The Saturday 7

1. This week Justin worked out of town Monday through Friday. He had to work 10 hour days, but then he got to go back to a hotel room all by himself, watch what he wanted on TV with no interruptions, and go out to eat for every meal. I was so jealous.

2. In his absence, we stayed busy as usual. I decided to surprise him by doing some yardwork. My housekeeping skills are strictly indoors. I have never mowed the lawn. I do not garden or landscape or hang baskets of flowers on my front porch (mostly because I don't have a front porch). So it was a pretty big deal that I took it upon myself to pull the weeds out of our driveway and rake ankle-deep leaves that have been sitting between the driveway and the house for a year. Of course it was wicked hot all week, so we just did it in short bursts in the morning and evening when it was cooler. Levi helped me rake and fill leaf bags. And the girls pulled tons of weeds. I, of course, have been sore for days and remembered why I stay inside.

We were excited to pull this out of the ground, thinking we'd unearthed some kind of wild carrot.

After washing it off and asking ChatGPT to identify it, however, we realized it was just a common pokeweed - which is actually toxic to both humans and animals. Good thing we didn't try to eat it! Lol

Girls weeding. Levi supervising.

3. I spent a couple days working at school this week. Classes begin in 3 weeks! Last year, we decided to "genrefy" our library. Mrs. Miller and I slowly started putting genre labels on the nonfiction and chapter books, and by the end of the year I felt good about our progress. Well on Tuesday, I went in and pulled out everything that still needed a sticker. There were piles upon piles upon piles! So I went back on Thursday, and with the help of my new co-librarian Tallie, got all the chapter books done. We're making progress. I'm excited to see how genrefying will affect our readership. All the articles I've read say it makes a huge difference and kids respond so well to it. We'll see. 🤷

4. Wednesday was Lena's highly anticipated Kids' Market. Our town does concerts in the park on Wednesday nights during the summer, and once a month they let kids set up booths to sell homemade items. Lena and her friend Harper are crochet fiends, and when they found out about the market they were immediately on board. Lena is very self sufficient, and I'm all about free-range parenting after reading the Anxious Generation, so I interfered very little in her process. She made a ton of cute little crochet items, designed a sign in Canva, collaborated with Harper over pricing, and scoured our house for ways to display their goods. After a little help with putting up the tent and table, they got to work setting everything up.

Look how cute it turned out!

I was so impressed with the way she talked to customers, handled transactions, and made change by herself! Shoutout to Prozac once again! Both girls nearly sold out of everything, and when we got home and counted the profits, we were shocked!

$53!!

Granted, I paid for all the yarn and eyeballs and everything, so that isn't truly profit, but I'm willing to be an unpaid investor for the life skills and confidence she built through this project. She can keep her $53. Now to teach Levi a marketable skill. He wanted to be involved so badly and Lena kept shooing him away. I'm not sure crochet will be his forte . . .

5. Yesterday, we finally made it to Lake Michigan for the first time this summer. It was another scorching hot day, the water was warmer than usual, and there were lovely green-flag swimming conditions. My brave and adventurous sister-in-law met us there with her three kids, and we swam and sunbathed and climbed dunes for five hours!

When we first got there, the water was totally calm. The kids swam out to the buoy and I had no qualms about their safety. After a few hours the wind picked up and brought with it some nice waves. We all loved playing in them. I went out with Levi for an hour, surfing on our boogie boards. (Another reason I'm so sore.)

We were all exhausted by the time we got home. But fortunately none of us were too sunburned! The girls and I learned our lesson after Millennium Park, and we all applied sunscreen multiple times. Levi refused to wear it (don't even come at me), and got a little pink, but it never hurt and he was brown by this morning!

6. We got to watch Brodie overnight last night, and he cracked us all up with his shenanigans. He makes the best faces, has the funniest dance moves, and babbles in his own language almost nonstop! He's also heard my kids talk to Alexa so much that he stands next to her and shouts, "Exa! Abdabenadieba!"

It was water. Relax.

He didn't sleep super great last night, was up before 7, and I realized I'm way too old to be getting up with a baby. Lol. How do women have babies in their 40s?? But I napped when he napped today, so it all worked out. 😁

7. Pics and memes: