Doug went to breakfast with a professional contact this morning so I got up with Amy at 7 a.m. and she played while I did dishes. Straightened the house a bit and took a quick bath before we all went to eat cheap pizza (Ci-Ci’s) for lunch. It’s an appropriate place for our large, loud, messy crowd. Amy got into jelly beans while we were loading the car and we didnt realize it until we got there so she looked like a trailer park child. Afterward we hunted for a good idea for the goody bags on Saturday but nothing has sparked my interest yet. Now I get to do more dishes and laundry. I have figured out that the only way to keep up with the laundry over here is to wash, dry, fold and put away three full loads every day. Plus two loads of dishes. I spend so much time just trying to keep up that I can never make any real progress on the actual hard-core floor and bathroom type scrubbing that needs to be done over here. Then there’s the downstairs which is just piles of papers, boxes and “stuff” that I just never have time to deal with.

This summer I am getting rid of a lot of the junk that is connected to the children and I. I won’t touch Doug’s things. He has strong sentimental attachments to a lot of stuff and hopes that he can someday do all the sports and adventuring things that he did before he became a father. He also believes that he will someday have space to put things away neatly instead of the large piles that are all over the downstairs, including our bedroom. I am sure that if he had more money to put in the house and uninterrupted time to work on the house, he could get things built, repaired and organized. I also know how desperately he misses climbing, camping, kayaking, hiking, motorcycling and all the other exciting things he did before we filled his days with soccer, scouts and school activities. Poor Doug. So sincere, kind, compassionate, giving and exhausted.