Paradise

I realize I haven't checked in here lately, and since we're currently in the thick of a major remodeling job that I'd like to document here, I thought I should mayyyybe give ye olde blog another go. This summer will be 6 years since I started a family blog, and I'm definitely feeling the difficulty of finding creative content in the face of a) rampant micro-blogging (Twitter, Instagram, even Facebook, etc.) and b) my children growing up. They are their own people, so while I have no problem poking fun at them when they are stupid (kids are pretty stupid, Lord love them), I don't know how much freedom I have to tell their personal stories.

Anyway. That seems rather esoteric. Let's get down to the nitty-gritty. Before I launch into any posts about Our Life Coated in Plaster Dust, let me fill you in on this past semester. (Both The Professor and I have been thinking in terms of semesters since we were five, and because we are petulant and adverse to chance, we've gone into academia in order to retain that mindset. Please adapt.)

Last fall I taught two classes in the English department at my alma mater (surreal, y'all), and this past spring I scaled back to one. It was College Writing I and it is generally inhabited by only freshmen, and I soon came to an important conclusion: I love college freshmen. I LOVE them. It is an irrational love, since they can be some of the most maddening creatures in creation, but I will say this in their defense: they are also some of the most awesome, and I am so thankful I had a very teeny part in the beginning of their college experience. I hope I had a very large part in the beginning of their college writing experience, and I also hope they don't think I am too much of a crazy liberal heretic. Amen.

I'm all signed up to teach two sections of freshman writing again both this coming fall and spring, so I think I did all right. I'm really glad for summer break, but I'm also really glad for this teaching opportunity. Imagine! Me! Getting up and putting on makeup and teaching young adults! What in the heck has come over me? Is it something in the water?

The Professor spent the entire academic year writing his dissertation, and he rounded it up with three weeks of research in Austin at the Harry Ransom Center at UT. That was a crazy time. I visited him for a long weekend, and then he came home and we settled into normality again. Then after another month he left for a week in Germany, AS YOU DO. Just before Germany we started our big remodel, which will take up a good portion of our summer. He is scheduled to defend his dissertation mid-July, officially making him Dr. Case, and then, after our family summer vacation, he'll start back at Olivet full-time teaching in mid-August.

Basically, I do not understand how he's not flat on the floor, dead. I suspect he's a robot.

In the middle of all that, our kids grew and flourished and learned and, you know, LIVED, and we managed to get a decent photo on Mother's Day:

It was a Mother's Day miracle.

In case you're wondering: King Peter the Boy is 5.5, H is 2.5, and J and B are both (duh) 7.

In just two days the older three finish up the school year, and then I will officially have two smartass 2nd grade boys, one hyper-extrovert 1st grade girl, and an almost-three year old on my hands. Sometimes they are almost too much for me to handle and I want to run screaming from my own home, escaping into the corn fields forever. (Question: What would I do in the corn fields? Answer: Cherish the silence.)  But most of the time they are bewilderingly amazing and I would like to high-five the universe for making me their mom.

Between times I am handing out graham crackers in an effort to just get everyone to shut up for five freaking minutes, for the love.

So that's my quick check-in to Blogland. Hope it wasn't too whirl-wind for you. Life is pretty grand for us. Fun and healthy and free of drama beyond the normal, life-with-kids kind. We go to church, we go to school, we work in our garden, we try to serve our community, we gather with friends and family, and we work everyday to create a little paradise here on Earth in our very home.

And when I look down and realize that my two-year-old son is bossing the life out of me, I realize that karma has come full-circle and that I am only experiencing the effects of a life of bossing everyone else around me.

Also amen.