Well, my smartphone isn’t really as smart as they had promised at the AT&T store…since in the getting-myself-set-up process, I managed to lose 100 emails or so. AND they didn’t make book on their $99 iphone upgrade (well, not until NOVEMBER which seems like an entire lifetime away) so I am using a blackjack, about which, seriously, I am NOT going to complain, because it means I can unlimitedly (which totally isn’t a word, but should be, because it’s perfect) text and read my emails and actually GET messages on my phone for the first time, um, ever. so, there’s that. and there’s the 8gb memory card thing I have so I can put music on it so now I am no longer kicking myself for selling my ipod touch to my friend Kyle. I mean, it’s no iphone. NO. but it’s SOMETHING (and it’s free. so, there’s no kicking that whole gift horse in the mouth thing. which, my god, where in the hell did THAT phrase come from? did people once give horses as gifts? did people KICK them? in the mouths? huh?) ***GUESS WHAT EVERYONE? SINCE SEVENTEEN OF YOU HAVE TOLD ME THAT IT’S LOOK A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH AND NOT KICK, YOU CAN ALL STOP TELLING ME NOW. I GET IT!!

So, it’s a good thing I have brought my kids here because at the home of everything-is-packed-away-in-boxes, they were resorting to using gift bags as toys.

but at least we gave her some holes for ease-of-movement and, you know, that whole breathing thing…

and they were resorting to painting themselves blue.

Holy Tobias Funke, they’ve just blued themselves…

So, I have brought them home. to the place where my parents live all year long. which is the kind of place that people rent in the summer. the kind of place I am starting to envy; starting to wish I lived in. with the giant lawns and sprawling greenery and friendly people and American flags and a town square where there are nightly performances and children playing in the street. IN THE STREET! to a place where I am sending my children to the same day camp I went to when I was their ages, in the building where I went to school. and even though Thomas Wolfe says You Can’t Go Home Again…I think he might be wrong.

or maybe it’s just the cottage-like air getting to me.

**also, I know I have confused some of you…but this is my MOM’S house in Wisconsin. We are here, sans husband, for two weeks before we head down to Atlanta to my DAD’S.