I Need a Vacation

I need a vacation from my vacation. See, technically, I spent half of June and all of July on leave - that's paid vacation time for those of you who don't speak military jargon. I was able to take 45+ days because despite the fact that we get 30 days a year, many of us don't use it. And if you go over 90 days on the books (That's three years of leave accumulated), they take it away at the end of the fiscal year. This year I was facing the loss of 12 days, and up to 30 days next year. So when I found out that I couldn't report to my next job until August 26th so that the guy I'm relieving can get credit for completing a full tour, I started looking at my options.

I knew I was moving, so I got some work done, starting with the most important rooms...the kitchen

And the sewing/knitting/guest bedroom. Or at least the yarn and fabric stashes....

The yarn is organized by weight, in contrast to the fabric, which is organized by color.

Nobody who knows me will be surprised that blue and green dominate my fabric.

And then, there's what I did with my afternoons, wrangling a group of rising 6th and 7th graders into something resembling an actual circus performance.

This is part of the finale rehearsal...still trying to figure out how to get the wiggly boys on the left into something resembling balancing on each other. (They're better as comic relief.)  Performance is Wednesday afternoon - after a full week of no pratice. I'm nervous, but in the end, these kids have done somethng they never thought they'd do, be it juggling or acrobatic balancing. I'm pretty proud of them.

The marathon training continues apace, but with the limiting factor of irritated achilles tendons in both legs, a result of the move, not the training. And Tipper now has "sit" and "down" and we're working on "stay" and "come". She's had several applications submitted and then withdrawn, which makes us all sad. Maybe not Tipper. She's pretty happy where she is.

This is after she methodically emptied her crate onto the ground in front of the TV and the crate. She then settled in for a nap on the bed. When I was dressed and ready to leave this morning, she followed me down and settled into the bed. She's been doing really well, in fact I haven't crated her the last couple of days when I leave. I had stopped crating her, but then there was a spate of rug peeing, so I had to go back for a while. She's doing well.

The separation anxiety seems to be cooling off; when I sat outside for dinner tonight (strangely cool weather in DC the last few weeks) she wasn't interested in joining me outside. I tried, but she just went to the door and pawed to go in. Works for me. Me and the wine stayed outside.

Comments

[Iris]

That IS a cat bed Tipper's snuggled into, isn't it? Is she getting confused by the company she's keeping?

[Lorri]

Love the kitchen! Love that blue rug! But wow, you are far braver than me with the kids. The ones I have to wrangle everyday are almost more than I can handle. But I bet they loved every minute of it!