If you seek a pleasant peninsula... too bad.

Looking for this season's hottest vacation spot? Look no further than Lower Crooked Lake.

This luxurious location has been a family favorite for generations (at least four!) and provides a relaxing environment for you and your loved ones. When you arrive, be sure to say "Hello!" to the family, ready to greet you with a smile!

Perhaps you'd like to take a fanciful cruise on the pontoon with some of your dearest friends at hand? (Don't forget your life pacifier! Er... preserver!)

Or maybe you'd rather gather around the campfire for a gourmet dessert consisting of toasted marshmallows, crispy graham crackers and the finest chocolate, stacked into a sinfully sweet heap?

Maybe looking for the catch of the day is more your pace. If so, get your spinner bait and jig and head out to the dock to take your chances with the bass and bluegill. Catch something worth keeping? "That's awesome!"

You can always recline near the trailer with every camper's best friend (the beer, I mean).

However, remain vigilant for the dangers ever-present. Loose planks on the dock, risk of falling into the lake from a drifting boat or not wearing shoes in front of Grandpa are minor compared to the threat of Buno. Hold on to your eyeglasses, because this dude will snatch them up quicker than you can say Jim and Billie if you dare to dive into the murky depths where his despair festers from the pain of unrequited love. Don't wander too far onto Buno Island, for you may run into the shrine he built in an effort to impress his beloved, bringing inexplicable horrors upon yourself (mainly inexplicable because we haven't actually met anyone who has been tormented by Buno. We're guessing he doesn't leave survivors).

For your reference, artisic rendering of Buno pictured below:

It's best to arm yourself as heavily as possible.

On second thought, just stay home. I don't think there's enough room for dabofofus.

What about me, Mummy?

No, I did not try to climb another mountain and actually fall off the face of it to my demise, never to write again. My absence of words can merely be explained by an everlasting bout of monotony.

Actually, the monotony only recently started. Let me give you an update:

In my hiatus I managed to carry and deliver my third child, a bouncing baby boy, L. He's fabulous, adorable, and serious like his dad. He smells like his own baby-ness and I love him just like my two other rowdy rascals. He reminds me a little bit of his great-grandpa: napping all day, and waking up a little too early in the morning, wondering where the coffee is.

I also started, and quit, a new job. It was a fun little excursion of rebellion from my previous job, to which I will be returning in a few weeks.

The husband got a new job, a M-F 9-5 kind of deal, and therefore I have discovered I am not a morning person, yet all three of my children are.

My hydrangeas survived the heat last summer and blossomed gloriously this year. Somehow one bush has both purple and pink hydrangeas: a real miracle considering those are the best colors. It's living the Hannah Montana life and getting the best of both worlds.

However, I have now slipped into a world where every day melds into the next and I wonder how long my sanity will hold.

But truly, it's the best gift.

The more the days are the same, the easier it is for me to notice the small changes. How L is learning to smile reluctantly, and would rather gaze into my eyes with the cutest furrowed brow you can image. Or how precious Batman can be with the squealing voice of a two-year old. And how somehow Z managed to transform from a baby into a little boy, full of love and care for his little sister and brother. When I'm not worrying about how the day will go, I can sit back and relax and watch how fun it is to be growing up, rather than grown up.

I'm glad I'm still growing up, too.

I wanted to be 4,395 feet taller.

So we went on vacation last week.

I climbed to the almost top of a mountain.

We vacation hard core.

The whole way up I kept telling myself, if I could have two kids, I can climb a mountain. This line from "Up" kept coming into my head: "He hurdles Mount Everest! He... goes around Mount Everest!" After I had a panic attack at about 4,300 feet I said some Hail Marys as I climbed a little higher. Then we got to this part where, I promise you, it was a smooth, 20 foot high slab of rock with a three inch foothold about ten feet up.

Maybe I exaggerate, but that's when I gave up.

However, I do not consider it a failure. I climbed to the almost top of a mountain! I could see the top! I didn't fall off the face of a mountain to my death!

Maybe you're not impressed. Maybe you've climbed to the actual top of a mountain, one that's even taller. As for me, I'm counting this as a win.

I had never even seen a mountain before that! Definitely a win.

You make me feel so young.

So many things are just way too hard. Specifically, being an adult. You know, having to clean and work and cook and make phone calls. UGH. Phone calls. The WORST.

