What To Do In Daze Of Time-Off

Four days a month, we house parents get "time-off."  This means you pack up any belongings you find necessary (coffee, books, suntan lotion, chocolate bars) and any and all small children you may have birthed yourself (one without drugs, thankyouverymuchcanIgetanamen?) and GET LOST.  Us being the lone wolves we are and being so very far away from the people who are related to us, whether in blood or in spirit, we only get lost as far as across the driveway, to the little cottage we lived in a for a few weeks when we first moved here.  We rent movies and check out lots of books and eat whatever we please without having to submit our menus to the state of Michigan so that they can see we do indeed eat a well balanced diet.  We spend time with the mini-Williams who don't have to share their parents with anyone, and scratch Milo behind the ears more often, and hold up the laptop next to the window in the hopes that we can get enough of a signal to have the internet.  Here are the other things we do:


1.  Eat cheeses, French bread, salami, and apples for supper.  Gianni said and I quote,  'This was the best dinner of my life!'


2.  Mike conquers the world in Civilization.


3.  I blog.


4.  The kids watch Gnomeo and Juliet.  Fourteen times.


5.  We eat chocolate donuts dunked in tea.


6.  I realize all three books I brought were from the YA section.  I think I'm having a midlife crisis.  I'm just thrilled there is nary a vampire in any of them.  So far.


7.  Talk with that guy I married over a dozen years ago and actually get to finish a sentence.  


8.  Send the kids out to catch turtles and frogs.


9.  Go find new parks to visit.


10.  Go stroll downtown with Anna, who is my antiquing partner.


11.  Hit the farmers market for the first time this year!


12.  Go to dinner at a friend's house and watch O Brother Where Art Thou?


13.  Rent more movies.  Suggestions, anyone?  I just got Red, because I have a fondness for Brucie.  Also want to look for Waiting for Superman.


14.  Ride bikes to this country cemetery we recently found.  I have strangeness in my blood and so do my kids.  We love cemeteries.  We race around trying to find the oldest tombstone and make up stories for all the deceased.  We look for names the same as ours for shivers-up-our-spines moments and everyone politely waits while I cry over any and all children's tombstones.  Told you I was strange.


15.  Smoosh bugs with shoes.  I bought a twin pack of fly swatters but Schroeder and Moose used them immediately as light sabors and destroyed them in five minutes flat.  We get these crazy box elder bug invasions in the summer.  Plus, the skeeters are getting fierce; poor Cora's legs look like she was chomped halfway to the bone and left for dead.


That is all for now...I must drink more coffee and finish The Hunger Games...