All I can think about is Babies.

I have the world's largest and most expensive drying rack in my kitchen. Our drying rack used to be our dishwasher but a few weeks ago a repairman came to our house and said, "Blah blah blah, broken, more to fix than get a new one." Surprise! We don't have extra cash lying around to buy appliances with so we've been hand washing dishes for a few weeks and for the first time in my life I have dishpan hands. Which is just so great because there's nothing else to do around this house.

These last weekends of the summer feel incredibly frantic. We had an extended playgroup on Friday and a party late into the night Saturday and then a day at the beach today. It's all wonderful but it does feel like we're all trying to soak in enough fun to last us through the long and deadly weekend. Isn't it amazing how I can take anything good and make it negative. Believe me Logan adores that about me.

The drag about this pace of life is I really can't remember anything I want to talk about. Also the BloggingBaby thing, I don't care what anyone says, it is difficult to come up with 4-6 things a day to write about. I'm thrilled with the opportunity, but I'm feeling tapped out. Perhaps I won't feel the same once I get the kids settled in their new schedules. One more week until Madison is back to school....ONE more week.

Oh hey, it turns out you can't put 7 gigs worth of photographs on your little laptop and then complain about how slow it is. We take a lot of fucking pictures these days. My friend Leslie's husband said to me recently, "Do you go anywhere without that camera?"

No, no I don't.

Comments

[Tara]

Invest in some paper plates. They will cure your dishpan hands.

Also, 4-6 times a day! Who has that much of a life?

[ada]

I thought the 4-6 times a day thing was a typo. What on earth does one write about 4-6 times a day?

1) Ate cereal this morning. We're out of raisins. I hate my husband - that raisin stealer

2)Elmo is fucking annoying

3)Can a kid watch too much television? I mean, really?

4)I use to care if what he ate was organic. Now I'm just glad he's eating the lint off the floor - because no more vacuming!

5).... forget it. I made up 4. That's enough. I'm tired.

[Phil]

OK, I am completely not trying to make *any* point here, but you reminded me a Thich Nhat Hanh quote from "Peace is Every Step":

"If I am incapable of washing dishes joyfully, if I want to finish them quickly so I can go and have desert, I wil be equally incapable of enjoying my dessert. With the fork in my hand, I will be thinking about what to do next, and the texture and the flavor of the desert, together with the pleasure of eating it, will be lost. I will always be dragged into the future, never able to live in the present moment."

I read that back in 2000 at the home of a then-girlfriend who did not have a dishwasher, and for whom I was always doing dishes (ours and hers). For me, the TNH quote was more distraction than direction.

[Jack's Raging Mommy]

You know those dish washing wands that hold the detergent? They are a life saver. I am the person who would make up a sinkful of dishes to "soak" for two days.
I don't have one at the moment though, so I am washing with a washcloth, and if possible, I think I have forgotten how to use one.
I'm pathetic like that.

[maia]

I would think coming up with ONE original post a day for blogging baby would be an accomplishment. How many millions are they paying you?! ;) Quality. Not QUANTITY IMHO. (And no, I am not a HO!)

[buffi]

We did the hand wash & dry in the dishwasher thing for YEARS! It made me really appreciate when we got a new dishwasher.

[Koan Bremner]

"We take a lot of fucking pictures these days" - I *so* had to read that sentence twice...

[Ms. Mama]

I noticed already you seem to have many posts at BloggingBaby. I do not know how you do it really!

As for the photos. My daughter is almost 3 months and we have already stored almost 400 digital shots of her! And that is after deleting many! We store them all on a external HD and in a Smugmug account. I like them because they do not limit your photo size and you have unlimited storage. I do think they may rethink that policy though if we keep going like this :-) And our photo crazyness is not limited to baby shots. We have 200 shots from a 10 day trip to Italy as well...

[Lisa]

4-6 posts a day! That is a ton. As far as the pictures go, the amount of data on your computer won't affect the speed. At least if you are cool like that and have a mac :) I'm not very pc savvy. You probably need more ram.

