Busy Nights

Sunday night was the Village Players' annual talent show. I performed three songs, and then after the potluck dinner stayed on to rehearse. Karen missed the show because of work, but got to join us for dinner and take the kids home before rehearsal.

Last night we spent some time working on the basement bathroom, with me hunting down screws in the sheet rock that weren't quite in all the way, and Karen starting the taping. The bathroom is something of a challenge because the framing wasn't done quite right and we had to make some compromises. Karen is going to texture the walls to hide some of the imperfections created by the incompetent drywall hanger (that would be me).

Tonight Karen took the boys swimming while I fixed up a cold dinner of tuna sandwiches and fruit salad. We're not getting much else done tonight because we're tired and Karen has to work late tomorrow. The boys have to accompany me to the theater for the first part of my rehearsal, until Tom can bring them home.

So, to put it another way, we're on the dead run this week. But it's all to good cause, unlike many nights when we've just been playing catch-up and neither accomplishing anything nor having any fun. So far this week there's been a little time for both.

Now to find some time for sleep.

When Summer Really Begins

Okay, I know, the official start of summer is still a couple of weeks away. But when you live with two grade-school students, summer starts when summer vacation starts. And this year that day is today.

It all has to do with construction at the high school, and since the entire district has to be on the same schedule, that means that the younger kids had to give up some days off in order to get off earlier. The vacation is also longer, running 12 weeks this year. There goes the daycare budget! Ah well, we knew it was coming.

William will be going to a different school this fall. The boys have been at the same school since Danny started kindergarten, and I wonder if Danny will miss seeing his brother at recess. The two fight like, well, brothers, but they often seek each other out as playmates, too.

We have a lot of fun things planned for the summer, as well as a lot of work on the house that the boys will be helping us with. Although the vacation will be nearly two weeks longer than usual, I think it will pass quickly. I just wish I was going to spend more of it with the boys; Karen has some time off coming, but not me.

And a lot of my time will be spent doing things I don't actually know how to do. I think the next job I feel totally incompetent to do will be casing and trimming the windows.

Oh joy. More carpentry.