This is why I love Thursday afternoons. YUM. Can’t decide if we should have pasta with basil and tomatoes or farm fresh eggs with potatoes, onions, and cabbage. Decisions, decisions.

You know what doesn’t take a summer vacation? Laundry.

Like tax season for an accountant, summer is the busy season for stay at home moms. We have lots of entertaining to do, meals to make, brains to stimulate, and body parts to sunscreen.

We are two days in to weekday summer. For Day 1, we showed up at the pool for morning swim practice, ready to stay indefinitely afterwards and start summer off with a splash. We were meeting friends, bringing lunch, etc. Nope – rain and chilly temps that were not even in the forecast got in the way of those plans. Bah humbug.

Today, we were less motivated to put in the effort to stay at the pool. We stayed for a bit, but there was much whining about wanting to leave. Sure, I mean – it’s been a whole DAY of summer….no wonder they are ready to throw in the towel.

Yes, I’m still itchy. In fact, the kids have taken to scratching me whenever they walk past to give me some relief. It’s a sad, sad, sight folks. Doctor appointment tomorrow, because I can’t take it anymore.

And since I’m too busy scratching to write anything else – I leave you with a terribly random photo of a giant potato truck. We saw it at our hotel this past weekend. Our son thought it was a real potato. (It was not.) The Mr. declared that you could make a lot of chips out of a potato that big. (Yes, if it were real. But it is not.)

I’m so tired of being itchy and burny. I know that doesn’t make for a good blog topic, but it’s what I’m thinking about as I sit here mid-afternoon on a beautiful day, hiding in the dark with an ice pack clutched between my chin and chest.

Look, kids! Just in time for summer, Mommy is morphing into Boo Radley!

And where would be the best place for a Boo Radley-esque allergic to the sun lady to go? The beach, of course!

We’re taking a spontaneous overnight trip to the beach this weekend, staying in a hotel with friends. This is what people do in the summer, and I love the beach! I’m not skipping it for my stupid skin! I’ll cover up and stay in the shade as much as I can – which is not easy for someone who normally tans and doesn’t usually have to worry about these things. But, lucky for me, I have a husband who turns three shades of lobster quickly – so we have all the proper gear.

I just remembered we have a dog. What are we doing with the dog while we’re away at the beach???

The kids have one last full day of school tomorrow.This morning, as they were leaving for the bus stop, I said, “Have fun at school doing whatever uneducational thing it is that you’re doing today!” Our son stopped dead in his tracks and said, “We’re not learning ANYTHING. Nothing is educational!”

Exactly.

Friday morning is the final pep rally of the school year, which parents are encouraged to attend, of course, and our daughter is being recognized for some thing or another. These things usually take place indoors, but in a fabulous turn of events, they are treating us (the sun and heat sensitive parents) to an outdoor extravaganza that is sure to be sunny and hot and humid! YAY!

Last night was the first swim meet of the season. It was rainy and miserable all day, which, you know, is kind of good for someone shunning the sun. But then, about an hour before we had to leave — the clouds parted and the sun started beating down on our little corner of the world. Luckily, I had planned ahead and purchased a long sleeved white rashguard shirt to protect me from the sun. It was comfortable and cool, but the stark whiteness of the shirt really made the red puffy neck stand out. Thankfully, it only took me about 10 minutes into the meet before I imprinted a mirror image of my kids’ events onto the midriff of my white shirt in black Sharpie.  It is customary to write the kids’ events on their arms and your own hand, because have you ever been to a swim meet? It is chaos, and you cannot keep track of your events unless you indelibly mark them onto your skin. But if you put sunscreen on your hivey hands first, and then use Sharpie, it will be less permanent and come off on your crisp, new white shirt. In case you didn’t know.

Luckily, the Sharpie imprint became less noticeable after I manhandled the gigantic pencil box our daughter brought with her, which was decorated with lots of colors of marker. It was falling apart, so I clutched it to me and fixed it and neatened it all up — and then I had 4 different shades of pastel marker dots on my chest. The Mr. pointed out that the colors complemented the small flowers across the front of my shirt. I figured they drew the eye away from the red lizard neck, so really, it was a good thing it happened.

This ice pack isn’t very frozen anymore.

You know where I have to go in an hour, right? Swim practice. Outdoors. The sun is shining. Perhaps one of the ladies from the rainy Northwest would like to trade spots for a few months? Anyone? Bueller, Bueller?

It is the middle of the first day of the last week of school. I was at the school so much today that two different teachers told me that they thought I should be collecting a pay check at the end of the week.

I showed up at school at 9:30am to attend our daughter’s “Market Day,” in which 4th graders sell, sell, sell. They each have to create a good or service to market and sell to their classmates, parents, and teachers. It is mass chaos, but there are some cute ideas out there. Our daughter made signs with catchy phrases, words, sports teams, etc., hand written with fun fonts and bubble letters, and framed with fancy duct tape. Other favorites included pop top bracelets, homemade rubber stamps, sports themed paperweights, and bookmarks decorated with Chinese letters.

On the downside, students were allowed to sell baked goods and candy this year. You know I’m not a fan of all the sugar kids have access to at school, and also there’s the whole what-about-the-kids-with-food-allergy aspect. Our daughter is really careful, so she only ate things that I approved by talking to other moms and kids. She got one cupcake made from scratch by a good friend. She took one bite and said, “mmmmm,” then turned to me, made a face and threw it away when the friend wasn’t looking. HA! So the stuff that looks gloppy and unappetizing really is just that, huh?!?

I shopped at Market Day for about an hour, and then ran around the school like a chicken with my head cut off taking care of odds and ends for a meeting I was set to run after school that day, teaching K and 1st graders about the environment. I stopped home for lunch and more supplies, and then went back to school for the meeting. It’s a lot of work, but those little ones are so cute. When I told them that our school saved 40 trees by recycling paper this year, they all spontaneously clapped and cheered. We made a poster to show how many trees we saved, and one little girl wrote the word “HAPPEEEE” across her tree. 

And now I’m back home, itchin’ and a scratchin’. More red ants? Nope. In fact, I think my initial itchy outbreak was not in fact from the ants, but from something altogether more difficult to avoid — the sunshine. (Yes, @transvestite_rabbit and @madhousewife, I know it’s not that hard to avoid the sun in Seattle and Oregon…..but it is nearly impossible in VA, especially in the communities whose “master plans” included uprooting all the natural shade trees.) I am not happy about this discovery. Or the itchy bumpy neck I’m sporting. Again.

Swim practice begins in 45 minutes, and I’m busy hiding upstairs where there’s A/C because it is HOT downstairs. Being hot makes me itchier. Sitting at swim practice will be hotter than sitting downstairs in my house. I need to figure out what to feed the entire family in 3-4 different shifts. I am not making much progress on that responsibility from up here in the cool air.

I have had a flurry of adult social outings over the last week or so. I have another tonight, and I must say — I’m quite looking forward to the margaritas planned for tonight. Icy beverages make the itchiness subside a bit. And the crankiness, I suppose.

I started my day with my weekly delivery of backpack food to underprivileged kids at a local middle school. I have done it every Thursday since the beginning of 2012, and it is definitely a “feel good” errand. Every week, a nice young man named Sam meets me at the school door with a smile and helps me unload the 30 bags from my van. Sam is moving on to high school, and I probably won’t see him at the final delivery next week. I gave him a card thanking him for his help, including a gift card to congratulate him on his graduation. He gave me a big hug when I left, which was really sweet.

The rest of my errands were more, um….commercial in nature. I hopped on the highway, crossed the river, and stopped at the snootier of the two outdoor malls in the area. I was headed to Banana Republic, a store in which I rarely shop. I’m more of a Gap/Old Navy/Marshalls shopper, if you must know. But recently, “Real Simple” magazine did an article on the best t-shirts. (A very high brow topic, I’m sure you’d agree.) One of the things they covered was which stores had the best plain white t-shirts, depending on what criteria were most important to you as a shopper. 8 1/2 years post my second c-section, the most important white t-shirt criteria for me is opaqueness. Real Simple says the white cotton t-shirt at Banana Republic for $22.50 is the best. I am not the kind of person who spends $22.50 on a t-shirt. I know many people spend more than that, but I’m sorry – that is insane. I rarely pay full price for anything, including t-shirts that are $10 at full price. So, this was a stretch….but it’s really, really hard to find a white t-shirt that isn’t sheer these days, so I decided to woman up and pay $22.50 for a properly opaque t-shirt.

