Hallo blog! Hard to believe it’s mid-July already. Mid-2021. Gosh 2021 is so much better than 2020, isn’t it?

This was actually the end of May, over at Brenna’s house. That was SO LONG AGO that I don’t recall why we went over…Mother’s Day celebration? Someone’s birthday? It’s gone.

Here are my children rocking out to the Beastie Boys (Goo’s request). Look at the baby’s face! Ha!

“Welcome to my faaaace,” as James St. James would say. Guess what I’m having done this weekend? Lasik! FINALLY after years of smeary glasses and dried-out contacts I will be able to SEE. I am SO excited!

In June for the first time since 2015 I paid someone to clean my entire house. What I’m happy about is that they did the windows and baseboards, two things that we neglect horribly. I took a picture to mark the occasion because I knew it wouldn’t look this nice again for a long time!

This summer is going well. I’m busy at work again, we play outside in the backyard a lot, I’m very close to reaching my WW goal, and we’ve already gone camping!

Goo complains about going to school (twice a week). I tell him that some day he’ll have to go to school EVERY day, but this doesn’t seem to ease his mind. Hmm.

I had a little Baby Fever so my boss invited me over to her house to hold her 4 month old, mawwwwww (I got over the Baby Fever).

With a little elbow grease (and some chemicals), Josh and I were finally able to get the last bits of that awful orange dye from my hair. NEVER AGAIN (red, anyway–pink is still acceptable).

Goo-age finds a rainbow-painted rock during one of our family hikes. We put it back, of course. Let someone else discover it!

Some year I’d like to tear out all the boring ground cover in our front yard and replace it with these fabulous neon Ice Plants.

Mom and I are experimenting with Latisse. She’s using it only on her eyebrows in efforts to re-grow them, and I’ve been using it on my lashes and brows. It hasn’t been long but it definitely works! It’s a shame that it only works for as long as you use it…and it’s expensive.

Showing off a summer-ish manicure, along with my usual summer Goth pallor. Although I have had two fake tans this summer, and I have to say I do enjoy the temporary color. I plan on getting two more this year: once for the cabin trip next month and once for the Maui trip this fall.

The baby climbs on everything but hasn’t managed to figure out how to climb out of his crib (yet!). He only takes one nap a day. He babbles constantly, but rarely says more than single words at a time.

We took a trip to Boise! This was one of my fake tans, obviously. We drove over with the baby while Goo stayed at the house with my mother. We met up with my father, my brother and my SIL–who is pregnant! Yay for more redheads in the family!

The primary reason for the trip was to retrieve all of the things in storage my father had been paying for–Vogue magazines, “Sweet Valley High” books, art and stories. And alllll the family photos, which are now mine. Of course I couldn’t resist a trip to my favorite store in the whole world, Eyes of the World! I was SO disappointed that trying on clothing wasn’t allowed. I would have spent more money, I suspect.

I had to look at the old house, which is still under construction and not currently housing anyone. It was odd–someone had painted the beautiful dark wood on the outside of the house white (yuck), as well as everything inside. A flimsy back deck had been constructed, and one of the sliding glass doors was open, so we all went inside and walked around. It was weird. Not sad to me, really, because the house has been under construction since before 2008, but…weird.

My sweet little redhead. He only slept for about an hour on the way to Boise (an 8 hour drive), then about an hour on the way back (closer to 9 hours because of traffic).

I think I enhanced the white of my eyes in this late-afternoon selfie to make them POP. I’ve always thought late afternoon is the prettiest time of day to take self-portraits.

We are having lots of popsicle time on the back patio. I’ve only had one coffee granita this summer, but that’s because I have to drive to Bothell to get one. Maybe that’s for the best. Now I kind of want one.

My substitute for a delicious coffee granita is low acid coffee with a good amount of vanilla soymilk over ice.

This was one of the paintings I retrieved from storage–the “Christy painting”. One of my earliest paintings, back when I would buy my own raw canvas, Nico would stretch them for me, and then I would Gesso the whole thing. Giant paintings! Hard to believe this was painted nearly 20 years ago. I remember it so vividly, Christy posing for me at Trancelot.

The boys have been enjoying the jungle gym that Josh’s uncle gave us, after the previous owners of his house left it behind. Although I get a little nervous when the baby climbs up there naked! Ouch, baby!

Last weekend we went camping! I was eager to get away from the fireworks…too bad there is NO escaping from fireworks, because people are assholes. It was baby’s first camping trip. He did great.

No one enjoyed listening to the BOOM of extremely loud fireworks Sunday night, especially Bear Cub. I drugged her (and myself) with Trazodone to sleep and it helped.

We all went on hike to a beautiful waterfall, and for the first time ever Bear Cub was noticeably slower. She’s 13 now! Hard to believe. She has outlived Maggie.

I finally got around to reading this book. It was kind of annoying (the main character is awful) but I was determined to ride it out to the end. All in all? Not bad. Although recently I read a better book called “Baby Teeth”, which only the very toughest of moms dare read. Yikes.

Time to get the boys their own little hoops!

I went to the fabric store yesterday and bought myself 3 yards of different fabric to make myself some lightweight skirts for summer. If I’m REALLY motivated, maybe I could get one done today! Ta ta, blog!