First Week Fun!

"Snapping" green beans!

This week has been a good first week of summer vacation. I had to put up the vegetables I brought back from the garden on Edisto. I had two bushels of green beans to snap and can---in the end, that equaled 32 quarts of beans. That is a lot of work.April came over and helped me for a couple of hours and her help was invaluable. The Burgess Bunch love to eat those green beans but they were pretty worthless when it came to putting them up! Ian and Will would wander in and out to help snap for a few minutes and then would disappear to other parts of the house for long stretches. Ian helped me for a whole 20 minutes at one point and I was excited that he was going to stick around and help me knock out the snapping. Boy was I mistaken. He left for the bathroom and never came back. And hour later, he came back thru the kitchen on his way to the playroom. I said, "What happened to you helping me snap the beans?" With a straight face, he responded, "I'm on a break." For an hour? Boy do I wish I lived in his universe!

The train at the Spartanburg Library

I took the kids to the library on Thursday. It is probably my favorite place to visit in Spartanburg--or any town for that matter. My parents instilled in me a great love for reading and I very much want my children to share that love of books. So far, I have been fairly successful. Will seems to be the only one that isn't crazy about reading--imagine that. He likes to read as long as it is about motorcycles or snakes or flame-throwing. My very own Evel Knievel in the making. The kids were excited about visiting but I quickly realized that taking all three of them at once was an error in judgement. All three read on different levels and all three of those sections are in different locations of the basement level. When all three started to head to their locations, I felt like I needed to have some sort of magic to multiply myself. So I decided to help Will and Maggie pick out their books first and then park them at a table next to Ian's section so I could help him. It was a great theory.

And yes, she is naked under that towel!

Maggie wanted to pull every book off the shelf or run down the aisle. She was in total show-off mode and while she wanted to collect books, she wanted to collect 30 of them at once, instead of the 3 at a time rate that I prefer. While I was helping Will select some books, I made the error of not keeping my eye on Maggie the entire time. I glance up to find her attempting a strip tease--her shirt was off and she was headed for her skirt. Whispering loudly, "Stop Maggie!" enticed her not to actually stop vacating her clothes but rather to take off running. I have gotten good at anticipating her moves on the run so I caught her before any real damage was done but it was awkward having to quietly YELL at her that the library was not a condoned location for naked time. I seriously hope this stage of disrobing ends soon.

Mixing up zucchini bread

Friday we had play dates with two different friends--I left my house at 9am and returned at 9:30pm. The kids came in and wanted to watch a movie--I wanted to watch the back of my eyelids. They played in water most of the day and for whatever reason, they weren't drop dead tired. Saturday I enjoyed some Mommy time. I had a pedicure and spent most of the afternoon reading Pat Conroy's South of Broad. It was a great read if you like Conroy or Charleston or both. Sunday, we enjoyed a visit with MeeMaw & Poppi and the Jackson cousins. Will caught at least 15 granddaddy long leg spiders and a lizard. He is fascinated with critters! Sunday evening, Will helped me make a couple of loaves of Zucchini bread. The child might not be crazy about reading but he has a real passion for cooking. I plan to make it my personal mission to teach him to cook well. It will help make him a real catch some day---even if he races motorcycles and collects lizards for fun!