1. Curling my hair with a flat iron: I have made YUGE progress toward this end, but I have a long way to go. After literally YEARS of watching tutorials (don't judge-- it's hard to be lefty in these instances) THIS ONE finally did the trick. (Seriously, I spent a WHOLE SEMESTER in my office with the flat iron I keep in my desk watching one hair YouTuber after another and burning the eff out of my hair in office hours).
2. Using little pockets of time to read books and not SCROLL ON MY PHONE. (Or burn the hell out of my hair-- why not read a book during office hours, huh?)
3. Passive aggression. I mean, I have learned the art from some seriously sneaky bitches (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), but Dorothy? Has taken this midwestern state of being to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL, and I aspire to be as passive aggressive as she is. BEHOLD THIS MASTERPIECE OF A NOTE to Minnie that she left outside her door on a pile of Calico Critters. MINNIE IS ILLITERATE and THE ACTUAL INTENDED AUDIENCE OF THE NOTE had to read it aloud-- that is the best freaking part.
**chef's kiss**
4. SAVING MY DOLLARZ instead of sending them on DUMB STUFF. I have been LOVING Stephany's re-caps of her no spend month because even when you "aren't spending" money, YOU ARE SPENDING MONEY-- at least I am, and it's nice to read her account and note that living is expensive. Bah humbug. LOOK AT THIS COSTCO CART, PEOPLE.**
5. Taking advantage of free stuff to do with the kids around town. We ran into the MSCRPlay on the Move van while making a random park stop the other day, and now I have big plans to find the Art Cart and the Clay on the Move van, too!
Teaching outfits 20/27 and 21/27
** Actually? I am kind of into the Costco shopping lately. I go in cycles with that place-- sometimes I am a devotee and actually shop in store like a sheep (that's where I am now) and sometimes I grumble that the whole place is a waste of time and money and never ever go and sometimes I get Instacart every week. We are BUSY right now, and some of their food is saving us. Like the giant bags of salads (I love the Caesar in the cold room in a bag and also the everything chopped and the med crunch), cheese tortellini, and a variety of non-meat burgers. Plus I can get eggs in a quantity that sustains us, and the produce generally lasts a whole week.
Plus I found THIS DIP! It is too garlicky to be a dip IMO, but I made grilled cheeses with havarti and jarlsberg sliced cheese (from Costco) and garden tomatoes and basil on (you guessed it) Costco french bread and spread this on the bread and YOU GUYS. YES YES YES.
Like, it's fun, but also DANG there is so much happening! And it is all very loud and requires me to be awake most of every 24 hours.
So much happening EVERYWHERE-- in the NEWS, in my house, at work, at Ben's work, with my family-- EVERYWHERE. Kid activities are boiling over. College prep is sooooooo underway. I have Fall Things that I really need to handle, but Summer Things are FRONT AND CENTER. We gotta buy backpacks for 3/5 of the kids. Schools are sending supply lists. Ben and Coop head to West Virginia for USA Diving nats next week. Minnie's first ever friend bday party is soon. IT'S ALL HAPPENING.
SO LET'S MAKE COOKIES
Minnie is Very Into her old Costco winter dresses-- because it's July, so WHY NOT. Yesterday, she wore her 2022 favorite to camp LOL.
Sometimes all of the things collide and I find myself grading at the pool during swim lessons after 90 minutes in the car driving the dive carpool.
Baseball is slowing way down, though, as the Little League season is over for us, and Coop's travel ball team is pondering a re-org to join a team franchise with pro coaches, more travel, and winter training requirements. We are hesitant to commit to more ball because he also plays club hockey and dives, but we'll probably do it because he likes baseball, and he's only 12-- too young to specialize, I think. Does anyone else have a kid who plays multiple sports at a really competitive level? When did you ask them to narrow it down? Having a tough time with this one because HE IS ONLY 12. I don't think he should have to pick yet. But also! Club sports are way different than rec sports in terms of commitment.
We had a great time last weekend watching his travel team go 4-0 and win a tourney. And we found a place nearby with excellent truffle cheese curds and bloody marys.
Not only is Coop gearing up for the end of his dive season with nationals, but Jack and Dorothy are getting ready to cap off the summer dive season with All City-- we have their last dual meet (Coop will compete, too) this Friday, and then they dive for the City meet next week. It really did fly by and was SO FUN. Jack has consistently gotten amazing scores all season and has beaten everyone except this one awesome diver at our pool. Coop is killing it, and Dorothy is getting better every week. Definitely a non-assaulting part of summer and one I am going to miss. (Minnie likes scoping out all the pools)
Zoom in to see Dorothy absolutely terrified of going off the 3 meter during warm ups
Just wait though! In LESS THAN 2 weeks, diving of all kinds will be done. We will have no baseball. Camp will be over for Minnie, and so will swim lessons. I will be done with my summer classes. (Dorothy will still have dance, but that's a 9-minute drive each way, and she's there for HOURS at a time, so it feels like a worthy drive). We wil have nothing to do. And this, too, will be something I can complain about.