[clickmom]

I think the need to cram it all in is an end of summer thing. Even though we look forward to the structure and bit of free time that the school year has to offer, there is nothing like summer. I myself will be sobbing like crazy labor day weekend, when I have to pack it up and return to my regular house and my regular life. I already vomit up stomach acid just thinking about the whole homework thing.

Also: Lisa is TOTALLY WRONG. I have a mac, love my mac, and load up my mac with photos (It is my job), and eventually it totally freezes up, and can't do a damn thing until I start deleting like crazy. I used be able to get up to 10,000 photos before issues, but I have a lot more music on it now, and can only go up to about 7,500.

[mamaloo]

We don't have a laptop, so we bought a 120GB external drive and that's where we dump the photos, music, writing and season-fuls of TV shows we d/l. Everything works much smoother now.

I think you should write a story on "how to cram more drinking into your day", inspired by the photo of you guzzling what must only be sweet boozy nectar as you stand ankle deep in a lake watching your child bounce around in the surf. I could use an article like that.

[littlemiss]

Well...before you know it, your daughter WILL be 18 & off to college...my "baby" Madison is leaving in a few days...sniff...sniff..

I *know* it sounds cliche, but really, time goes by so very quickly...savor it...

LMISS

[AmyinMotown]

Looks like you survived the Dream Cruise just fine!I was driving back from an apppointment in Birmingham THURSDAY AFTERNOON and the losers were already out. I hate people. I think next year we are taking the "drink lots of beer and give in to the cruise" mentality.

Goood luck on Blogging Baby--I can get you some ideas if you like!

[Courtney]

gawd, my husband gives me shit about the camera ll the time. He can't stand it. PS The shirt i ordered just got here. I will wear it and take a pic for you. (so you can see my glorious boobies)

[susan]

Our dishwasher died this summer, and we replaced it . . . which was lovely. Of course, now I'm using a pair of pliers to turn the dryer on, because we can't afford to replace IT because we bought a new dishwasher.

So I see your dilemma.

And the imperative to cram everything in--today is Watch All the TV You Can Before School Starts Day at my house. Because I am all out of fun things to do.

[kate]

i must be sick. i look at your pictures, and i get so damn homesick. quick someone give me 5 good reasons not to move back to Oakland County. There is a house in Royal Oak that I am drooling over, and I really shouldnt move back. Tell me its horrible. Tell me its bad.

[Anonymous]

FYI, the amount of data (e.g. pictures) you store on your hard drive does not directly affect your computer's performance. I'm guessing you're using Windows, and that your hard drive is somewhat fragmented, a problem which doesn't occur in operating systems such as the Mac OS or Linux. To solve the problem, you could/should deframent your hard drive every now and then, or just avoid the issue (as someone else suggested) by storing your photos on an external drive.

[MelissaS]

All Mac all the time.

[chris]

i've heard woodward horror stories in the past, and am dreading grand rapids' first 'woodward style" cruise this weekend. on another though, there is no such thing as too MANY pictures. you think you'll remember these things forever, but you don't. shoot on, good mother, shoot on!

[southernfriedgirl]

I also have the ability to turn any good positive into a negative. It is a keen sense of doom that we have. Wear it well. :)

[Texas T-bone]

Don't sleep with the camera (anymore). I shutter to think what might be going on with the zoom lens.

[Miranda in Farmington Hills]

For Kate, in no particular order:

1) The taxes, which are 30% of my mortgage payment. I don't look at my husband's paystubs just so I don't have to think of the payroll taxes.

2) The very high price of houses (unless you are living in SoCal or DC or NYC, it is absolutely terrible. I am ashamed of how much we spent for our "fixer-upper."

3) July in Motown. Air so hot and steamy, you could simply lay out dinner in a bamboo steamer on your driveway and it would be all done in thirty minutes.

4) February in Motown. So c-c-c-cold. So g-g-g-gray. More snow. More shoveling. I haven't felt my toes in three months.

5) Traffic. "Rush" hour that starts at 5:30 AM Monday and keeps going until about 8:00 PM Friday. Exacerbated by the all (*&^(*& construction of just about every main road I need right now.

Does that help, Kate? ;-)

[Karen]

Have no fear! Magnetic dishwasher art is here!
http://www.dishwasherart.com