When I walked into the store, it was swarming. Did everyone decide to buy opaque t-shirts today? No. Clueless me – I walked into the opening day of the Trina Turk collection at Banana. Does this mean anything to you? I’ll tell you what – it meant a lot to every stick thin, fake tanned, highlighted woman in wedge heels who shopped at Banana Republic this morning. But not to me. Here I was stressing about my $22.50 white shirt, and they were all stalking one another outside the dressing rooms to get their hands on the only size 2 pair of Trina Turk shorts left. (Her stuff has unique patterns – sort of a cruise wear look, in fabric described by the L.A. Times as “sun-drenched prints.”) I’m not real big on print shorts, and I might be able to get one ankle into a size 2….so these ladies didn’t even look in my direction. It was tremendously difficult for me to not roll my eyes right in their faces. Seriously – I showed enormous self restraint.

I got in line to buy my full-price t-shirt. The line was long, and it was slooooow, because all the ritzy ladies were opening new lines of credit to get 25% off their Trina Turk fashions. (It seems that the Banana Republic line of Trina Turk fashions are about 50% off her regular line, sold at high-end boutiques and department stores. Throw in 25% savings and the ladies were practically foaming at the mouth.)

They had 3 registers going, but as soon as I was next in line, they went down to 2 registers so that several of the sales guys could chat behind the counter about how busy it was. As I stepped up to pay (finally), another Trina Turk fan got in line behind me, and they opened a 3rd register again.  I tell you, there is no respect for the single white t-shirt purchase. I was pretty snotty to my salesgirl, who was really quite lovely and jubilant, but I had to express my frustration somewhere. I’m from Jersey, after all.

From there, I went to Panera and ordered a salad to go. It was a gorgeous day, so even though my hands were full, I decided to go out the back door and walk around the long way to my car. It was way longer than I anticipated (terrible sense of direction), and took me past more than one dumpster. OMG – what would the Trina Turk girls say!!

Next, I was off to Home Goods to return some gigantic pillows I bought for the master bedroom that are 100% the wrong color. I stood in line not so patiently (I had used up all my patience by then) to return them and finally heaved the pillows and the receipt onto the counter. “Um, only one of these pillows is on this receipt,” said the cashier. I just stared at her with my mouth agape. Huh? I honestly didn’t know what I was supposed to say to that. Eventually, I caught on that the original salesperson had given me the pillow for free. Apparently, this was a problem, because I wanted to return it. The saleslady just stared back at me, waiting for me to tell her what to do. What was I supposed to do? Keep it, just because it was free, even though I didn’t want it? “Just take it back,” I said. “Are you sure?” she asked. 

It was quite the stupid conversation. I don’t want this pillow, and it turns out I didn’t pay for it in the first place, which means your store still owns it, and now it’s back in your possession. Why am I still here, lady?

She credited my account for the other pillow and then laughed, saying, “Wow – that would have been a great deal if you liked it!” 

Uh, yes. It would. But I don’t.

Throughout this entire day, I was getting e-mails on my phone constantly – from other moms in our son’s class. The room parents decided to arrange for everyone to bring in gift cards to present to the teacher in a personalized flower pot. Lovely, except I bought teacher gifts 2 days ago, at Home Goods, when I bought (and stole) giant, ill-hued pillows. So now I have more gifts than I need, and I really don’t want to go back to Home Goods with that same receipt. I never go there, and now I remember why.

I have been frantically trying to do all these little annoying things before the last week of school, because my presence is required AT the school for most of that last week. So it’s not so helpful when things I have already checked off my to-do list need to get undone.

