Start

September always seems more like the beginning of the year than January. Tonight is the eve of the first day of achool, at least for me. Tomorrow, I start my first course towards a Master of Nursing degree. Why? That's a good question. It was time for more education, I think. I must say I'm excited. I'll let you know in six weeks if I'm still enjoying it.

The kids have meet-the-teacher night tomorrow, but they don't actually start school until Thursday. Somehow, I became the mother of two school-agers. They are no longer chubby helpless drool-covered little lumps of clay. They are already on their way to being molded into whatever they will be. I've actually been a bit sad about that lately, not that I want any more kids, or would trade what they are now for any stage previous to this, as enjoyable as it might have been at the time. I'll think a little more on this and write a post to go along with their first day of school pictures.

So tomorrow, I start my class, and we meet the kids' teacher. Wednesday is hockey-sign up day. Thursday is the first day of school, and then we are already at the end of the week. Aimee starts gymnastics next week, a higher-level, "pre competitive" class, which I think will be really good for her. Next week is also my last week before 2 weeks of vacation, which we plan to use, instead of travelling, to finish a few household projects. Or maybe to start them. In any case, we have $2500 worth of building supplies coming next weekend, shortly after the garage sale where we will sell junk to make room for the building supplies.

In any case, I feel like tonight is the last free night I'll have for a while. I'm trying to figure out where I am going to get time to do things like exercise and blog. The last time I was in school, the kids had no after school activities and went to bed at 7:00. Granted, I was taking a full course load and working as a TA, and I was obsessed with my GPA (4.1, since you asked), which may have added unnecessaily to the number of hours I spent studying. This time, I'm working full time, but I'm only taking one course at a time. I'm working 9-5 so I can take the kids to school in the morning, so maybe I'll have to get my exercise before work, since there will be little time or energy when I get home from gymnastics/hockey/work. I swear I'm going to be organized and do bulk cooking on the weekends, but realistically, we'll probably just continue to plan meals and do bulk shopping, and Trevor will continue to do the cooking. I may lobby for a cleaning service to do floors and bathrooms, though. We'll see. It will be a miracle, though, if we get Christmas cards sent out. Never did last year, either. I thought about doing it this summer, bt it never happened.

This was a productive weekend. I was glad for the third day. I got a start on some of the vacation projects, and gathering stuff for the garage sale. All the laundry is done and most is put away. The beds all have clean sheets and the bathrooms are clean-ish. The carpets have been vacuumed and the cupboard is stocked with peanut-free lunch bag items. The kids have their back-to-school outfits and new backpacks. I got a good bike ride in this morning, which always helps me keep things in perspective. We had some good social fun, too, a friendly poker game Friday with an out-of-town friend, a morning at the Y, and a baby fix today, playing with baby Miriam as her dad solo-parented for one of the first times.

So as busy as we'll be, I'll try to keep in touch. Keep watching Life After. It's done, it just needs to be published. Now, I am going to read a trashy novel, guilt-free, for the last time until December.