Weary Mama.

I'm a weary mama.The days are long and busy, no? Filled with things that must be done, things that should be done, and then - at the bottom of the list - the things we'd like to do. I'd REALLY like to curl up with my new copy of Allegiant - which finally arrived Saturday, after originally being mailed to our old house - because I'd pre-ordered it, and didn't even think about having moved in the meantime - but instead, there's a pile of clean laundry in the dining room, mocking me; Jason's Halloween costume has paint drying at the moment; there are four HUGE pumpkins sitting on the porch waiting to be carved - and the house is filthy. The pool is dirty. The grass needs to be cut. The indoor cat's favorite way to get my attention is to shred paper left laying around - you know, the important ones you leave out because you need to deal with them. The outdoor cat - left to our care by the previous owners who denied having a cat - wants to come in, and the indoor cat wants to go out. I have a thousand things I want to do to this house, and no money to do it. Sometimes I want to find a dark hole and stay there.


It helps to look back and see how far we've come - I am so.grateful for the two weeks I spent homeless at the beach with the kids. We all love Duck, NC, and I think it was probably the best decision I could have made, to leave Virginia and head to a place familiar to us after moving out of the only house our kids had known. I know I really needed it - and we all got along amazingly well.

Coffee and Othello with Sarah on the deck

Part of that probably had to do with the fact that it was just me and the kids, and I didn't really care what we did or how late we stayed up. I kind of got on the same schedule they did - we woke up with the sun and went to bed after watching some of Season 1 of Doctor Who....

We played in the ocean - which was COLD at first, but changed every day! - and sewed Zombies. Well - Evie and I sewed zombies - William spent most of his time on his ipad, playing Minecraft and chatting via Facetime with his friend Rianne (technology has been the biggest blessing with all of this...)

The big kids rode boogie boards, and everyone helped bury William.

They dug holes, and made sand castles, and just sat in the surf....

We had fruity drinks and games, and waited for the waves to wash us out to sea...

My dad spent a week with us and treated us all to dinner and ice cream...

I dragged everyone to Kitty Hawk for a history lesson - because while I have every intention of going back to Duck, I have no idea how long it will take me to get there. They were NOT happy with me making them LEARN....!

The beach was gorgeous, and different every day - and quiet, as it was early in the season. We saw a wedding party posing for pictures, dolphins jumping in the sea, and just relaxed, played, and decompressed from the insanity and stress that was the end of the school year and moving out of the only house the kids had known. Stuffed to the gills in the van, with the cat. Did I mention that? Yah. 4 kids, myself, and the cat, stuffed into -oh, I don't know, 20 cubic feet? Halfway across the country? No wonder I've gained 10 pounds. I need to look at that beach view again....

There, that's better.

I leave you with William, playing the new song he'd found, while stuffing his face with Duck Donuts. Oy.