So, I am home with the kids for three straight weeks. For the most part, this has been a fun adventure, and I have been surprised at how "zen" I've been about the arrangement. I look at it as a time to get in lots of fun summer activities and to bend the rules a little.
The highlights:
~Hiking in Eaton Canyon with R. last week and seeing quail, lizards, and rabbits;
~Our quintessential beach day in Santa Monica during which L. learned to boogie board and took to it like an old SoCal pro. Watching her ride the surf was amazingly fun;
~Hunting for spiders (specifically, black widows) with flashlights at 8:30 pm and finding millions of just-hatched teeny baby spiders running all over B.'s car;
~Eating a piecemeal meal on the front porch with our neighbor and her two little boys, everyone dripping from running through the hose;
~Reading Harriet the Spy to L.in the afternoons;
~Building Hot Wheel freeways in our living room with salvaged cardboard bolts from Jo-Ann's Fabric.
However, there is just so much zen in me, and by last Friday, when my kids had turned into all-day sniveling, bickering little hellions, I had had it. I wanted to lock them in a closet with stale bread and water.
I knew what I had to do.
Must. Do. Crafts.
So I created this nice terra-cotta stepping stone for my new garden, using all the amazing pieces of porcelain and china that I'd painstakingly picked out at the cool little antique shop in Half Moon Bay. It turned out pretty well, and it gave me a little respite from the children that had had me shrieking at them just 3 hours prior. The saying on the stone is taken from a quote I found that reads "Despite gardeners' best intentions, nature will improvise." I like the implied randomness and free spirit, which are what my gardens always tend to become.
Then we had a visit from this little man, Grady Joseph, and all was well with the day. 
We all took a breather over the weekend, and B. and I got out for seven hours by ourselves on Saturday night. We had a lovely dinner with berry sangria and great food in Studio City, and then set up shop at Hollywood's Cat & the Fiddle bar, where we were joined by many of B.'s lovely, silly bachelor coworkers. I laughed alot that night.
By Sunday evening, as the kids were tearing around barefooted at Cal Tech, delighting themselves over crawfish, frogs, turtles, and praying mantises, the zen began to return. They had a much-anticipated sleepover in L's room and played with their flashlights and giggled before falling asleep, sprawled across L's bed with the fan blowing their hair.
I have exactly ten more days until school starts. Wish me luck.
