Just got back from mom and dad's.

We have sent the kids to Lansing, for part of this week of summer, the last couple of years, just so we could finish up life here at home and take some time in our classrooms prepping for life there. It is SUCH a stressful time of year, ending summer, and beginning again the "school rush." I tend to get so grumpy and tense, so to head that off, tonight, here, I am listing ALL of the stuff that taking up brainspace in some way. Creatively, frustrationally, organizationally. Call it therapy, call it insanity...I don't care...but let's just see if it helps.

1. My house needs to be DONE...been working on this bathroom...and it is still not done...but it is at a place where it can be "done-ish." That is kind of annoying. Still, I have to let it go for now.

2. My house is about 3/4 clean...and tomorrow, before I spend time doing the final touches on my classroom, I have to get HERE under control. Why?

3. I have gained 5 pounds this summer, happily, but now is the time to take it back off.

4. Devin and Gwynn are both growing TOO fast...shoes are going to bankrupt us!

5. Slips are weird. Cleaning out my room, and my lingerie drawers, I found that I have about 5 slips, and I really can't tell you the last time I wore one. One is very cool and I ought to wear it as a Halloween costume some year. Remember Meg Ryan in the film "D.O.A?" She was running around a Halloween party, with a hunky Dennis Quaid, in a slip with the letters FREUD pinned to it? Freud. Freudian Slip. Get it? Couldn't tell you about the rest of the movie, but, for some reason, that stuck with me.

6. Again, along the lines of cleaning out our room, I THINK I cleaned the last droplet of formula off of one of our pieces of furniture. I know, after Gwynn was born, when we'd feed her in our room at night, we'd sprinkle the bottle on our wrists or forearms to check its temperature. I swear for years I was finding little sprays of dried up formula, here and there, on the dresser, or the molding. Well, I think I found a last droplet, on a back corner of our cedar chest, 10 years later. This can certainly be seen as sentimental. Or it can paint us as the slobs we truly are. You be the judge.

7. I am a clothing hauler. I hold on to few pieces of clothing. Still, I have all this weird old jewelry, that I will never get rid of, even though I never wear it. What is that about?

8. I started converting the hangers in my closet to the velvety covered ones at the beginning of the summer...I just finished the transition. Also put a garbage bag full of old plastic hangers down by the road. It disappeared within hours! People are such scavengers.

9. Music finds of late...the new Colbie Calliet, Jack and White, Ellie Goulding, and Foster the People. I spend WAY too much money on music. God I love it, though! Funny, too, how some music is "headphone music." Ellie and Foster are very much this...cool on the stereo, or in the car, but even cooler in your ears. In your head.

10. Read "Talking to Girls About Duran Duran" by Rob Sheffield in two days or less. If you were a big 80's music fan, read this book. You will be glad you did. (then read his other book, "Love is a Mix Tape.")

11. Why am I having a strong urge to re-learn French?

12. Saw, randomly, on the net, that the movie "The Rum Diary," is finally going to be released this fall. SO psyched as this movie was being filmed, at our hotel, the Hilton Caribe, and around San Juan, when we were in Puerto Rico in 2009!

13. Note to self...Writer's Group...

OK, I feel better now. Like I could actually relax with my hubby tonight, tackle tomorrow, and the next week and a half, and everything could really be fine. Wow. The power of words.