Sunday, August 18, 2013

It was kind of a nutty week.

It started well enough: lovely Sunday, normal Monday and Tuesday, relaxing Wednesday, and then it went mad fast. K took all the doors off the house. my high school best friend dropped in for a visit (haven't seen her for....8 years?). I woke up Friday morning, went to work, and in the middle of a trailer full of watermelons being delivered, realized I was supposed to be in Jackson-- 2+ hours away-- for an award. (Made it for lunch. And the award.)

Saturday was work-- busy work-- and then the afternoon birthday party of a good friend in Oxford. I called K on my way home and said, "I'm done." He concurred. We managed to not fight from the depths of our exhaustion and woke up today feeling ourselves again.

Today was really nice. I made everybody crepes with fried apples for breakfast. We walked to church. Went to the country club for lunch, everyone cleaned their plates, and then we spent half the afternoon swimming. Came home and kerfluffled around until the evening, when we all ended up outside, kids hauling branches from the cut-down (diseased) maple tree, me cleaning porches, K weedwhacking.

Annaliese dressed herself for church. She ended up in a purple dress with a pink boa-like scarf her Grandmama knit her as a shawl. A purse, a necklace, and anklets above her sequined gold ballet flats. Girl had style. In the pew, she settled in, opened her purse, and removed her child's Bible. During the hymns, as K and I stood and sang, she and her brother stood and looked into her open Bible, held exactly as we held ours. It was pretty cute. During the children's time at the altar, Caspian, intrepid as ever, was the only child brave enough to step on a stool and check out the view from the pulpit. He had a lot of old ladies pat the top of his head for that.


The 125 pints of watermelon lemonade that had to be shipped to New York City. That was a week's ago crazy project.


 Waiting for the bus on Annaliese's first day of school. We followed in our car and walked her in-- for the first 4 days. She seems happy as a clam and it's been a very smooth start.



Pretty nuts that my baby goes to school now though.

Next year for this little man:


The pool continues to have been a GOOD idea for our family. We go often.

 But always in style.


Caspian has been helping me at the store lately. Not a lot, but it's a start. He bags green beans, prices items on the scale, and carries surprisingly heavy boxes for a little dude like a pro. Here he's taking a well-earned break. Fifteen minutes every four hours.



We hit up Main Street for an art show. It was a big night.


When I went to work early the following morning, the whole house was still asleep, and this wee little kindergartner had appeared in my bed in the wee hours. 



This week's starting out with a bang: a fairly prominent magazine editor is making the rounds of our small town tomorrow and coming to OUR house, which I am putting out of my mind. But at least the doors are back on.

Monday, August 05, 2013

Business notes

I have had a plethora of people in the last week tell me everything from I look like an adolescent Swiss milkmaid to I am doing a great job.

It's been odd, and weird, and really awesome.

Something has shifted in the last few months, and for the first time in my adult life, people are treating me like I am a success.

I am exactly the same person I always have been, but whatever.

I have also watched people start their own business ventures around me, and I can see that they think I've made it, and they're failing, and all I really want to say is-- we're pretty much in the same place. I'm just a few years ahead. People who have never run their own small businesses before, young or old, have no idea what it takes. It's like parenting. Simply indescribable to anyone who hasn't done it before.

And frankly, just like parenting, some people win and some people lose.

Also, just like parenting, it's not always clear at all times who is winning and who is losing, because there are a thousand moments in a day and the key is to win at the majority, the important ones, because you're going to lose a few. You can't bat a thousand in a row, to expand the metaphor.

It is not clear to me that we have won. It is clear that lately, more often than not, we have been winning.

It's fun.