People had already claimed gift cards to lots of places, in a long line of “reply all” e-mails. So I had to rack my brain for another place – something “summery” where the teacher could take her two young sons. I racked my brain. (And what I mean is, I looked up and scanned the strip mall in front of me.) I immediately replied all to say I would get a gift card to the smoothie shop. The smoothie shop that is conveniently located next to the dollar store, where I needed to go and buy prizes for two different school functions happening next week. Check, check, check.

Rushed home, got the kids, rushed to piano, rushed off with our daughter to get a birthday gift for a party on Saturday, rushed home to put out the cooler for the farm share delivery, rushed to pack the kids dinner, rushed to change into nicer clothes, rushed to swim team, sat still for 15 minutes. The Mr. came to relieve me, and I was off to a dinner at the school, catered, all adults – very nice, fairly social. Aaaah. Then, I organized an outing with some friends for some vino al fresco. Even better.

I got home to an e-mail request for ziploc bags filled with popcorn for 23 kids tomorrow.

Nope. Sorry. Not this time.

• My neck is less itchy today, which is good. It is, however, scalier than it was yesterday, which is bad. In case anyone is keeping score.

• The weather here lately has been bizarre. On these cooler days, we are getting flash thunderstorms that seem more suited to hot/humid days, but then the sun forgets to go in when they happen. This phenomenon leads to some cool rainbows. Yesterday there was a double rainbow right over our house, and the lines within the rainbows were as clear as I’ve ever seen.

• Our pool, like many others, has an “adult swim” policy. They blow the whistle once an hour, and all the kids need to get out of the water. It is less about adults getting the pool to themselves and laughing at the kids dripping on the side (though there is some joy in that), and more about ensuring that the kids take a rest, get out of the sun, get some hydration, etc. I heard that some of the other local community pools are being threatened with lawsuits over this practice. Because it is age discrimination. Seriously? That lawsuit must be sponsored by a parent who can’t handle handing out snacks once an hour. Crazy.

• The kids are done with their testing. After school yesterday, our son kind of crashed. He stayed on the couch all afternoon, aside from a brief and very half-assed effort to convince me that he felt like he could play outside. He skipped swim practice, which turned out to be brilliant – because the pool closed about 10 minutes before the appearance of the aforementioned double rainbow. There is a stomach virus going around, so when he woke up in the middle of the previous night to tell us he had thrown up – I of course thought that’s what he had. But then the Mr. reminded me that our little guy had ingested approximately three times his body weight of buttered movie popcorn on a dad supervised movie outing. Yup, that seems to be what caused the tummy trouble. After his afternoon of slouching on the couch, recuperating from his midnight vomitfest, he instantly popped back just in time to join his sister in a goofy/silly mood that I haven’t seen in them in awhile. They shelled peas (from the farm share) for me…..which led to an infinite number of pee jokes. (“I have more pea than you do,” and “Uh oh, I got pea on the floor,” and “That bowl has a lot of pea in it.”) It was good to hear them giggle. Something tells me they are ready for summer break.

• Here comes the school bus. Later, chumps.

When your air conditioning is broken, and you live in a part of the country where we often use words like “hot” and “humid,” you hope for unseasonably cool temperatures. By some miracle, that is exactly what we have had since the first night the downstairs A/C decided to konk out on us. It has been breezy and in the low 70s, making open windows and ceiling fans just what we need to keep things comfy inside. The temperatures are supposed to stay on the cool side for much of the week, so we are feeling good about that.

Here’s what I am not feeling good about — my neck and upper chest are covered with welts and an angry rash. Ugh! On Saturday, I decided to pull some weeds in a prominent flower bed. The weeds were growing up into our rose bushes, so I donned my gardening gloves and decided to yank them out. A few minutes in, I noticed that the dirt and mulch beneath me was moving. It was covered with millions and millions of little ants. I stepped back and analyzed the creepiness of the situation. I decided I could handle it, since I had my gardening gloves on and was making quick work of the weeds. This turned out to be the wrong call. I should have walked away then. Or maybe it was already too late – who knows.

