The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Tomorrow is the last day of August recess. I know we are officially supposed to call it "August District Work Period" for all those morons out there who think Members of Congress are "taking a vacation" (and yes, if you think that, you ARE a moron), but "recess" sounds sooooooo much better. I honestly don't know how I am going to survive a whole 'nother 11 months until next August recess. Everyone (and by "everyone" I mean "all five congressional staffers who are not on vacation right now) is walking around in their jeans and flip-flips looking restful and suspiciously bag-less under their eyes. Going to work is absolutely fabulous during recess--it is seriously almost as good as going on vacation. Traffic is practically non-existent, and when I get there it's quiet and calm, my mail is caught up, my desk is so clean, and my coworker Nate and I have taken to having afternoon tea/coffee.

In the meantime, our district staffers are sounding more frazzled each day, and I think they are all ready to send the boss back to us. Poor Mike, he's the only one who doesn't actually get a recess.

So, apart from gliding around the office, talking about how much I love recess (seriously), in the past few weeks we have been:

• Obsessed with turning the blog into a book, thanks to http://www.blurb.com/. Okay, I have been obsessed, to the point where Jason recently told me I was not allowed to play the game "Civilization," because I would never be able to quit.
• Coaxing zucchinis to life. While the rest of the world is tying bags of unwanted zucchini on neighbors' doors and running, I am out in my garden every morning, assisting with some strange form of plant sex by transfering pollen from the male flowers to the female ones (I know, ew!). Apparently that whole "the world is running out of bees" thing is real--because our zucchini plant is not being pollinated adequately, the little buggers keep dying when they get about three inches long (same thing happened last year). I can't tell you how annoyed I am to be buying zucchini at the grocery store.
• Driving again. That would be Jason driving again, and we are both really happy about it. In fact, today he went to the doctor and can now get around with only an ankle brace on. Even though the first couple of weeks seemed to last forever, I really can't believe how quickly his ankle has healed. But seriously, I'd like to reiterate how great it is for him to be walking again!
• Not watching TV. It was a relatively TV-free summer, until we got back from Kenya and sitting in front of the TV was the only thing we could do to keep ourselves from going to bed at 7:30. But now that the family room remodel is definitely, definitely underway, we're having to come up with other ways to entertain ourselves in the evenings. Like blogging.

Unfortunately, in addition to recess coming to an end, school started tonight. Sigh. For the past three years, I've been carpooling with this fabulous girl, Becky, but she had to go and finish her class requirements, like, a year ahead of me, so tonight I had to head to GMU all alone for the first time. I missed her a lot. Plus, I felt really old. Not only were they celebrating the incoming class of 2013 (2013?!? that means I started college...12 years ago?!?), but my class is full of 23 year-olds. I'm probably ready to be done with school for a while again.