I do not make this stuff up ...

It's been a busy summer.

When last I wrote, Future Vet had more-or-less just returned from his year in a far-away country. Then he went on a college trip to La-La Land where he found the school of his dreams. Most of the rest of the summer was spent getting him (and his brother Media Guy, who is transferring to the same school) ready to push out of the nest.

As I wrote, it's been a busy summer.

Especially since the Drama Queen decided that she would also go back to school full time, which meant cutting back on her work hours, which meant she could no longer afford her apartment and her car payment, which meant she moved back into the house. Out one door and in another. I should put up revolving doors.

Be that as it may, I just returned from dropping Future Vet and Media Guy off in La-La Land. Maybe one of these days I will hear from them. Media Guy had to move out of his bedroom so that the Drama Queen could move in. Also, Sports Nut moved out of his bedroom so that the Drama Queen could move in. (Yes, she is occupying two bedrooms, but it's all good -- they have a connecting door, a private bathroom, and a door to the outside.) There was a lot of painting and refurbishing going on to make all that happen.

But that's not what I wanted to blog about today because none of that is in aid of getting out of Dodge. What I want to report is Negative Progress. This is a Bad Thing.

Sports Nuts (who came along to help drive and to visit Disneyland) and I returned from dropping off his brothers to find .... well, see for yourselves:

That's the living room, which doubles as my office. The side with my desk is so unfortunate, I refuse to take a picture. When Media Guy emptied out his closets, lots of STUFF made its way in here. Drama Queen's move added a few more things. There's barely room for the dogs to move around.

Then there's the kitchen:

I'll admit SOME of that is things that Sports Nut and I brought in from the car after our trip, but I assure you that we didn't have a desk in the car.

The rest of the house isn't much better. Where do we eat in this dining room?

And there are TWO extra leaves in the dining table right now. Just more CFS (convenient flat surface) on which to pile things.

There's more, but I won't go into it right now. Piles of dirty laundry (some of it in actual laundry baskets) everywhere. An enormous stack of boxes of things taken from Media Guy's bedroom in the front hall. DVDs piled up all over the family room. (Okay, I left them there before I took off with my three sons, but still.... )

Today's mission is the kitchen. I'll check in later.

In the meantime, we are wondering if this is the reason our birdfeeders have been less busy lately:
Yes, folks, we feed all kinds of birds at our feeding stations.