Breakfast Update and Dryer Disappointment

There it is...my new outside breakfast nook!  I took the plunge, cleared off my front porch of all the junky stuff (dog crate, toys, shoes, etc.) and spruced everything up a bit and I have dined out there twice this week for breakfast!  The breakfast has not been the peaceful, alone, read a book kind of breakfast I had envisioned because my 3 year old has been up early all week (sigh).  But, we've both dined al fresco, without electronic distraction and enjoyed it a lot.  She asked to dine outside this morning, but it was a bit windy, so instead she sat at the new-to-me, from Freecycle coffee table I got this week and I sat at the cleaned off (!) dining room table.  Its all very exciting and satisfying!  But, before I get you to envious...the garage and upstairs portion of the house looks like a tsunami of stuff swept through leaving its remnants.  Piles have been shifted from the living room and stairs to the garage without concern for any kind of organizational scheme (like there was one to begin with) and the upstairs has just been neglected for a while.  So, I have my work cut out for me as far as cleaning and organizing goes.  But, I have little spaces of cleanliness and bliss to enjoy as well, which is awesome.

The big downer right now is my dryer quit on me.  We don't really have any extra money to get another dryer until at least the middle of next month (and maybe beyond), so I'm going to have to either hoof it with my piles of laundry to the laundromat (and my 3 year old in tow...ugh) OR pile it all up and take it to a friends house to do (also not appealing - at least at the laundromat it can all be done at once instead of over the course of hours and hours) OR wash it and then figure out a way of hanging it out to dry.  The last thing actually sounds a little appealing to me, but also a little rustic beyond my ability to deal with rustic.  I mean, the weather is perfect for it.  People always rave about how good their laundry smells and feels when they line dry it in the summer sun and breeze.  So...I'm trying to decide.  I may make a run to the dollar store today and see if they have a line and clothes pins and whatever else you need to line dry clothes.  But, I may just pile it up and hoof it to the laundromat.

I am feeling just a bit more in control of things this week, which is great.  But, I am also feeling like the next four or five weeks are going to be completely overwhelming.  I have a little over a week at home, then its back to my mom's to stay for four or five days to help out post-chemo treatment again.  From there, I will be coming home to celebrate the 4th of July with my in-laws and hubby (who is getting a day off on the 4th - the one at home for the seven weeks he is working this summer), then I'm riding back to Central Cal with my in-laws to spend a little bit of time with them this summer (probably 5-6 days), then its back to my parents for an organ donation presentation I'm doing in the Bay Area, then back home to start a two week workshop on Diversity that I was picked for at the University where I teach.  From there, I have not figured things out.  The workshop ends about a week and a half before my hubby is done with his work, so I might go back down to my mom's to help out for a bit or I might just collapse into a blob of worn out.  We shall see.  In August, we want to try to do at least a short vacation of some sort as a family, then we both start working off and on about the middle of the month as we prepare for the Fall semester.  It seems like Summer is already over when I think about it all.  :(

But, I'm sure there will be some fun experiences in there and I'm going to try to plan something nice for the 4th and invite some people over.  I have not hosted an actual "party" in years, so it would be fun to do that, although I don't know if I will be able to pull it together or not.  It may end up being more of a get-together for my in-laws and the two friends we spend a lot of time with in Chico...I guess we'll just have to see.
I'm happy with the breakfast space idea and that I took the initiative and made it happen.  So, I feel like maybe I should push myself a little on this hosting a party for the 4th idea...I'll mull it over and decide by tomorrow!