Blessings of the rain

It's raining. It's been raining all day. So I decided to count the blessings of the rain.

What got me start thinking was....Let's face it, I had no excuse today NOT to clean my house. It was raining and cold outside. K and M were taking naps. J was on my computer playing a game. Yes, I could have read a book or done something else. But all the housekeeping neglect may have caught up on me and they were staring at me...

So, I decided to do some housework, which is a blessing for my family, I'm sure, even some basic ones.

Then, I started cleaning areas that I hadn't done in A LONG time, like washing window and trimming by the kitchen sink, wiping kitchen cupboards and kitchen door (something about our over 90 lb. dog's tail smearing dirt...), etc.

Then, things started more noticeable, like things needs to be put back to where they belong...(again, because of all the neglect this summer)

Of course, some of the thing didn't have places to go back, so I had to make some places for them to belong. While I was doing that, I found things that I thought I had lost long ago, like a special ice cube (stick?) tray for water bottles.

But I didn't have any space to put that in my freezer (of course, the freezer was a mess), so that lead me to clean the freezer.....

The list goes on and on....

So, here it is, the blessings of the rain;
1. keeping me inside, instead of outside playing, inspired (is that appropriate use for this?) me to do some housework, and made me think that I probably should start thinking about kids going back to school organizing things to make things run smoothly.
2. while mommy was busy cleaning, kids enjoyed their freedom of watching movies and drinking Lemonade as much as they want (blessing for them in their account). They got along, and that's a good thing.
3. my thriving garden is loving the rain and tomato plants are growing like crazy, so are the weeds....
4. used to be brown, scorched lawn are now back in lush green
5. the lawn is back in green and needs to be mowed, but it's too bad, I can't mow because of rain (that counts as a blessing, right?)
6. cool weather gave us a break from the heat and AC use
7. and I'm just plain happy for farmers! Or anyone/anything in need of water.

Well, if it rains again tomorrow, I might do more of organizimacation thingy. If it's nice, we may head out to a park! We shall see...

Summer fun list update

Since Last time I posted on our summer list, we've been playing hard! Maybe this is my first summer enjoying being a stay-at-home mom. No scheduled activity for kids. I was originally worried at the beginning, but I really like this laid-back "So, what do you want to do?" kind of days.

Now, last time I said:
 We still would like to:
- go to a local ice cream stop (I know, those who are local, we haven't done it this year yet!!)
- go to our favorite beach about 2 hours away
- go more camping trips

Yes, we did go (finally!) to the local ice cream stop - Check! (courtesy of our library's Summer Reading Program, our kids each got free soft serve)
No on the second one, unfortunately, but we have been to beaches....Ummm, I lost counts, but several times.
And yes, to the last one. We just went last weekend and will be going again in a couple of weeks.

In addition to those, this summer we have;
- had M's first visit from a tooth fairy
- completed Summer Reading Program (Yay!)
- played a lot with cousins and had a serious water gun fight!
- had boys (yes, including my husband and boys and their cousins...I need to make another post on this) blow up a watermelon
- camped with 20 some cousins (sorry, I've lost count on this as well)
- J tried on tubing (behind a boat) for the first time
- J and M become comfortable in the water (I told J I'd give him $2 if he comes in the water with life jacket and learned to float)
- watched beautiful sunsets
- went blueberry picking twice (total 26 lb!)
- and play, play, and more play!

House work? Maybe I'll resume when school starts....