Today…

Outside my window: it’s 80 degrees with sunny blue skies. It’s been a pretty typical summer – with hot hot hot “when is it going to be Fall again?” days mixed with gorgeous, breezy, “I wish summer could last forever” days. I really am looking forward to the fall though. We’ve enjoyed the heck out of our summer, although I do wish we’d visited the beach more (maybe we’ll do that this weekend), I am ready to start planning for Halloween and Thanksgiving and maybe even a little autumn vacation!

This weekend we: had to stick close to home since Dan had the after hours pager. We had to be within a 10 minute radius of home at all times basically. I did the grocery shopping myself which was fine and we spent some time cooking and reorganizing the kitchen which feels so open and spacious right now after a little rethinking and cleaning.

We did manage to take a brief excursion to the park that the kids and I went to for a playdate on Wednesday. There is a beautiful boat rental place on the lake that I’d wanted to show Dan so we went and checked it out, spent some time at the playground and had coffee at one of my favorite coffee shops which had wifi just in case Dan got a call. Very relaxing and a great end to the weekend and a week that was very long and a bit stressful. Being on call 24/7 was no fun for any of us – so glad it was only for one week!

I took a lot of pretty pictures of the lake (like this one at my 365 project of a woman running across chain linked logs in the water – how cool!) and this one – I like how the trees and grass sort of frame the water in this picture:

I also: practiced riding a bicycle for the first time in like I don’t even know how many years. We picked up a super cheap (and chic vintage looking) bike off Craigs List a few weeks ago and have been fixing it up little by little. This weekend it was finally in working condition with like functioning breaks and such so I started practicing and luckily seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. We took a very short joy ride yesterday before I got tired. I’m still gaining confidence on it and felt slightly like a menace to society but with a bit more practice this could be a great new form of exercise and just in time for the cooler fall weather.

I just finished reading: She’s Gone Country by Jane Porter (love her) and I’m giving away a copy at my review blog right now! Up next is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows which I’m reading for the local book club that I’m joining (finally!) in September. I’m looking forward to this one as I know several people who have read and liked it.

This morning: I showed the apartment to a potential subletter who seems very interested. I feel like I’ve said that several times now only for it to lead to nothing but I’m crossing my fingers and knocking on wood nonetheless. If this works out and we can convince the FHA to stop twiddling their thumbs and give us our financing – then this just might happen.

Some other links I think you should click:

• Check out these tips to Stock and Organize Your Freezer for Last Minute Meals at Organizing Your Way
• Are you HTML savvy? Blissfully Domestic has a great list of basic HTML code every blogger should know
• Another great Blissfully Domestic post : 10 Things To Do Before Summer Ends
• These sweet corn pancakes at Smitten Kitchen look delicious!
• Loved this Custom Designed First Day of School Poster featured on Ohdeedoh
• 5 Book Storage Solutions You Can Build Yourself also at Ohdeedoh

One last picture to share before I go: the baby (or not a baby as it were) is growing up so fast. She can climb basically anything, for better or worse, causing us to rearrange and rethink everything on a daily basis. She’s also trying to take steps that don’t involve cruising furniture more and more. She’ll be running any minute now – scary, no?