Something I will not complain about? These giant cookies from Aldi that you warm up and eat gooey-- do not sleep on these!
Campus is just bonkers right now. SO MANY VISITORS because we have the double whammy of summer visit days and also freshman orientation. I have road rage like you would not believe. And also! My new car is just a teeeeeeeeny bit bigger than my old car, and it's hard for me to understand exactly where I can fit. Thank god for my parking pass. That costs 1500 bucks. TO PARK AT MY JOB. And sometimes doesn't work because sportsball (and once last year a JOURNEY CONCERT ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME).
[I was worried because I applied for a 2025 parking pass and didn't get an offer and then I finally did but I couldn't actually purchase it, so I called the transportation office and found I needed to pay a parking ticket from 2014 before I could purchase my pass. WHAT.]
So, anyway. I can park in a garage near my office (that is on a street that is currently closed for construction, so getting in and out is dodgy), but my class is not in my usual building this summer. And when I drop Minnie at camp before work, I am sliiiiightly late if I park in my garage. Sooooo I spend my morning road raging to campus in increasingly clogged traffic the closer I get to downtown and then also driving around looking for street parking (yes, I do love paying the meter and also paying for a pass, why do you ask?) but I can only look for so long before I have to just throw in the towel and go to the garage and be a little late because too much looking and I will be REALLY VERY LATE.
IT IS A LOT TO DEAL WITH on 4 cups of coffee and no breakfast, but I am who I am.
On the plus side, I always use Maps or Waze these days because 1. I am driving on the freeway at least once a day to make myself more comfortable with freeway driving now that Ben lives out of town and Harry soon will because I hate it and spent years never doing it 2. I am always late and need to know the fastest way to go 3. Wireless carplay is so much better than plugging to to a specific outlet in the car, and it's so easy to see my map on the big car screen. (My car has its own navigation, but it seems to update less frequently and is not the best for chronic lateness and traffic).
ANWAY. Monday.
Summer is FLYING BY, and we are just having so much fun. Add in Big Brother and the return of Nacho Thursday, and I just have to PINCH MYSELF. Unless, of course, I am in the car. (Our dive carpool has been less consistent because of 2 different nationals for 2 groups of divers-- one to each nationals-- and driving to campus and back for work and then to campus and back for diving and AGAIN to pick him up from diving is as crappy as I knew it would be. This is a problem I must solve before the school year. MOAR carpool, right?)
Summer in pictures:
Teaching day 17/27, a total workhorse dress from Old Navy that I have worn a million times.
OH THERE ARE SO MANY TIMES I HAVE BEEN A CRAP MOM THIS SUMMER. HOW TO COUNT THEM??? Well, erm, here are the top 5:
1. Yelling at Jack when he crashed his bike and showed up bleeding. The TL;DR here is that one unfortunate side effect of my summer class is that swim lessons are hard to manage. Minnie can’t do the morning lessons because I am teaching. But the night lessons are hard to swing because Dorothy has dance pick ups around the same time,. We have done our best to carpool, but it’s hard to find kids with the same schedule because of private lessons, etc. SO. At least one night a week, I need Jack or Harry (or sometimes both of them) to help me either watch Minnie before/during her lesson or right after. The other day, I texted Jack between eleventy billion trips down the water slide and asked him to hurry it up already and meet me at the pool so I could get Dorothy. He replied that he was eating and would leave soon, eve though he was supposed to show at 4:30 AT THE VERY LATEST, and it was already after 4:15. We did the slide twice more (ugh you guys—- I love it but am also thinking about the future when she is large enough to stay feet-first on the slide and not get flipped around by the water that whooshes down it and also strong enough to swim with the slide pool current), and I checked Life360 to find HE WAS STILL AT HOME. I called him (while standing up to my thighs in the shallow end because I am classy AF) and said he needed to get to the pool in literally 4 minutes (possible on a bike but maybe not the most fun) and that I was counting on him! We did the slide two more times (heading into serious FML territory) when he FINALLY burst onto the pool deck 4 minutes late. I handed Minnie off (we actually CLIMBED DOWN the water slide stairs instead of sliding down one more time) and stalked away when he was all wait a second, Mom. I need to get a bandaid. I was like that’s your problem, man, here’s your sister— she wants to go on the slide right now. THEN I NOTICED HE WAS BLEEDING from the elbows and knees, and you guys! I barely clocked it— I just said YOUR TODDLER like a pilot ceding control of a plane and left to run home, heat up Dorothy’s buttered noodles, grab Coop fresh from a diving carpool drop, and get Dorothy from jazz tech class. It wasn’t until I got back to the pool a the very end of lessons and prepared to set up a snack shack picnic that I even asked him how he was. Because I am terrible. He had to put the chain back on his bike, even— it was an actual crash. I’m the worst.
