what's up weekly.

Happy Friday to you all!  I'm going to make this short and sweet, as I'm nursing a stomach-turning headache and just can't bear to look at the screen for long.

Last Friday, we went for an extra long walk, since Todd gets extra break time on Fridays to be used for exercising.  We walked to a lake trail, and the kids got to play on a nearby playground for the first time in months.  You can see they were chill about it.

On Saturday, I spent my morning out doing a little shopping, which I don't hate.  I stopped at Old Navy and actually found some shirts for myself!  They fit! and aren't beige!  I also bought summer shoes for the kids - and RED ALERT.  ATTICUS IS IN MEN'S SIZES NOW.  I REPEAT: ATTICUS WEARS MEN'S-SIZED SHOES.  Where has my baby gone?

I also stopped at Natural Grocers that morning, to buy all of the organic celery on the face of the earth, because I've jumped on the celery juicing bandwagon.  It is simultaneously disgusting, and actually-not-that-bad.

Here are some unrelated-to-any-other-news photos of Callista I insist that you see.

On Sunday, we went to church for the first time in two months, and good gravy, it was fabulous.  However, I have noticed that my capacity for social interaction has seriously diminished over the course of quarantine, and I find I often get headaches when I'm around too many people, or even just a few people for an extended period of time.  (I feel like a Victorian lady, complaining about my delicate eyes and asking you to pass the smelling salts.)  So I am v v glad to be back to church, but I also need to build up my stamina for Olympic-level socializing again.

This week we have been doing a very scaled-back version of school - the kids do a little table work before breakfast, and I might read a chapter or two out loud at lunchtime, but nothing intense.  It has been so wonderful!  The kids are having to learn how to live with way more unstructured time, so there's a learning curve, but we've spent so much time just breathing this week.  It's been good for us.

Reading about queen bees, and eating fresh strawberries from the Amish.  Such a good day.

We got a chance to swim in a friend's pool on Wednesday, when it was in the mid-nineties and blazing out.  It was pure summer.  We went during naptime, so the little girls were at home with Todd, which took my number of potential drowners down to five.  I had also bought Puddle Jumpers for Rocco and Laurelai earlier in the week, so I could let them swim without stressing as much.  It is amazing how much easier it was to keep an eye on everyone - supervising swimming is always a HUGE stressor for me, so I was shocked at how I was able to relax a bit, knowing that all the kids had what they needed to be competent in the water.

And in unrelated news, here's a glimpse into large family life.  This is the kind of thing that keeps "THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS" the mantra in our home:

The kids were playing some kind of game, and Penelope locked Finneas out of the garage, so Finneas started banging on the glass... and the inevitable happened.  Todd and I have had to learn over the years to hold things very loosely and do our very best to keep a sense of humor about things.  (Though I will say that our 'very best' efforts are still pretty pathetic.)  But... it would explain the use of Stars and Bars duct tape as our free, redneck solution to the problem, as well as these silly reenactment photos.

Well, I think that about covers it!  I'm going to go lay down the pitch dark, and attempt to drive something sharp into the base of my skull.  Wish me luck!