Thursday Brain Dump

 The Brain Dump.  The perfect kind of summer post.  Not much planning.  Kind of like you and me, sitting in the sun (or the shade, depending on your context) and drinking some sweet tea.  Okay?

1.  And the whole sun/shade thing?  I'd be in the sun.  If I could find it.  Any time the sun comes out I go outside to my plastic lawn-chair throne and set the timer for 20 minutes of do-not-disturb-me.  I tell the kids it's doctor's orders, because we're all chronically low on Vitamin D. And I'm only partly joking.

See, I know I may have given you the impression that it rains a lot here.  That's because it does.  But usually we have an absolutely glorious summer, from about the 5th of July (because we have a proud and long-standing tradition of enduring rain on the 4th, when we're all trying to barbecue- eyes roll) until the middle of September.  This year?  Not so much.  If I didn't have some appealing plans later in the year I'd feel gypped.  Because I woke up this morning to 58F and rain.  Again.  This is unusual even for us.  That old adage about 'we don't tan, we rust' is starting to hit too close to home.

2.  I took ten kids to see Cars 2 on Wednesday.   I may have lost my mind.  Actually, we had a good time.  My favorite part was the whole Squatty Potty thing, in Tokyo, but the kids didn't quite get it.  Actually the very best part was that I got my act together and made sure we got to a showing that was captioned, so Tate could enjoy the movie too :D

3.  Clearly I'm not as organized as I'd like to be, as TWO of my boys have had birthdays that have gone unmentioned.  Wyatt just turned 15 last week.  FIFTEEN!  How did that happen?  He's gotten 15 years old and I haven't aged a day ;D  And Gunnar, my baby, hit the double digits.  My youngest child is ten years old.  I could be all sentimental about that, because they were pretty funny when they were little.  But, come to think of it, they're still pretty funny.

 And aren't they handsome?!

Sorry about the glare, uh...

somebody forgot to turn off the lens flare generator.

(That's for the boys ;D )

The boys were appropriately celebrated by family (Gunnar's b'day in June, with Father's Day, and we honored Wyatt last Sunday) and with friends, hence the ten kids to the movie.  Or maybe it was nine.  It seemed like ten.

4.  We're all just a little bit distracted by this whole wedding-in-less-than-two-months thing!

  Dave and Allyson

 Soooo happy for them.  And soooooo glad I'm not the one trying to plan a wedding in eight weeks ;D

5.  Meanwhile, I spent about seven hours with my mom on Tuesday, shopping for a "mother-of-the-groom" dress for the aforementioned wedding.  And found a FABULOUS one.  I tried to find a picture to show you its wonderfulness, but Macy's website indicates they have approximately 2904 dresses.  I'm not kidding.  And I don't have that kind of devotion to fashion.  You'll have to take my word for it.  She's going to look mah-ve-lous.  Even better, she had tried the dress on earlier in the week and put it on reserve - unsure, and wanted a second opinion.  So when we went back to look at it, it was on the 40% off rack.  AND even still better, a sale was starting the following day, and if she left it at the store overnight they'd give her an extra 20% off.  No problema.

So that was pretty fun, in spite of the fact that I'm convinced I'm lacking the fashion and shopping genes normally present in females of the species.  *sigh*

A friend asked what I'll wear to the wedding, and all I have to say is that I'm leaning toward clothes.

6.  All week I've felt blah.  Not sick.  Just unmotivated. Slug-like.  As if I'm moving through molasses.  I blame hormones.  A good mom would write a glowing tribute to each of her birthday boys but I don't think I could do them credit right now.  Possibly several hours of ten kids in the house, trying to take over the world (aka playing Risk) has something to do with that.  I finally just set the timer and told them that when the frog rings (the timer is a frog) they all had to go outside.  And I don't care if it's raining.

7.  The UPS man brought me a new book today :D

The World-Tilting Gospel by Dan Phillips, a bloggy friend you can find at his own blog here, or at a joint blog here.  Dan has a disarming and sometimes startling way of serving up truth, with a side of wit.  And this is just his first book.  I understand he'll have another out in a month or so, on Proverbs.  Looking forward to it.

8.  Books, books, everywhere books.  My little organize-the-home-library project tried to intimidate me into quitting.  You know, so many books and how to sort them?  But I've called its bluff.  I'm on it.  Clearly my OCD needs a place to land ;D

That's all I've got for now.