Time for a Bracing Two Weeks

So today starts two weeks of swimming lessons for the girls and music theater camp for Fiona in the afternoon. Hopefully, Fiona will enjoy the camp and I won't turn into ice during the lessons. See, because Sophia is a "Tiny Tot" until she turns 5 (meaning I'll be doing this next summer as well, I'll wager), I get to go in the water with her. The water is always bitter cold. It's not necessarily warm during the summer here. It rains quite often (but the lessons go on). Oh well, it will probably wake me up. I haven't been sleeping well (except for last night, thank goodness). Insomnia and wakeful creatures who need you in the night seem to go hand in hand to exasperate the problem.

Yesterday, we tried to finally get Sophia her own bicycle, but she now just wants her tricycle and not one "pink like Fiona's". We tried to get Fiona a bike helmet and she doesn't like the strap under her chin (I was exasperated and sympathetic at the same time...I hate things around my neck or under my chin). So I guess we'll be getting our exercise by swimming and, hopefully, hiking this summer. Both girls are getting the cutest freckles. I'll try to get close ups soon. They are getting tan lines despite copious amounts of sunscreen that says it protects against UVA and UVB rays.

I have, for the first time since we moved into our house, actually been trying to get firewood for next winter. It's been like trying to get a carpenter or contractor to work on your house. No one returns my calls. If you talk to a person, they say they will call later. And don't. There are the few who are exceptions and it is work to find them. Because of this, I have somehow made 2 orders for 2 cords of wood each (I thought one guy was a flake and wasn't going to call me back). We're going to wait until we have an enormous pile o' wood in the driveway before I cancel the other one. We don't need 4 cords of wood (I hope), but we sure do need wood. After our last heating oil bill, I wonder if we will be sleeping in front of our tiny wood stove next winter.

Fiona just came down the stairs. I thought she had fallen back asleep (feel free to laugh at me here). She just spent about an hour silently in her room reading a Calvin and Hobbes book she found hiding in her room. It was hiding in her bookcase, you see. You see that the apple does not fall far from the tree.