Good

The kids are back to school.

I have a first grader and a third grader and thus far, school is a place they enjoy and are glad to be. Both like their teachers, both are having fun wearing new socks, both have lots of great tales for me as I sit with them at the end of their day and they eat snacks. It's good.

It leaves me in an entirely new place when they board the bus each day: home all day alone! I applied to sub but have yet to hear, so am facing each day full of gratitude at not having to be somewhere myself, my days built around productive task-mastering.

In other news, I reached my Weight Watchers goal and am maintaining now. My gym is closed so I've been walking with friends and doing cardio jams in my living room with my pal Maria. We are working on the house, and both girls rooms are painted and now we've made decisions about the entry way and staircase.

It is gorgeous and warm outside so that is a treat.

We had a wonderful last weekend of summer at the cabin with my mom and my brother Ry, who I was very grateful to have some time with.

Today we went to a surprise birthday party for my aunt Mary who just turned 70! I love the picture of her above on stilts at the cabin, Andy and I looking on circa the early 80s. She's a knitter, so her gift was a book called Oddball Knitting and as she was checking it out, I was telling her (in front of the crowd) how "it's a book for your old balls"....of yarn, but I didn't get that far standing next to my brother and cousin Josh, who started to laugh and so then I laughed and once we started, we had a hard time stopping. It was the aerobic laughter, the best kind.

Get a load of Josh's sweet finger tattoo, built to take the place of his sweet curled mustache if ever it disappears. He's the very picture of Portlandia.

Julia is playing soccer for the first time and loving it. I'm very excited for the season. Go Mighty Marshmellows!

What can I say, s'all good in the hood!