The past couple of weeks have been a bit of an upheaval around here. Just to recap:

*my children are home from school. Full time. I have not signed them up for any camps, programs, lessons or anything structured, mainly because they haven't really expressed a desire to go do these things. Instead we'll have the pool, fireflies, field trips, farmer's markets, library, playgrounds and playdates.
*Immediately after Miss S. finished her last day of kindergarten, we took off to the Outer Banks for the week. Now we're home and trying to find some semblance of a routine. The beach was great, by the way. We took the boat of course.

* my studio, which is on a 2nd floor loft in our sunroom, gets amazingly hot by noon. Hot enough to melt crayons. Hot enough to make me cranky while painting and lose my focus enough to ruin a good morning's work. Hot enough that I finally just set up a table downstairs, where it is at least 15 degrees cooler.

The dog seems to like my new studio location.

But, still, I'm managing to carve out painting time. Negotiating with D. so that he can get writing time, I can paint. This morning he's taking the kids on an excursion to Chuck E. Cheese, which is my own personal hell, so I'm grateful that he's taking the hit.

Through the mayhem of summer, I'm painting.