no time for introspection

Or contemplation -- or maybe it's just that there's no desire for either.

The weekend was pleasantly busy. My brother and his wife came down on Friday, and it was very nice to have other adults around. We worked on clearing out one of my mom's many over-stuffed rooms, and it turned into an extensive project with excellent results so far. There is a frightening amount of stuff in this house, a lot of it lovely, but more that is here only because no one has taken the effort to dispose of it. So we're making the effort, bit by bit -- it has to happen sooner or later.

Saturday was a windy beach day with very high waves. For the first time ever, the lifeguards called everyone out of the water because some Portuguese Man-o-Wars were seen drifting at the next beach over. We've had quite a rash of them this week, with several people requiring hospital visits for treatment for stings. We built a sandcastle in the meantime, with my brother acting as lead architect. (He has been building things since he was tiny. He used to build the tallest card houses, routinely stacking up 12, 15 stories. I could never get a third story on without toppling the entire thing. We each have our talents.)

Sunday was mostly a working day; I had laundry to do and that is when we did the majority of the work on the renovation. I cooked again: ribs and coleslaw and biscuits, to general acclaim. The biscuits were iffy since the baking powder is circa 1995, but they came out fine if a little flatter than I would have liked.

Monday was regular house cleaning -- vaccuuming, dusting, and de-spiderfication -- in preparation for Mom's arrival home from Rome. I took the kids to the fresh water pond for swimming the afternoon (no need to worry about jellyfish stings). They had a good time but I spend the entire time we're there gritting my teeth. It's not so bad when it's not crowded, but it was hot and sunny yesterday, so it was packed. It's quite a tiny beach area, so everyone's on top of each other, and there's barely a breath of air it seems.

I love the going the ocean beaches because I always feel as if my mental cobwebs get cleared away. At the pond, I just felt stifled.

Today, Mom's getting eased back into being home, the kids are all finished with their schoolwork, and the sun is trying to come out but the forecast calls for clouds and thunderstorms. I don't know what we'll do, we'll figure it out.

DH has already put my camera cable in the mail so I should be able to update with photos later this week if all goes well.