I'm learning life is so much easier as a three-year-old, and there's no reason I can't enjoy life with the same reckless abandon.

Who says we can't have ice cream for lunch, or watch Disney movies from dawn until dusk? And what's the problem with getting unreasonably excited about the prospect of a birthday party, for which your house is going to be filled with dozens of helium balloons in an assortment of vibrant hues? (nothing, because it's going to be freaking awesome)

I'm going to play at the park and make my stuffed monkeys talk in high-pitched voices. I'm going to make murals of monsters in the dining room and step back and admire my work. And when the lamp breaks I will revel is the grand ruckus the crashing ceramic produced as it plummeted to its demise.

Most importantly, I will take a three hour nap every afternoon. Goodbye, responsibilities of adulthood. Hello, care bears,  rainbows, unicorns and butterflies.

Clean up, clean up, wash your dirty underwear!

There are certain chores I despise.

Sure, washing the dishes and doing the laundry are time-consuming, never-ending tasks. However, there are other things much much worse than those.

I call these tasks "invisichores": those chores that, upon completion, no one either notices nor cares that you spent precious minutes of your life performing said tasks.

Here are my top 3

3. Cleaning the microwave

The caked on spaghetti sauce and pulled pork were disgusting and intolerable yesterday, but does the husband even acknowledge the sparkling microwave with its lemony scent today? No. Perhaps next time I'll leave the turntable in the sink as evidence.

2. Dusting

Personally, I don't dust unless the Pope is coming over, but I can imagine that the absence of dust is hardly any more unsettling than the presence of it in my home. I just pretend the layer of dust all over the bookcase is in fact the actual color of the wood and not dust mite excrement.

1. Cleaning the toilet

Not only do I risk being splashed by water that has touched a container that has touched human waste, but it takes me freaking forever to clean the toilet! I don't know why, maybe I'm doing it wrong. The only bonus to this chore is that I always leave the blue liquid in the toilet afterwards as proof.

There you have it. Have fun doing your chores. I know I won't notice they've been done.

Let me know if you have some invisichores of your own, and how you leave proof that you didn't just spend your day eating bon-bons and watching weird Netflix shows.

A moving buddy. If you don't have one, get one!

I have terrible timing.

About a month ago I decided to rip out ten hideous bushes from my backyard that stood about 20 feet tall. Now, when the temperature has been running about 100, I decide I must plant some flowers.

What is wrong with me?!?!

First of all, no one is even selling flowers anymore. The nurseries are closed, and the garden stores have shriveled-up sorry excuses for perennials on triple-double clearance.

Nevertheless, I will be trekking to the Husband's ailing grandmother's house to rip out three hydrangeas and two roses to plant at my house. I hardly even enjoy moving about in such weather as this, yet I'm about to go force these poor plants into tiny pots and drag them 10 miles to a new home. How
inconsiderate.

Wish me luck and lots of water.

The poor hydrangeas will be needing it.

Minus the Russian spies and all that....

I am recanting my previous post and moving further back in time. Supporting statements as follows.

Point 1:

The Husband claims that people are getting more and more obese every year because of air conditioning. We've been trying to get a little more fit lately. Ergo, it's now 80 degrees in my house. Surprisingly, the conditions are not as miserable as I first assumed.

Point 2:

Since it is now so warm in my homestead, and of course considering I'm as fashionable as they come ("they" being 20-something mothers of two who have too many student loans, watch too much Gossip Girl, and have a Target card) dresses are taking over my closet. It's incomprehensible how many adorable dresses exist in stores this year. I think I might accidentally buy five right now.

Point 3:

Speaking of shopping on the internet, I purchased a new iron yesterday. It has inclined me to embrace my status as goddess of domesticity and iron all of the Husband's shirts, my bed sheets, the children's clothes, and the curtains that I don't even own... yet. All of this, of course, will be completed while wearing heels and pearls in my fabulous new dresses.

In conclusion, I watched Rear Window last night. I'm certain I will present myself as Grace Kelly, in her $1,100 Parisian gown on a 90 degree day with nary a bead of sweat, and not as the chubby sunbather who makes weird sculptures and yells at the murderous neighbor about flowers or something.

Well, maybe I'll just shoot for the middle ground and be the quick-witted home care nurse, Stella. That lady is ballin'.