Sunday/Monday/Tuesday (Da-da-da-DUM!):

(An aside: young children in our school district learn the days of the week to a ditty composed to the tune of The Addams Family theme song.)

My daughter had her dance recital on Sunday. She did mostly a good job -- she actually is the best dancer in her class (not due to heredity, I can assure you), but fell twice during her class's dance. She had told me the day before, after dress rehearsal, that the stage floor at the high school where they peformed was slippery. After slipping, she did get right back up and keep going in the choreography, however, and we assured her after the show --when her response to "did you have fun?" was "No! I fell!" and the beginnings of tears from my perfectionist child -- that that was exactly what she needed to do. She also had some really good leaps across the stage during the portion of the dance where each individual girl leaped across the stage. And, during the show's finale -- when all the teachers and assistants were dancing, and all the young dancers came out from backstage and gathered at the edges of the auditorium to watch them -- I saw her enthusiastically dancing along to the music with her own choreography and her love for dance.

Her recital was at 4:30 on Sunday afternoon, so we went out to eat afterwards, followed by Cherry Berry frozen yogurt (requested by the six-year-old "because it's a special day!" -- and I had purchased a local deals coupon a while ago). My mom was able to attend the dance recital, coming up to our place on Sunday after attending my nieces' dance recitals in a different state on the previous day. It's a dedicated dance recital weekend for her. The show was fun, if a little bittersweet -- my husband's cousin, who passed away this March, was able to attend with us last year.

This is the last week of school; yesterday they brought flashlights -- or, in our case, a headlamp on a headband -- in and used them during "read to self" time, as well as having a pretend bonfire with Christmas lights over which they used pretzel sticks to pretend roast marshmallows, as well as doing camping-themed worksheets for reading, math, etc. Today is "sun" day, with beach blankets and sunglasses requested as props.

I also bought manila folders for further sorting of the "to-keep" school papers. I'm running out of time, however, to further cull them without an observer. I bought those, stamps, and a flexible plastic Rubbermaid tote at Office Depot, so I will accumulate rewards points to later be used on school supplies, etc. Put the turtlenecks I've taken out of my dressser and replaced with short-sleeved summer shirts into the tote for summer storage in my linen closet. The cardboard Avon boxes that I've been using to store out-of-season clothes in there (left over from my aunt's stint as an Avon lady during my childhood ... thirty-some years ago?...) were getting a bit worn. Still haven't decided if I like the tote thing. Plus, i am still wearing long-sleeved shirts. :(

Monday dinner: pasta salad, made with kidney beans and cheese from our food storage. Tuesday dinner: Pot pie, using leftover shredded pork from the ribs I did in the crockpot on Saturday, as well as a half bag of frozen mixed vegetables that was in the freezer.

Started a new read-aloud with the six-year-old: The Complete Beatrix Potter. Note: "The Tailor of Gloucester" is hard to read aloud. First of all, is it "glou-sster" or "glou-chester"? Also, I grew up with a mother who is a seamstress, so have been exposed to fabric names for my whole life but there was a bunch of weird, old-fashioned names in that story for things I've never heard of.

I've been getting a lot of invitations to events with friends for this month. Really hard to figure out what to say "yes, I will attend" -- with "summer" (I use that term loosely these days) time and "family" time both being in short supply, so that I don't want to fill my non-working hours with non-family things, plus my husband's busy season at work has started, where he often will have to go back to work in the evenings and weekends -- but we don't know that until that day, which makes it really hard to plan ahead and commit to things.