Ah - it's summer!

The mulberries are falling off the trees faster than we or the birds can eat 'em, the honeysuckle is blooming, and we've been meandering through the neighborhood on our way home every day stuffing ourselves silly with BOTH of them!

Funny thing about Ana. Last year she was very concerned and made me get Official Permission to pick mulberries, a silliness I obliged because she did have a point (not that anybody, ever, cares if you pick mulberries hanging outside their own yard), but neither she nor her sister has every been even remotely concerned that we just pick honeysuckle willy-nilly to munch on. I guess they think honeysuckles are kinda like dandelions? (Fact: They are. I actually know these neighbors personally and most of them are under the impression that "someday" they'll do something with their yards. In the meantime, they're not doing anything with it and don't care about the honeysuckle growing rampant. Nasty, invasive pest that it is. But it sure is yummy!)

Tomorrow I'll make the trip out to the raspberry patch I know of, see if those are ripe. If so, I'll pick some and bring them home. A lot cheaper than buying.

Ana has gotten better about writing her journal lately.

This is due to two things: First, I showed her how to do an outline and made her do one with me before writing her journal, and second, I made a rule about fixing mistakes AFTER we write, and made her sit down with me to edit her journal every day.

Now, the outline concept was a big help, first because it helps Ana organize her thoughts, and also because Ana HATES writing an outline and will jump right into journal time if it lets her avoid it.

The editing was also a big help, first because otherwise Ana would get hung up with paralyzing fear that she was about to make a mistake, and secondly because once she's done (warts and all) she realizes she just doesn't care. (The fact that she doesn't care is probably helped by the fact that I only know one way to edit, and it's not very nice. So once she remembers that - wow, look, time has flown, she wants to go out and play! Truthfully, I don't want to edit her journal EITHER, so whatever.)

So lately I haven't had to stand over her as she writes her journal entries, and boy, how refreshing that is! But maybe I need to pay a bit more attention.

See, she's SUPPOSED to write about her day. Every day. (Actually, she's supposed to write about school. After thinking it over, Ana's come to the conclusion that this is because her principal is a mean meaniepants, but she tries not to hold it against the woman.) Now, she's tried writing about how she hates writing about her day, and she's tried ignoring this rule and making up stories instead, and I guess today she decided to try the passive-aggressive approach:

( All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation is as in the original )

She also drew a carefully labeled picture with tunder, a clawd, raie (rain), linke (lightning), her huse (itself with a labeled windoe, Eva, and dor), and of course "Me"... a child standing directly under two bolts of linke.

I'm not sure where she gets the linke spelling for lightning. Even raie makes sense, she just forgot about the "n" in there, but... linke?

Ana got new shoes today. My mom picked them up.

Now, before I go on, you should know that my mother and I wear the same shoes. I mean, we wear the same exact style. (In fact, she's stolen my shoes before!)

They're practical black sneakers, with velcro, and they're comfortable. (In order for a shoe to be comfortable it needs to be not too heavy, flexible both on the sole and the top, and with a thin enough sole that I know I'm stepping on the ground. The last is very annoying as I have a heavy step and wear through sneakers fast enough, I'm working on the concept of repairing my own rather than buying.) Since I dislike shoe shopping, and since my feet are considered large (I'm a 10.5 wide, but try finding that! So I wear 11, but there's not much selection at that size), I just buy the same pair every time the old one wears out.

Well, it was a buy one, get another half off sale at payless (it always is, but they keep acting like it's a new sale every time) my mother first got Ana a pair she'd like... and then picked up that same exact pair, but in a kid's size!

Now we just have to figure out a way to trick Ana in the morning....

Help me plan the scenario! I just can't decide what to do!