Summer Days

It's Monday. I went to bed last night feeling exhausted after a full weekend, and woke up this morning feeling refreshed and glad to start a new week. I love that.

We really had a good weekend. We ran errands - Andy handled Costco, I handled Joann's. I'm pretty much okay with that arrangement. We did some weekend projects at home - cleaned out the car and garage, mowed the yards (entirely Andy), made strawberry jam. Sadly, two of the seven jars didn't seal, and we had already made an extra jar that we didn't process, so now we have three jars of jam in the refrigerator. We just don't eat that much jam. I guess I'll try freezing it. Anyway. We visited some friends and their brand new baby in the hospital on Saturday. His name is John, but Elise immediately dubbed him Baby Non. Now the baby boys in her life are Baby Men (Ben) and Baby Non. On Sunday we went to a birthday party for a 2-year old friend...very fun and very energetic. Elise got pretty cranky - cake, ice cream, candy, and being the littlest person in a large group of kids will do that to you - so we left a bit early. Throw church into the mix, and all in all it was a good weekend.

I started reading Ronald Reagan's autobiography this weekend. It's a large book, but so far it's easy to read. I may slow down a bit when he starts talking about politics, as I'm just not knowledgeable enough in that area to breeze through chapters about foreign policy, but these early chapters about growing up in small town Illinois are familiar. I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of my grandparents' childhoods, as they also grew up in rural and small town Illinois at the same time as Reagan. It has been a long time since I've read an autobiography, and I think I'll want to read more after this one. The writing may not be the best - most autobiographers are not professional writers - but I appreciate the personal details of the story. Biographers can tell you the facts, but they can't usually tell you about the lessons learned in small moments of childhood that shaped the person's way of thinking.

Well, Monday is well under way now, and it's time to work. Laundry and vacuuming are on the list today, and oddly enough, I'm kind of looking forward to them.