Cottage Cheese (and Whine)

There are times when I don't blog because I can't think of anything to blog about. There are other times - most times, these days - when I have a surfeit of stuff (of varying degrees of important and interest to anyone other than me) to blog about, and I just can't make myself plant my ass and move my fingers in order to actually blog it. So imma just ramble for a bit.

So I'm a school librarian, which means I'm off for the summer, and I fully realize how churlish it seems to position this as anything other than great good fortune, WHICH IT IS. But those last couple of weeks are extremely chaotic and physically demanding, since the classes are generally done and we are moving books and shelves to get the library ready for the summer, which sometimes involves summer school happening, which means we wrap all the shelves in multiple layers of dollar-store tablecloth so they don't get destroyed as they have in the past. I do this with my partner librarian, so it's fun and different, but also really hard on my hands (crippling carpal tunnel, desperately need surgery but keep putting it off because I don't want to be handless for six weeks).

So we were invited to our friends' cottage for Canada Day weekend, and there was food to prepare, and there were going to be 18 people at a cottage with one bathroom, and the water is a ten-minute steep switchback walk down the cliff (and then back up again), and we were going to hang out with Eve's friends and their moms Friday night before leaving Saturday, and it was all fun stuff that I wanted to do, and yet I was exhausted and overwhelmed and my hands were swollen and numb or aching, and I didn't necessarily want to do it NOW. But I also didn't want to say no and just sleep all weekend and then feel guilty and lame, which I totally would.

So I talked to Matt, and we decided we wouldn't rush to get there super early on Saturday, we would sleep late and get organized and get there around dinner, since we were staying until Monday. I prepared the food on Friday before we went to Marianna's, and we obviously had the most wonderful time with the friends and the moms.

 And somewhere around my third glass of sangria I exhaled and figured that everything would be okay. I just read Sarah's post about not treating a gift like a burden, which I feel every so slight pushback against, because I completely understand that these problems are first world problems (woe is me, cottaging is so stressful, how will I prepare french toast casserole for twenty, where is my fainting divan?) and I always strive to complain with perspective, but ignoring my mental state has never gone well for me, so I have to acknowledge the burden (it's me, you guys, the burden is me) while maintaining my view of the gift.

Somehow I miraculously drank just enough that I fell asleep and slept really well and not enough to be hung over. And we got up and packed (mostly Matt packed while I moved small things around and tried not to get sweaty) and we got there and of course it was amazing.

It was Michael's fiftieth birthday, so Collette made a target with multiple pictures of him on it for the pellet rifle and the slingshot.

"How lovely to sit on my deck and have a great view of people shooting me in the face", he said.

There was some paddle boarding, from tentative

to absolute baller

The septic system did briefly rebel on Sunday morning, but the weather, despite promising to be wretched, turned out perfect, so the cottage never felt overly crowded, and it was basically as fantastic as you would imagine being at a cottage with seventeen of your favourite people would be. With sun and water and board games and music and a lot of laughing and cheese - so much cheese. 

(and a turtle)

And now I feel like summer has properly begun, AND both my children are home for July.