And Now...We Sleep.

There is so much. There is always so much. Will you remind me of this in the dark days of early Chicago March when I want to chew my own face off with stir-craziness/no one returns my phone calls? (I had never previously believed those two items to be related. I now see the error of my ways.)

The last handful of days can be broken down into three very specific events:

We're not leaving, are we?

End O' The Cape (For Me, For Now).
It was hard to leave the mammoth vacation "cottage," the pre-made coffee (and brekkie) in the kitchen, the eighty extra sets of hands to tend to Nora/unwedge me from clearly too-low beach chairs, and all the nightly games- even if there were multiple cheaters. (Cheaters!)

It was extra super-duper hard to leave the beach where I played as a kid. Especially since the water was so warm and the waves were so gentle and and and...

Nora felt much the same. She thoroughly enjoyed what she termed "potato chip" waves. Meaning they were salty. Meaning she digs salt. Shocking.

I feel secure, however, in the knowledge that P.J. knows exactly what type of property (and things to fill said property) he needs to procure within the next- oh, five years to make me completely happy. I'm not pushy. I can wait.

Then, since Schoenys do not believe in dead air, that brings us to:

The Yard Sale To End All Yard Sales (Please).

This was Nora's way of helping.

In which, despite crazy planning (on my part) and crazy manpower (on Kate and P.J.'s), we made a WHOPPING TEN DOLLARS. But Keely- you ask- wasn't the fee to participate in the neighborhood yard sale that exact same amount? T'was. I suppose the ten dollars went towards the three red balloons that popped in the sun (an hour into the sale- AUSPICIOUS) and bus fare to keep people out of our 'hood. That's only a guess. I even Craigslisted the sale, but somehow even the mention of all of our interior doors for sale didn't entice. (Whatever, yard sale losers- they are awesome doors.) And even the rock bottom price of ten cents for any single thing (or a bag full) didn't draw the crowds. For there were no crowds. None. We had a few folks walk by and scoff at our perfectly nice items that we really didn't want. I almost yelled at someone that I was sorry I couldn't offer him money to take my things. But I didn't. That would be bad for business. I'm just kidding- there was no business.

Guess what, Salvation Army? Happy birthday. Enjoy your espresso grinder and bag of shoes.

Bringing us to...

Tomato thief.

Lyle Lovett Plays At Ravinia For Keely.
We had missed the show for the past two years- the first being when I was pregnant with Nora and had inexplicably passed out in slumber on the kitchen floor an hour before we were supposed to leave, and last year when he played at the Morton Arboretum. And besides ticket and parking prices, we were expected to buy a day pass to the Arboretum. And drive for like eleventy billion years. Nosankyou.

But this year, flush with our yard sale pennies, we took Nora and enough food and activities to start a camp for hungry toddlers with attention disorders.

On the way we got to say an all-too-brief hello to Molly n' Lucas n' Peyton, a lovely fam for whom I used to nanny. (I started with Luke when he was two weeks old and now he's starting second grade, making me... about twenty three years old. Yes.)

And there are few things as lovely as sitting with one's fam on a cool summer night, surrounded by lilting music and too much food, snuggling with a crazy tomato-fiend of a toddler and a really cute husband pretending to pretend to sleep for the benefit of said daughter (but sneaking in an actual muffled snore here and there). And when you add in the visual of that toddler feeding herself cookies off of the nose of a Beanie Bear (and then tucking herself into bed under the low picnic table) and later dancing with one's husband (complete with toddler in backpack) to the final encore under a starry sky...well, that adds up to one pretty decent life you've got goin'.

Even if no one wants my darned Kenneth Cole messenger bag.