Kitty made it home safe and sound.

I had my foster niece from last summer up for a few days, which is why I haven't posted squat here.

I have spent way too much money, lately. I have had help, of course. We were trying to get the last hurrahs in before school starts for the kids. We took them to the state fair and while it doesn't even mildy compare to the California State fair or even several of the California county fairs, it was still fun and we still blew an enormous amount of money there.

We played squirt gun races and won a lot of stuffed animals. My first game, I won the biggest prize they had and gave it to Genny. I got a temporary tattoo. Mike requested the atom versus the butterfly. Freaking engineers! I watched the kids do rides. I didn't really feel like getting nauseous and banged around in a rickety anything. I enjoyed the various exhibits, but was disappointed they were so small. There were livestock shows, but they were also kind of small.

Tomorrow, I run a friend to the doctor and back, then I meet Mike for lunch, so we can shop together for Russell's birthday gifts. We had thought about giving him a computer, but decided rather than blow $500 on a shitty computer, we could give him our old computer and fight over the one we have. Mike and I figured that we could simply just build a kickass computer for $1000, in lieu of basically crapping the money away on a brand new POS computer that is already out of date. Then, I'll be baking an oreo cake for the birthday boy. 11 years old. He's heading inexorably towards adolescence and while I love the person he's becoming dearly, I miss little boy kisses and questions.

With the kids returning to school tomorrow, I am thinking about my week ahead. I have lots of zucchini bread and relish to make. I also have a lot of pickles I'd like to work on. I also need to contact professors at the university and get my incompletes made up. I also have books to return to the university and the fridge to give to the grad students. I have a hard time doing my stuff when the kids are here, I think because I'm so busy doing stuff with or for them. This summer, of course, I've been super ill. I plan to swim, I've got sewing projects, canning, mailings, bills, you name it.

It's not true, but tonight, the day before school starts, Ifeels like I have been waiting all summer for them to go back. I think it's because in the last week, I've actually started to feel better -- a lot better, which is what I have been waiting for all summer. It just happens to coincide with their return to school, which makes me very sad, because I feel like I missed the summer with them and that all my wonderful plans for the summer are a shambles because of my illnesses.

To address that sadness, I walked up the hill with Genny tonight and we went down and talked to the horses, which she enjoyed a great deal. It made me realize how few moments like that I've had with that kid over the summer. I'm going to have to make more of them in the coming months. Soon, she'll be in kindergarten and I'll be much less interesting to her and I won't get all those fruity-breathed kisses and giggles any more.