Van Spider

Capturing a picture of a spider web is a challenge I've not quite mastered yet. For the past several weeks a fresh web has appeared every morning strung between the side mirror and the driver side door. These webs hold up very well and have survived speeds of up to 55mph. Usually, it's a child who ultimately causes the destruction of the web.

Today was the final day of swim practice for my children. Now we can proceed with the lazy days of summer...sort of. We still plan to go swimming, but in a recreational fashion. Perhaps we'll sign up for one more round of lessons with our new favorite swim teacher during the first week of August.

What is happening in Mosul is too disturbing to discuss. I simply haven't any words for it. The best I can say is it's tragic and heartbreaking with a hefty dose of sick pit of the stomach feeling.

Lately I've been pondering my state with little ones and how much longer it will be this way. As my baby is rapidly roaring into toddlerhood, I have this notion that perhaps I should start clearing out the stash of baby things we're no longer using. For a fact, at the very least I can say I won't be needing them for the next eleven months. While we've done nothing artificially, it just seems like we're fading away from this phase of life, at least for a while.

Never before have I had such a feeling of uncertainty about how our future will look as there had always been some sort of up and coming mile-stone we were assured of reaching before us as an Army family. While, we'd like to remain as such, little seeds of uncertainty do take root when force reductions loom ahead. It makes you stop and contemplate what else the future might hold and leaves me with many a troubled moments when I try to decipher what else we would do.

I'm slowly, but surely getting some painting done in the kitchen. There is so much painting that I feel needs to be done. Some days I do wish we could just list and sell, but I've noticed that even this late in the selling season, new houses are still popping up on the market and it seems many are sitting for quite a long time causing me to doubt. Still, there's no point in letting the doubt paralyze, and so I'm working to squelch that fear and press forward in doing my best to fix up this place we call home.

See he fresh coat of paint on he wall, (Oat straw) and the cabinets having been resurfaced with the rustoleum kit, which I think looks very much like paint, and indeed it chips off very easily, so I'm not all that impressed with it so far. Too late now.