Relief

We made it.

For six blissful days now, we've been out of school. And for four of those, Anna's been at my parents' house, enjoying playdates with various cousins and begging to stay yet another night for the last few days. (In theory she's coming home late tonight after I have support group and dinner with my widda friends, but we'll see; it might be tomorrow morning otherwise.) I haven't done much of anything while she was gone, but the reprieve and freedom to do whatever I wanted--meaning, absolutely nothing--has been divine. I didn't even leave the house for two whole days, lounging in my pajamas for the most part part, staying up crazy-late watching movies, and sleeping in until obscene hours. It's been heavenly.

In theory I should be updating my resume, rewriting different versions of a cover letter, and applying to a few tech writer openings that sounded positive…but haven't gotten there yet. But at least I've looked, which is a helluva lot more than I'd managed in previous weeks. And at least there were a couple that sounded interesting. Again, progress from months past.

Anna's last week of school was uneventful but felt unending. We had a day or two of gorgeous, actual summer weather the weekend before that last week of school--it was even in the low to mid-80s on Saturday!--and as I drove home that Saturday night, I thought to myself, Ahhhh…FINALLY! It's here! It's over! It's summer! And then I drove past the backside of Anna's school not fifteen seconds later, which reminded me that she still had four more days of school. Crap. And it also meant I was disoriented every day that last week of school, thinking it was at least a day later than it really was, and I had to keep reminding myself that there was school the next day. Blech.

But the last day of school finally came, and I've been wallowing like a pig in shit and rejoicing ever since. Hallelujah.

I've been trying to remember to grab my camera more and document Anna again, like I did before my photography became a business. Here are a few from the last week of school, when I felt inspired to capture and compare the changes in her over the school year. Aside from two missing top teeth, two newer permanent teeth on the bottom, and about two inches in height, there wasn't nearly as much change as I would have thought.







From the next-to-last day of school (when I first thought of the little side-by-side comparison project):







But now it's time for support group and my twice-monthly reminder that I'm normal. ;o)

Hooray for summer! (And yes, I really did say that. Shocking compared to a few years ago, huh? ;o))