TT - My Life in 13 Parts

Since I haven't TT'd for the past few weeks I thought I'd use my Thirteen this week to catch you guys up a bit on the goings-on around the island lately:

1. For those of you who haven't been here since I was packing, I just spent the month of August in beautiful, albeit very rainy, New England.

(2. For those of you here via All Mediocre who have no idea why I'm writing in number form, this post is doing double duty as my Thursday Thirteen entry for this week. Come play along with us, it's great fun.)

3. The kids and I went to my visit my parents for the month. They had a ball at "Camp Grandma" while I alternated between being on vacation and squeezing in the (very part-time) work hours necessary to help finance our not so little jaunt across the ocean. My folks live in an area full of lakes and close to the mountains, so adventure was pretty much around every turn.

4. Instead of just taking two weeks off and heading to the States, I took four weeks at half-time. August in Tel Aviv is just hot, humid and generally miserable, and by then the day camp sessions are all over, so we decided the best possible option was to just get the heck outta Dodge. Jay couldn't take the whole month off, but he was able to join us halfway through.

(5. Why do the camps close when there is still nearly a month of summer vacation left, leaving parents scrambling for childcare each summer?)

6. Since I work from home, it was as simple as taking my laptop with me.

7. Don't worry, we also had plenty of time to play.

8. And take lots and lots and LOTS of photographs. New England is an awfully photogenic corner of the world. It would be paradise if they could just do something about those neverending winters. On the other hand, if they did we'd probably never want to leave all that green and all that water to come back home to Israel.

9. We swam, and boated, and tubed, and canoed, and hiked, and toured, and flew actual planes, and enjoyed spending time with our extended family.

10. There were even loons on the lake.

11. Then the kids got the shock of a lifetime when my mother announced that she and my dad were taken my two kids and my niece to Disney World for four days. We adults had been keeping that secret for nearly six months, and they never suspected a thing.

12. They had the time of their lives, despite Hurricane Fay's dumping massive quantities of water on their heads.

13. And Jay and I had a fabulous time NOT being taken to Disney.

What? 13 already? That was quick. I could have said a lot more. (Be grateful I didn't.) Thanks for bearing with me on the numbering thing, and on the endless vacation photos thing. Normal posting should resume tomorrow. Maybe. I think. I hope. I really do hope so, because I miss having the chance to actually sit down and write something more substantial than "this is what I did on my summer vacation". Vacation posts are fine, and photography posts are much more than fine (and having the vacations to write about and photograph in the first place is even better!), but my writing muse has been bottled up for too long and is starting to get snippy. It's way past time to let her out again. Not tonight though, I've got a long overdue and very much anticipated girls night out tonight!

Happy Thursday to all of you. I hope it's a great one.