Preparing

The surly mood has dissipated. It waned into weepiness yesterday afternoon, and a good night's sleep seemed to help it all just go away. Now I am frantically trying to get things done before vacation, both at work and at home. Work is tying up the last of the open enrollment paperwork that is spread all over my office and running some of the billing reports.

I took the van for an overdue oil change this morning and, as I expected, the brakes need changing, too. Sigh. Fortunately, I was holding some money aside for anything that needed to be done for the van. I will be glad to know it's done before making the drive down to the beach.

So, I got a ride from the mechanic to a bus stop and caught the bus in. I have a friend from work dropping me off to the shop this afternoon and my sister agreed to pick up the boys from day camp... so those bases are covered! I still need to get a prescription filled, replace the boys' lost & broken goggles for swimming, get to the grocery store and PACK. It will all get done somehow, and it will be so worth it.

The family email exchange is picking up speed as we all get ready. My brothers are bringing guitars and music. I love when people sit around after dinner, play and sing and just relax. I hope they are open to my kids wanting to learn a little - one of our next door neighbors played with my kids a couple of times. He was playing blues guitar & singing, while the older son played a recorder (and actually kept up with the key changes without help) and Peanut "drummed" with a pen on a glass. It doesn't sound impressive, but they really kept up and it was a joy to see them being part of the music.

Also one of my brothers is bringing a glove for the older son (who really needs a nickname here - we call him Bunny at home but he will hardly want to be posted that way), who is interested in playing baseball. We want to test out his level of interest before investing in a good glove, and this is a perfect opportunity. He is fortunate to have aunts and uncles who are more sports oriented than I am, or he might never learn the basics of the various games. Someone started organizing the kids for soccer and baseball at lunch recess at school this year, which piqued his interest.

In the midst of all this, we signed the final round of papers for the divorce last night. I am glad it is done, but sad that things are what they are. It is good, actually, to be so busy as there is less time to brood about that and about other things. Speaking of busy, I have to get back to work!