family letter

Hi everyone,
It's 12:22.  I've spent the last 3 hours picking up the house from the weekend, doing laundry, and finishing the last few batches of cookies that didn't get made earlier.  Whew!  But now I feel ready to start this next week.
This last week was pretty good.  I think I say that most weeks, which is... pretty good!  Nothing unusual.  We had a bit of a rough Monday, as usual, but the week improved.  It was also Mosey's last day at speech, which will make the next few weeks a little less complicated.  He ended up really liking speech, after NOT liking it at all at the beginning of the semester.  I feel a bit guilty for not signing him up for summer semester.  He wants to, but I need to streamline our schedule for the summer, for my own sanity.
We had scouts on Tuesday.  We did a couple of things on first aid, then made puddle jumpers (tin can "stilts"), bean bags, and bean bag targets.  The boys got 5 electives signed off, plus two requirements for achievements, so it was productive.  And the house was a MESS when they were done.  Ah, well.  I got an email from one of the moms telling me how much her son likes coming, so that made the mess worthwhile.
Brigham had a violin recital on Friday night.  He played Boccherini's Minuet-- the last piece in Suzuki book 2, for anyone who remembers those pieces, and Ben accompanied him.  They did great!  Brigham enjoys performing.  He's making progress with this teacher and likes playing violin, so all's good there.
The boys spent the night at a friends' house Friday night, so Ben and I had a quiet evening at home alone for the first time in a LONG time.  I still get nervous about sleepovers, but Cheri (the mom) and I share most of our parenting ideas, and I feel fine about them spending time over there.  The only bad thing was that they didn't sleep much and Saturday was consequently a little rough.  :-)  Ben and I watched "True Grit" (the new one-- Naomi I guess we were on the same wavelength or something!), which was OK, but not as good as the hype I heard about.  I didn't like the ending.
Joseph had archery Saturday morning, and after that the boys did pretty much nothing all day until we went to another friends' apartment building for a swim party.  The boys were tired and the apartment pool was crowded and they weren't having a great time, and so it wasn't long before they were asking when we could leave.  I tried to explain that we needed to stay at least for a while, or it would be rude, but the rudeness happened anyway when Mosey informed Andrea (the friend's mom and my scout co-leader) that he didn't like any of the cupcakes she made.  So Mosey and I had to have more discussion on being polite.  Finally, though, we did leave and picked up pizza on the way home and everyone was in bed not too late.
I didn't have a very productive day on Saturday either-- did one trip to Target, but really nothing else, and I always feel depressed on days like that.  Plus I was working on some scrapbook pages from 2006 (yes, I am 6 years behind :-)), and I went back to read some of my letters from that time period so I could remember details from some of the pictures I took back then.  It's so fun to read those old letters, but also so painful.  I'm completely out of that little-kid phase of life and it's hard to accept.  It's made worse by the fact that I realize how fast it went, and the time will go by even faster until I'm completely out of the middle-childhood stage as well.  Then I'll be looking back on the letters I'm writing now and feeling that same nostalgic pain, except worse because my time as a full-time mother will be even closer to ending.  The biggest problem I have is that I can't envision what my life will be like after the boys are grown up and moved out of the house.  There's nothing that seems interesting or fulfilling compared to what I'm doing now-- nothing even remotely so.  I feel like every day that passes is a day closer to this big black abyss which is the empty nest.  I know I shouldn't feel this way-- I should have some identity beyond mother and teacher to my children, but I don't, really.  Like I said, nothing sounds very interesting.  And the reality of my disability starts to seep in.  All the things that I thought I might do now seem out of reach.  So I've been feeling sorry for myself, which is a state of existence I absolutely loathe.  That's what comes of non-productive days.  Too much time to think.
And so here we are on the brink of another week.  5 more weeks of school.  It'll be nice to have a change of routine, but it's hard to believe summer is almost here again.  Time passes too quickly.  Also the anxiety I feel every year building up toward my July appointments is beginning to rear its ugly head. 
I need something to cheer me up!  I'm looking so forward to our family reunion.  I'm glad I've got that to look forward to.
OK, sorry for a downer of a letter.  But now it's 12:49 and I have to go to bed!

Love,
Gabrielle