First of all

To my Mom and Dad:

Please don't use anything you read here as cause for concern. I told you the van is now permanently parked in the drive way until it's fixed. Larry says he'll fix it but he's actually making progress on the bathroom and I don't want him to derail that. I'm driving the truck. It's fine. Quite safe, actually that anything that might hit me will bounce off. Larry has flags he put on the little trailer and I'll put them on the front of it if I need to park in a tight space. You seem to forget it was the only thing I had to drive for 4 months waiting for the van to make it here from VA. I'll survive just fine. In fact it was our sole vehicle our month in FL, too. Given the choice between keeping it or the van, I'd pick the truck everyday. Really we're fine.

Secondly:

I realized what the purpose of the blog is. It was a revelation of sorts.
I thought I'd start it to keep the grandparents up to date on what was going on here, but really it's more just a reflection of life here. And one the grandparents should not read. The antidote to all the 'everything is gum drops and lollipops' blogs which make me nauseous with how lovely and perfect their lives are. This blog is about life.

And it's not all gumdrops and lollipops.Candy really isn't our friend here. In fact most gum here ends up on the bottom of shoes and today, on the bottom of our dog's paw. I have no idea how that happened nor do I have the solution for it.  So.. it's just real life. A little of 'what the kids have done lately' and a little of 'I haven't spoken to an adult in 76 hours and I'll just write to myself online'  there's been less of that with Larry's new and improved hours, so it goes to follow that the blogging has been less.

But fear not.. he will be playing MASH in the desert shortly and I will be here again. Talking to myself and giving others a real picture of life. The one others read and no longer feel like the most inadequate parent because they didn't make the perfect fondant cake for their child's well planned birthday with 40 people in attendance which I made all the food for it myself...  the ones who have laundry piled on the couch and kids with long and dirty fingernails when the 5th nail scrubber and nail clipper go missing.. the ones who show up late for swimming lessons every time. The ones who have a struggle to get library books all returned on time. Those are the ones I keep the company with. Even if they're all just the different sides of myself.