early; too early and for no reason at all I'm up. Dark and cool, the languid silence is interrupted at regular intervals by the cacophonous concert of out-of-tune instruments that is my husband's snoring.My eyes closed, I can nonetheless sense the quiet lighting outside, as if a pantomime of high-wattage lumens seeks my attention. It must be raining, because erratically, the wind blows through, spilling gushers of fluid in doing so. If I were outside, I might feel that I'm trapped in a dark children's waterpark, one with water guns, fountains and those buckets that fill and dump from above with seemingly no schedule. The house is quiet but for his breathing. What can possibly be going on in his nasal passages to make such a diverse range of snorty sounds? If it were a few hours earlier, I'd skedaddle down to the basement, but sooner than not, another rooster will crow, and then the race begins anew.