I don’t get my kid. Jonas has come home from school sick as a dog twice in the past month. Both times he has spiked a high fever and puked his guts out. Both times he has sprawled on the floor, moaning, retching, begging for water and wanting to be in the bathtub. Both times I worried that something was really wrong with him, like appendicitis or demons. And both times, he has passed out asleep and woken up with the birds the next morning, right as rain, bouncing off the walls, with absolutely no trace of illness. I don’t even know what to think.

The past few weeks I have become increasingly concerned with how I was going to handle the upcoming summer holiday. I have become very dependent on Jonas’ preschool to take him off my hands and wear him out. I couldn’t remember what I did to survive last summer. Then yesterday, we had beautiful weather. It was 65 degrees and sunny. The kids got up early and spent most of the day outside playing with chalk, bubbles, the sandbox, and the hose. I had forgotten the magic of the hose, and the hours of freedom and peace it buys me in exchange for a flooded backyard and an extra load of laundry. So totally worth it. Vive le hose!

Chris has been gone for 5 weeks now. The time is not flying. The thing is, I don’t find myself struggling to accomplish the extra tasks, like I had worried about. It turns out I do an awful lot around here and that hasn’t really changed. I do miss him a lot though, more than I had realized I would during the months of preparation when I was worrying about the kids and worrying about Chris and worrying about our major appliances. I get the kids in bed at night and sit there wishing he was around. E-mail and phone calls are a life saver.

Last weekend was so much fun! My inlaws took the kids for the weekend, and for the first time in ten years, I was home alone. I celebrated the first night by sleeping for ten hours straight. Then I went to an all day crop with my friends, where I got a few things accomplished scrap-wise.

The next day I got to teach a Make ‘n Take at The Scrapbook Nook. It was Quickutz day and we had a rep from the company there to demo their new electronic cutting system the Silouette, and I got to demo the Revolution, a fabulous die cut machine that I totally adore! I was beyond stoked to do this demo because the nice people at Quickutz had sent me about $100 worth of very cool dies for my machine to play with. The demo went great! People loved the little mini album they got to make. To totally top off a triumphant day, the Quickutz rep gave me a new font for my die cutter (Up Town girl) totally free, and told me that their products in my hands was simply a good investment for the company. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Here are some of the projects I did for the event. I’ll put more up later.

This last one is the Make ‘n Take I designed and taught.