We just got back from a wonderful family holiday in the gulf islands. Breathing in the ocean air, being surrounded by so much life and greenery and salt-tinged sand was a beautiful break from real life.

Also: travelling with kids is exhausting. So is coming home and trying to get back into real life. But, we are doing it! Learning to adjust my expectations, to not stress so much about the 14 dozen loads of laundry or the empty fridge, to know that I will eventually get to it and that it’s normal to feel like a steaming pile of horse dung for the first few days after coming home from a trip.

Summer is whizzing by. Which is new for me. In years past it has felt like a slow, agonizing stretch of months wherein my children clawed each others’ eyeballs out before noon every day, begged for snacks ’round the clock, hollered in the background while I tried to make business phone calls, and every minute of it was bathed in this guilt that was I wasn’t having a great ol’ time.

Now that the girls are older, it’s getting better. I have amazing childcare lined up for two days of the week and the rest of the time we just make it work. Also while trying to carve out some time to get out on the boat, and into the water and onto the beach myself, too!

As a summer fashion tip, might I recommend that you get yourself a huge, billowing summer kimono/caftan thingie that you can drape over yourself while you’re at the beach and then you don’t have to suck in your tummy or worry about the dimples on your thighs? It’s the best.

Here’s where I got mine.

And a summer cooking tip? Freezies. For dinner. Huge hit.

I am not quite sure how it’s going to be August in a few days and also how I am going to turn 36 in a couple weeks. WHAT IS HAPPENING? For my birthday I want some Botox. Just a little.

Happy weekend, all!