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Okay, wow. Where did those couple of weeks go? I didn't mean to stay away from the blog so long, honest. I realize this isn't the first time I've said that, and it probably won't be the last.

I don't know what to tell you except that we've been really busy with birthday stuff around here and I haven't been feeling altogether well. That last bit doesn't bear mentioning, but as for the first bit ... well, husband P had a birthday one week ago yesterday, and then this past Sunday our boy C turned 15. I would be all "Sunrise, Sunset" about that, but the truth is that C has FELT 15, at least to me, for a while now. In fact I sort of have to remind myself on a regular basis that he is ONLY 15. He is the tallest person in our family by multiple inches, his voice is very deep, he is shaving every day. He opens jars for me and reaches things on high shelves. He has strong opinions and is becoming less afraid to share them. This is both good and bad. But mostly good. Last week the school band of which he is a part took solid "I" ratings (that is the best) at UIL, and he won an academic award at school for maintaining an average of 90 (that is an A) or above, and he talked me into letting him get an M-rated video game because his reasons for wanting to play it were so compelling and I thought he could handle it. He makes me proud every day, even as I worry myself into an ulcer over him (and his sister) every day.

I have been reading Kathleen Grissom's The Kitchen House and it is wonderful. If you liked Kathryn Stockett's The Help, you would like this book, too. Or at least I think you would; I'm only halfway through it but I'm fairly certain it's not going to turn crappy anytime soon. It's a bit more violent/awful than The Help because it takes place during slave times, but it is so absorbing and so good. And it talks about Irish indentured servitude in the U.S., which is something that's not talked about much but is almost certainly how at least a few of my ancestors ended up here.

My herb garden is coming along nicely, despite the windy, bone-dry weather we've had for weeks (a house burned down in my neighborhood last week, someone died in the fire, I drive past the ruins multiple times per day and want to cry every time). I meant to take photos of my rose bushes to show you how they were going crazy with blossoms but it was too windy for photos, and then the roses all blew away. I'll have to wait until they bloom again, I guess. And it stops being windy. Assuming that ever happens.

The other day I took all of my old flared and bootcut jeans that still fit in the waist/tummy/hips and cut them off to capri-length with a pair of pinking shears. And now I have all these flared/bootcut denim capris WITH POCKETS, WHICH IS IMPORTANT and I love them. Even daughter H thinks they're cute, and she is the harshest critic I know. (She is 13. Enough said?)

In other news, yesterday that Sith lord we call a dog whomped his whole face onto the keyboard of my laptop, as he is wont to do fairly often because apparently he likes the shrieking noise I make when he does it, only this time I was in my Google reader and he somehow managed to mark everything read AND make the font/display all wonky and I don't know how to fix it, argh.

And that's about all that's going on around here.