2. Freaking OUT because Coop won’t eat home food. Cooper LOVES fast food. And junk food. And any food not from home (except school lunch food because that would be too easy). It’s really hard for Ben and me to keep him fed and also stay out of the drive thru line. His Little League all star team was playing for their summer series last week at districts, and Ben and I made Cooper a meal to eat between diving and baseball because the plan was for Harry to pick him up at diving and take him to his game one night when Be was on-campus, and I was tied up with swim and dance. We asked him the night before what he wanted, and he said he’d eat a bagel, a Zbar, a couple of applesauce pouches (gross, but the only portable fruit he’s into), and some chicken strips cold with honey BBQ sauce. He also packs snacks in his dive bag to eat between dry land and actual diving, so we assumed this would hold him over until he got home around 7 and could eat whatever he wanted. Ben made the chicken strips the night before so Coop could eat some for a snack, and we asked a million times if they were OK or if he wanted something else. He said they were good and he likes them cold, etc. We are really touchy about packed food because sometimes he will decide he doesn’t actually want it because he doesn’t feel hungry but then he is actually very hungry, and his blood sugar crashes, and he ends up crying on the boards or behind the plate and THERE IS NO CRYING IN BASEBALL, etc. WELL. His team won the game, and Coop had 2 great hits, but he begged Harry to take him to a chicken place on the way home. Harry settled for ice cream and didn’t call and ask us to order it ahead but did complain about the price and the distractions in the car from the most persistent pestering passenger. (Which completely freaked me out because a 77-year-old woman was killed in a crash on the very highway they were driving on just the previous week— minutes after Dorothy ad I drove past that every same spot, so the distracted teenage driving thing was already on my mind) And then I opened his lunch box to clean it out AND HIS FREAKING FOOD WAS UNTOUCHED. That was the last straw for me. I let him charge lunch at the pool, so he had already eaten a garbage not-home meal! I asked him every possible way if his food was OK before I packed it. And Harry ended up NOT GOLFING that afternoon because he realized he’d have to run home and get Coop’s dinner after golf and before pick up. I could not handle the sight of untouched chicken strips and still full applesauce and an unbitten bagel, etc etc etc. I cried. OVER CHICKEN STRIPS. I might have PMS (but who is to say because my cycle is bananas—I might just be this unhinged forever). I guess I need to realize that fast food might be better than conflict food and structure things accordingly? Probably telling Cooper that he can no longer do any activities over the dinner hour ever again because he has to be home to eat is… not the answer. (But yes, I did say that).
3. Being extra in all the ways about the a/c. We have had a blessedly cool summer so far (please universe do not let me have just summoned a heat dome for Madison by typing those words) with the occasional 90+ day here and there and maybe 2 in a row this week. But! Our 13 y/o a/c is NOT DOING ITS JOB SUPER WELL and fails to meet the target temp (which is 67 and might be optimistic in the Midwest humidity). I had a guy out to fix it for TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS MY GOD. He said it needed to be cleaned and have some coolant added and also some leaks fixed which happens with chemicals or by magic? Not clear on the deets. It is quieter? But also can’t stay at 67 even on an 80-degree day? I hate it. I put a post it note on the thermostat so I can’t see the temp, but I KNOW WHEN IT IS 68 IN THE HOUSE. Keeping the house cool might structure our comings and goings, is what I am saying. The kids are literally walking around in blankets, and Minnie slept in winter jammies last night after crying because she was cold after bath. I WAS SWEATING THO.
4. Overcooking my brownies and also buying a milk chocolate mix instead of the fudge mix we all love. NO ELABORATION NECESSARY, but movie night was ruined, you guys.
5. Embarrassing the eff out of my incoming college kid just by existing in the world. Spilling my coffee all over the ballroom while the Vice Chancellor of Enrollment was giving his very youth pastory speech to convene orientation? Just a bonus.
Teaching day 15/27-- pretty casual, but what are you gonna do? LOFT dress that I love. I wore it with AF1's, but I also love it with sandals and dressy jewelry for going out.
