At home

Here is the Girl, let loose at last on my sewing machine! This symbolizes my respect for her increasing age and wisdom, as the machine is a fancy-schmancy one and I don't let just anyone use it.

She is making a patchwork cushion, which she hopes to finish tomorrow. The Boy meanwhile has been planning his latest cardboard extravaganza - an Orca whale tank. Almost life-size. It'll be awesome.

And I've been busying myself with domestic challenges of one kind and another. Who would have guessed at the stain-removing properties of damp cornstarch? It's amazing what you can learn on the internet.

How to write a best selling how-to book

There were a couple of shelves of books to borrow from at our rented place on Cape Cod. Many of them were by Bill Bryson, which was surprising in an American house. The book that diverted me most, though, was this one.

Even though I am over 35, I'm not actually trying to find a husband as I'm quite fond of the one I already have. But there is something relaxing about reading a self-help book knowing that you've no need put it into practice, and I was intrigued as to how far the author would go with her premise of 'see yourself as a product - devise a sales strategy and go market yourself.' Also as to how many times she would mention that she went to Harvard Business School (so many that I lost count).

The stated aim of the book is to help any older woman find herself a 'wonderful' man to marry - with a subtext that, for the sake of pragmatism, she may want to stretch the definition of 'wonderful'.

My favourite bits of the book were towards the end when I should have been several months into her fifteen step 'program', but perhaps no nearer to finding my elusive Mr Wonderful. The advice is to take an audit of my lifestyle - am I making sufficient effort to meet men? I am to look at my pets - are they helping or hindering me in my man-hunting endeavours (presumably: dog - useful, if walked where men are; cat - rubbish, have it put down). And if I have children, are they distracting me from looking for a man? If so, I should just ignore them for a year or so - they'll still be there with their selfish need for attention when I've landed my catch, after all.

Not all her advice is appalling, if a husband is what you are seeking, but the endless marketing-speak is pretty unbearable: "don't sleep with him on a first date - you want him to see you as a 'big ticket item', not an 'impulse buy'". Sounds like a contestant on the Apprentice, doesn't she? But you can't blame her for that. She went to Harvard Business School, you know.

Funky chickens

It has been a beautiful day, sunny but not too hot. A good-sized chunk of it was spent with friends at a summer party. The hosts live in a 17th Century farmhouse, surrounded by land and chickens, with a swimming pool out the back which the kids all enjoyed leaping about in over the course of the afternoon.
From there the Man took the Boy and his best buddy to play mini-golf, and the Girl and I attempted to shop in the saddest mall on Earth - it is failing so badly that all but about five stores in it are abandoned and empty. We were there ten minutes before closing and I wasn't too sorry to have to leave, it was spooky being somewhere so deserted.

Our last call of the day, after dropping off the buddy, was to the Exiles' place - having just remembered that we were supposed to have fed their fish. But we pulled in right behind the Exiles themselves who had that very moment returned from a weekend away. So we were caught hook, line and sinker (though we're told the fish looked none the worse for their day of dieting, thank goodness).

Trails and tracks

I don't know if it's the weather or what, but no-one in the house can keep awake this evening - except of course the Boy, the only one who should by rights be in bed by now. He is busy conducting a noisy re-enactment of Disney's Cars in the sitting room while the Man and I have been taking it in turns to fall asleep on the sofa. The Girl is not at home, but sleeping over (perhaps) at a friend's house.

The Man deserves to be tired because he did his bit trail blazing up at school this morning. The rest of the family went along too, but as there were chainsaws involved I supervised the kids elsewhere on the site. We explored several of the existing trails and I got a sense of just how extensive the property is, and how many mosquitoes live on it.

After lunch we delivered the Girl to her distant play date destination, and the Boy to a different one closer to home. When I went to collect him later he was having a whole lot of fun with a sprinkler and a paddling pool, then on a bouncy castle, then in his friend's bedroom full of train track. Not surprisingly his only thought on leaving was 'When can I play here again?'

Lapping it up

Today has been rather sad as we said farewell to my parents. It has been great having them here, and although we didn't get a whole lot of sightseeing done I think they had fun spending time with the children, swimming (when it wasn't raining), meeting some of our friends and generally hanging out. We look forward to when we next see them - which will be quite soon, actually, if everything goes to plan.

In true end-of-vacation fashion, it has been a gloriously sunny day. We squeezed in a trip to Five Rivers this morning, where I discovered that taking a good-all-round group photo is harder than you'd think (here is the best of about five attempts).

Before they left there was a final swim, during which the Girl was challenged to start swimming laps. Now we're not talking Olympic-sized pool here, but eleven, then thirteen and tonight twenty lengths is no mean achievement for a smallish swimmer. She has plans to up the count each day, so I'll keep you posted.

Packing puzzle

I accompanied Mum on a last minute shopping trip this morning, while Dad kept an eye on the kids. This afternoon we descended en masse on a seven year-old's birthday party (it's ok, we'd been invited). There was ice-cream and cake, and water-sprinkler fun, though the Girl enjoyed herself most pursuing two resident kittens round the basement.

The Boy took with him a little trick box, persuaded the birthday girl's dad to hand over a quarter then amazed him by making it 'disappear' ('And once it's gone, it's gone,' explained the Boy, with a wicked twinkle in his eye). But then the dad one-upped him by making another quarter disappear into thin air using only his bare hands - magic!

Mum could do with a little magical assistance - not to make her recent purchases (mostly gifts and quilting supplies) disappear, just to shrink them small enough to fit in her existing luggage. Do any of you know any good packing-related tricks?

Date night

The Man and I are recently back from a trip to the movies and a meal out. We saw Away We Go, which is a sweet and funny film, then ate well at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant. Thank you to our (temporarily) live-in babysitters!

Earlier in the day the rest of us went to explore the Boy's boringest (yet actually quite good really) destination, the Albany Institute of Art and History. There was an interesting new exhibition about the Hudson River to celebrate the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson sailing up it (there's a whole lot going on around that in New York state this year). The Girl was completely hooked by the Egyptian exhibit, even more than the Boy had been the previous time we visited this museum with him.

We've had to dodge rainstorms again throughout the day, but supposedly we're set fair for the next couple of days, the last of my parents' stay with us