Oh, my goodness.  How is it Labor Day already?  For one thing, where has the summer gone?  And for another… sorry I disappeared on y’all last week.  It’s been absolutely crazy around here – crazier than usual.  We wrapped up some work we were having done on our new house, I had three major work deadlines, and – oh, right – we moved.  It wasn’t as nuts as it could have been because we hired people to both pack and move us.  But still – it was nuts, and I wasn’t able to be around or help as much as I wanted to because I was so overwhelmed with big work projects that all came due at the same time.  (I got them all done, but it required an hour-long conference call on the one day of the week that I’d budgeted to be moving all day, and I had to go into work on Friday instead of working from home as I’d planned to because of technical difficulties with my remote access.  Still, it’s all done now and I can finally breathe – at least until the next onslaught.)

So, we’re in our new house.  And loving it.  Air conditioning!  No sirens!  No garbage in the front lawn!  No bumping into each other if we both try to work in the kitchen at the same time!  It’s amazing.  My standards have really gone down over a year of living in the city, heh.  But we’re so glad to be moved at last.  Not settled – not by a long shot – there’s still a lot of unpacking to be done.  Still, we have time now and it feels great to be in our own space again.  I’m most excited to bake in the kitchen.  So far it’s just been thrown-together meals, but I’m looking forward to whipping up some gourmet treats as soon as I get a chance.  I’m thinking stone fruit compote and peach oat bread before the summer fruits are out of season.

We’ve been trying to fit some fun in around the craziness.  Peanut got behind the wheel of Grandad’s convertible, so look out, drivers!

And she had a great time playing “baby sea lion” in our new pool with Nana last weekend after her birthday party.  I’m hoping to get her in the water a few more times before we close the pool for the season.  One of my goals for the summer was to start teaching Peanut to swim.  I considered the best I could do on that front – since I knew we wouldn’t have the pool until August – to be getting her used to the idea in a setting where she could feel safe, so she could jettison any fear and get her little mind in a place where – maybe – winter swim lessons at the family YMCA near our house would be possible.  I think that’s definitely been achieved – Peanut has no fear whatsoever of the water.

So… again… sorry for disappearing.  I had really hoped to have some posts pre-scheduled for last week, but we’ve been so busy I didn’t even have time to do that.  I do have some good posts coming up, though, including a recap of my fourth (!) half marathon, a visit to Letchworth State Park with Zan and Paul (we finally made it!), reflections on raising a reader, and more good stuff.  Stay tuned!