Does this photo more closely approximate what your dinner looks like? Rest easy, because despite the pretty blog photos we're just like you (at least some of the time).
This dinner photo summarizes our day. It was so long and arduous, that I couldn't bother making everything look good for our nightly dinner photo. The taco bar may not have been fancy, but it hit the spot. We sat outside, enjoyed the warm evening and no one was worse for the wear, looking at jars of salsa, plastic containers of sour cream, and bags of chips and shredded cheese.
The day was challenging because I had landscape people here working that needed a lot of my time and attention. The kids were a bit off today and just couldn't get into a good rhythm, probably because I was otherwise occupied. Also, I started a big blog project, which I will be announcing tomorrow (drumroll, please). It turned out to take ten times as long as I had anticipated. To make matters worse, Garin got on to help me with something and mistakenly deleted about 2 hours of work. Not good.
That was not a pretty moment. I had already been feeling cranky and anxious because the house has been getting messier and more out-of-control, by the day. No matter how hard I try to look the way and convince myself that the mess and chaos don't affect me, eventually, I reach my breaking point. Funny enough, that moment coincided with Garin erasing all my work on the blog. It was like a tornado came through. But by the time the tornado blew past, two hours later, everything was cleaned up (why do kids have to push their moms over the edge for things to finally get done) and I had redone all the work on my blog.
That brought us to the dinner time photo above, at close to 8, when I couldn't muster up the energy nor enthusiasm to make everything look pretty. I am happy to report that we all survived the ugly dinner presentation.
Catherine helping me to prepare our late dinner. She was so sweet and helpful.
The boys went out to play while she helped me. Her sweet energy and the quiet house helped to calm my nerves.
Miles turned one of the discarded plants into a chair. I sure hope there were no snakes hiding in there!
Catherine and Miles on the hillside helping Jim with the landscaping.
Catherine and Miles are my "outdoor" kids. The minute the workers arrived in the morning and then returned back from lunch, they were Johnny-on-the spot to go out (in the blazing heat) to watch, help out and have fun.
They fun running through running through the sprinklers as they were being tested. Talking about good old fashioned fun on a hot day!
Talking to Jim about tomorrow's work in the yard, as he was leaving.
Garin is one of my "indoor kids." He would always rather be inside doing something cerebral, as opposed to outside getting hot and dirty.
I even found him my empty bathtub on his chemistry class. That was after the statistics class, which he loved, but before the Big Cats class.
Graham is my other "indoor kid." He hopped onto both classes that Garin was taking, but on his own computer from another room. Both he and Garin only stepped out for five minutes to watch the landscape action, unlike Catherine and Miles who spent hours partaking in the dirty fun.
Miles, with a replacement inner-tube we ordered after Garin tossed the first one in the rose bushes and killed it (the inner tube, not the rose bush).
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