I felt some stinging on my left wrist and looked down to see an ant firmly planted right where it hurt. I pushed it away and got back to work, but then I felt the same thing on the other wrist. I jumped up, slapped at my wrists and yelled, “Owwwww!” I’m sure the neighbors were entertained. After this happened a few times, I stepped back and went looking for some sort of ant spray in the garage, where the Mr. was doing his part to tame the mess that resides in there. I explained my situation, and he wisely advised me to stop weeding until he could get something to get rid of the ants. I obliged, and put some ice on my wrists while watching him organize the tools.

Later that day, I noticed a few welts on my chest. I was wearing a piece of costume jewelry, and wondered if I was having a reaction to the cheap metal. I didn’t take it off until later that night, but I still only noticed a few small welts. I often get itchy on my neck/chest from the sun, so it didn’t really faze me. The next morning, I woke up with welts around the “necklace” line and a nasty rash across my chest. At first, I blamed the necklace. But now I think it must have been the ants. I think I must have brushed the ant-riddled weeds against my neck as I was yanking them out and one or more of the little buggers kept busy marching around my neckline in retaliation for my disturbance of their colony.

It is so itchy and so ugly and so on fire! OUCH! I have a Benadryl spray that hurts like crazy when I put it on, but then provides itch relief for a brief time. Cold compresses help a little. I’ll stay out of the sun, so as not to aggravate it further.

Is anyone else getting the feeling that I shouldn’t be gardening this year?

It’s Friday afternoon, so why aren’t the kids and I at the pool with their friends, you ask? Thunder. Tornado Watch. Pool closed. But that actually has worked out okay, because it enabled me to be home for the air conditioning service guy and the air conditioning sales guy.

Did you catch that? The service guy and the sales guy in one day. That is not good news, folks.

Around 8:00pm last night, the Mr. declared the downstairs to be very hot. It was at that point that I realized why I felt excessively cranky – aside from the two hours of sweating at swim team practice and lack of dinner at that hour – I was hot.

I remembered that the technician who did our spring tune-up had found the a/c unit in the garage frozen over when he got here. So, I suggested that the Mr. look for ice on the unit. Yup. Icy.

Since I am clearly gifted when it comes to a/c problem identification, I decided to prescribe a solution. “Let it thaw overnight and it should work in the morning.”

Yeah, it didn’t work in the morning.

The service guy came out at 1:00pm and declared that we needed a new motor ($400+) and that the unit has a freon leak. (True, since it just got reloaded less than two months ago and needed more.) I called the Mr., we hemmed and hawed over whether to spend that kind of cash on a 15 year old unit that is clearly dying a slow death. Hence the arrival of the service guy in his pleated man jeans. (Was that catty? Sorry, I’m hot.)

We are now awaiting the final estimate on what a new unit would cost us. And sweating, a little bit.

The kids are happy, at least, because they each have a drama-free friend over to play, and they are upstairs where it is cool as can be. I am happy to have some down time this afternoon to prepare for our guests, since my day got a little derailed by the air conditioning saga. (I did, however, manage to get that large, barren flower bed in the front yard planted, with lots of help from my mom, who is my personal plant guru.)

I know I have written before about how much our dog is distressed by a) service people; b) thunderstorms; and c) children knocking on the front door. It has not been a good day for the ol’ schnauzer, since it was a d) all of the above sort of day. (Huh – wonder why I have testing on the brain?)

The repair guy did not do anything to help the doggy dislike of his kind, either. When he arrived, as the harmless little dog was doing his typical Kujo imitation, the guy leaned over and sort of whipped his little shoe cover at the dog’s nose. RUDE! The beast did not enjoy that little episode, so then I felt like I needed to keep him behind closed doors for the duration of the service call. He voiced his dislike of this situation by barking incessantly. Nice.

Gentle readers, as soon as other people’s children leave my house in just over an hour, it will finally be time for that cocktail. I think it will have to be a frozen one. Cheers!

That’s it – I’m officially ready for summer. Not only am I exhausted by the second week of daily swim team practice from 5:30-7:30p.m. — interfering with dinner, and homework, and bedtime, and life in general….but there is drama. So. Much. Drama.

