Quiet

Things have been pretty quiet around here. Patrick will finish his last week of camp tomorrow, and from then on we will have no plans until school starts. I'm really looking forward to it!! Keeping the kids apart with rotating weeks at camp has worked out very well but for one thing - I am trapped in town because I'm not taking just one of them on a field trip, and if anything happened I can't be too far away. So, I'm planning on going a few places in the next couple weeks, maybe once to Baltimore and once to DC.

We found out that DH has the potential of a job with a Dream Company. It's nowhere near firm yet, so I can't really say anything, but it looks good. The benefits there are great, the company is very employee-respectful, and he would be doing what he really wants to do - development. So, keep your fingers crossed.

Josie has started taking karate as well. Thankfully, her class is right after Patrick's, so we just hang out there an extra 45 min. I think it will be really good for her, too; in addition to regular exercise, it will also be good for her self-esteem, and frankly I like the idea that she'll be able to protect herself as she gets older if necessary. I don't think many boys would try something with a girl who has an orange or blue belt in karate, or at least they would think twice. Her class is all boys, and I think that's good, too, since learning to hold your own in a group of boys, and being comfortable, is a big bonus as far as keeping perspective goes. Not to mention, she'll have a whole cadre of boys who know as much or more than she does as friends. :)

I found out the other day that our first single-family home was gutted in a fire, the day before our anniversary, oddly enough. That made me so sad. I loved living there, and I loved the house. We were so happy, and it was where Patrick was born, and I have a lot of great memories of being there. Plus, we did a *lot* of work on the house, which is now all gone. It's a miracle no one was hurt; the fire was started when the young teenage girl held a bottle of nailpolish remover too close to a candle she had burning in her room (?!?!?!), and it exploded. She threw it, and ran out, but the room was engulfed in about a minute, and the whole upstairs was ablaze in less than ten. If it had been winter, with her in long sleeves, I hate to think what would have happened. Thankfully, everyone got out OK, and it was just the interior that was destroyed. The woman that owns it is a single parent, and it was all she could do to buy that house; she even had to borrow from her sister to pay the closing costs. The only consolation, I suppose, is that she'll have an all new interior, electrical system, and kitchen with the insurance money.