Teaching day 16/27
Oh look-- the Old Navy dress I LITERALLY WORE TO JACK'S FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY
I am a mom who has taken her COLLEGE FRESHMAN to his ORIENTATION. YOU GUYS. Harry is leaving for college in LESS THAN FIFTY DAYS. How is this real life?
One thing I have noticed about college today versus college in the olden days is that kids are encouraged to declare a major before they even start classes. I think this is because college is so freaking expensive, and parents are really concerned about time to graduation. But! I personally think college is about growing up and figuring yourself out MORE THAN it is about a program of study, so I … don’t really care about a major?
Anywho, after his last round of AP test results, Harry decided to lean into what he loves and already has a semester’s worth of credits for and declared political science with an economics minor. He is thinking about adding a communication certificate. After he stopped at the undergraduate research booth on Saturday and a really nice Spanish professor asked him what he was studying, and all he could say was poli sci, he thought more about a sound bite encapsulation in the car on the way home. He wants to study how voter perceptions of US economic policy are both communicated and understood according to socioeconomic status. OK, THEN. PROCEED.
We learned a bunch of stuff about the campus, walked up the infamous hill to the dorms (NO JOKE YOU GUYS OMG WHO MAKES A COLLEGE CAMPUS ON A CLIFF???), got Harry’s books for the semester. (The university says textbook rental is included in tuition, but I still had to buy a book that’s not a rental for $150 grumble grumble). We also bought more Eau Claire stuff because of course. And! We listened to a whole morning of programming about joining in and belonging (separately) and then declined the group lunch and went out by ourselves. Erm.
I did take the provost’s advice to lean out and stop getting up in my kid’s life business and just be a supportive encouraging person who can direct my kid to resources when Harry showed me his schedule that includes 4 days of a super early class and also a huge break 3 days a week before his last class of the day. DANGER DANGER. But, you know what? Not my problem. He is going to have to figure out how to get down that freaking MOUNTAIN by 8 am and also climb the eff back up if he wants to eat in the cafeteria and then climb down and back for his last class of the day. I suggested that if he wants a later start or a shorter break, he should email the advisor who helped him sign up and left it at that. I think maybe more important than the algebra or economics stuff he is learning is the lesson in how to be a grown up who juggles things and learns about the kind of schedules he needs/likes/thrives on, you know?
Also when we got back from our lunch to do a lap of the resource fair, it smelled like vomit all around the ballroom, so we were glad to be not joiners.
His classes are all in the two buildings in the background, so at least once he climbs down the mountain, he has an easy time of it.
THAT’S US!! WE ARE A BLUGOLD FAMILY!!!
No one was around (because everything smelled like puke?) so Harry let me take his picture here finally!
And then! The guy with the guy in the mascot suit asked if we wanted a BLUGOLD picture, and I was SO DELIGHTED because I asked him like 5 times to take a pic with the bird, and Harry was SO EMBARRASSED. Maybe the highlight of the day.
Stairs up THE HILL. Gorgeous. But so steep.
SO BEAUTIFUL
There were SEVERAL flights like this.
At the top!! (Where we immediately climbed ANOTHER flight of stairs-- concrete this time and not old saggy wood!)
Midway down.
We also drove around and found the closest urgent care and Walgreens (he is going to have to be in charge of his own prescription refills!!). I talked to a rep from the health center to find out what Harry needs to do when he has chest pains, and I am calling our insurance this week to figure out providers and he’s meeting with his cardiologist to ask all of the questions. THIS IS HAPPENING, you guys.
All that is left besides buying most of the things and hauling them up the stairs in his not-air-conditioned dorm and driving 175 miles AWAY FROM OUR KID is nagging the heck out of him until he gets a job on campus. Just 8-10 hours a week! Checking in library books or lifeguarding the campus pool or swiping IDs at the rec center— SOMETHING.
We cut out early (not joiners) and made it home for Jack’s last home dive meet of the season. The golf course restaurant was closed for takeout, and we almost cried. But then we rallied.
Grilled cheese and a vodka lemonade— WHAT COULD BE BETTER
Jack was fabulous and almost beat is own high score again
I am missing a dive and might have the same one twice, but I am on the YouTube struggle bus.
Speaking of total inanity. Teaching days 13 and 14/27!!
Old old old Anthro dress that is too tight and too short but I wore anyway:
Not to be outdone by an Old Navy babydoll dress older than my house:
(I have NO FOREHEAD WRINKLES AT ALL thanks to Augustinus Bader's The Rich Cream -- it is a MIRACLE FROM HEAVEN).