I hate the school bus.

We live 0.8 miles from the kids’ school. They are on the bus for about 5 minutes in each direction. And yet, epic amounts of drama (epic!) take place during these brief rides, causing children to keep their hurt/angry/frustrated feelings bottled up until they lay eyes on their mama — and then they unload and can’t stop.

Yesterday, it was our daughter who was upset about an interaction with a friend on the bus – a friend who is a year older and serving as a safety patrol. Apparently, power is a dangerous thing, even when it comes in the form of a flourescent safety belt! Today it was our son who was reduced to tears over a who-can-and-cannot-sit-with-whom situation. Hours later, he is still not himself. He is upstairs brooding and listening to music like an angsty teenager, instead of the free-spirited eight year old he usually is at this hour of the day.

Sigh.

It’s time. The kids are all sick of each other, sick of the grind, tired of long days, and most certainly tired of reviewing and testing! 

I tried to soothe everyone’s frayed nerves after school, and then lost my patience with their sibling in-fighting and whining just a little while later. Great – more drama! Just what we need!

Although we are expecting family to arrive around dinner time tomorrow for a weekend visit, I decided what these kids need tomorrow is an afternoon of FUN at the pool, instead of swim practice. So, we have invited friends from outside the bus drama circles to join us at the pool, and I’m hoping everyone will feel better after a little fun with friends and good, solid cousin time this weekend.

And just to be sure that mom feels good, too – there might need to be a cocktail or two in the near future. Not for the kids, of course. Mommies don’t need to share.

Aren’t you dying to know what happened to all my half dead and half eaten plants? One of the replanted lantana plants seems to be a little bit alive. It still had green leaves on it when I put it back in the earth, and after about a week, those leaves are still there, green, and unwilted. This seems promising for a plant that lived briefly in a weed bucket in the garage. The other one, though, looks like a dead, woody stump of a thing….but I’m leaving it there for now, if only as a warning to the Mr. that he better not pull anything else out of my barren flower bed! And what about the bunny salad lily plant, you ask? Well, the stalks I showed you in the earlier post still look the same, but something new seems to be sprouting in the pot! It might be more lilies! It also might be a weed, but the point is that something is living in there, and I think we can all agree to count that as a win, under the circumstances, right?

I have been delivering food to school children through our local food bank’s “backpack program” since last Thanksgiving. I started off as a substitute driver, delivering to different schools as needed. But as of January, I have had a regular school that I visit every Thursday. I received an e-mail asking if I would want to continue to deliver over the summer, or move to a different program where they actually pack meals for the kids. If I deliver bags, my kids can ride along with me – and I think that would be a very valuable experience for them to have. However, I get the sense that there aren’t too many bags being delivered because of other feeding programs that take over during the summer months. I should know soon if I can get a summer gig driving the bags around. Packing meals is out for me, because I can’t bring the kids into the warehouse at the Food Bank (for liability reasons), and they are my full time summer gig.

I have a growing passion for getting kids fed, and fed well. I’m glad I have gotten involved with this backpack program, but I want to do more. I have stepped up for some new volunteer responsibilities at the kids school next year, partly because it will give me direct access to some exciting things happening related to school gardening, farm-to-table initiatives, and the like. The school is partnered with a local farmer (so don’t worry – I won’t kill the plants), and he is increasingly involved with advocacy groups in D.C. and beyond. As my first child enters her last year of elementary school, it seems like the right time to start following some of my passion and see what may come of it.

Interestingly enough, a woman you may have heard of named Michelle Obama seems to have a similar passion and has a bit more attention on her than I do. That’s ok – there are plenty of kids to feed and I’m happy to follow her lead, if I must! I’ve seen her promoting her new book, “American Grown,” on the talk show circuit. I really like her, and I’m even going to go to an actual book store and pay actual money for her book! (As opposed to my usual library addiction and lazy e-book downloading.) We have something else in common besides our interest in teaching kids about eating healthy – we have both danced in front of a crowd with elementary school kids, when no other adults were dancing. Yup, been there – done that, too.