Nome

Nome is a whole peninsula-sized comfort zone for me.  Peggy and I just got back last night from five days up there, staying with our brother and his awesome wife and kids.  Dad visited me and Peg last week and surprised us with the offer of tickets!  Our kids were starting school so they and their dads had to stay behind...
This year, the blueberries are everywhere, plentiful on every hill.  We picked about a gallon each day, the first two days with Mom on the side and back of Newton Peak, the third and fourth days with Dad on Glacier Creek Road and by Sunset.  The fifth day we were sort of berried-out but decided to pick a handful an hour before our flight, down the street from my brother Willy's house.  Peggy and I had a whole system set up for freezing the berries on trays so they would be pourable once frozen, no need for an ice pick :)
Dad surprised us again the first night we were there with a quick trip to Golovin!  He did the take-offs and landings but Oliver flew the rest of the time.  We got to visit my Gramma for maybe half an hour while she played bingo, but had to head back to Nome before dark.
We also helped Dad set a 300-foot subsistence net in front of his camp at the beach.  He and Willy put it in the water at about 3 on Saturday afternoon, and by 10 that night Dad, Oliver and I were picking the fish out.  I never work that hard... seriously.  We got 5 silvers and 20-something chum the first night, and 26 silvers and 38 chum the next day.  Oliver was in the boat with me and Dad on Saturday night when the waves were flopping us around a little - enough to make my first try at picking fish kind of HARD.  It was beautiful and almost calm the next day, and Wilson was in the boat with me and Dad.  Awesome nephews :)  There were some big, good-looking fish but there were also some nasty half-eaten ones that had either been missed by us the first night or caught in the net right after we finished on Saturday. ICK!!!!
Bridie is so calm and tolerant of our crazy family invading her house, even while she and Willy are getting ready to move!  Not just beautiful outside but inside too :)
So Peggy and I returned with ayyu (tundra tea), 10 silvers, and 6 gallons of berries each.    We've also got new stashes of glass rocks and other beachcombing treasures.  My buddy Marie gave me a beautiful skein of qiviut (musk ox yarn)!  Score!!!!!   I can't even count the number of friends and family I got to hug and laugh and catch up with.  I loved every minute of this trip.

SAHG. Stay-at-home-grump.

Uh, that was an incredibly long break.  I was too grumpy to write for three whole months.

There's no sense in trying to recap all of summer.  I basically drove to soccer 4 nights a week, caught a cold in May and kept it, lost my sense of smell, babysat a couple of days a week, sent the girls to Girl Scout camp, stayed up too late every night, and tried to keep up with Kevin and the kids and their outdoor lifestyle.  Sometimes during quiet moments, I'd think of something to write here... and then not write it.

The grumpiness comes from not having the freedom an income brings.  I've been stringing along on the stay-at-home-mom circus for nine years...  I've of course loved being able to share my kids' lives - but they're rapidly approaching the Really Expensive Stage, and I just want to make things better, to contribute, to make my own decisions about money... to not feel so desperately vestigial.

School registration is in four days, school actually starts in fourteen days!  I know Kira will be just fine... Remy will have a freakin blast in preschool... but I worry and worry about Taia.  Middle school brings with it the fresh horror of mean girls with better clothes and spidery networks of frenemies.  My sweet, scrawny superbrain-girl could just get crushed, and I'm scared at the same time I'm excited for her to be where she is in life.