Our days are filled with cleaning and decluttering, right now. We're doing that final push, the one we've been meaning to do since moving into our little house 4 years ago, organizing and purging and deep-down cleaning. It feels so good to finally be doing this, and doing it right, but it's also beyond exhausting.

This weekend we spent visiting with my sister who's home for a bit between her trip to Italy with our mom and aunt, and going back to Iowa to start prepping for her fall semester. It was good to see her, and Sarah had a great time hearing all about M's visit to various Italian cities. It inspired us to get out her Children Like Me book, to take a look at the pages on Italy.

It's been a busy week. Monday we wandered around New Paltz with my sister and mom, having lunch and doing a little shopping. I got a gorgeous scarlet full-length summer dress and a casual but lovely green skirt, and Sarah picked up an adorable tie-dye tshirt-dress with a hood. It was a really nice day, despite the unbearable humidity. I wish we could manage more days like that. I hate how far apart everybody is.

Tuesday we traveled down to Trenton for the marriage equality rally, and talked about the concepts of civil rights, of civil vs. religious marriage, and of the separation of church and state. Wednesday I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned somemore, and today we did our usual volunteer stint before heading over to the library to take out a truly gorgeous pile of books.

We're really enjoying the first book in the A History of US series, reading about Pangaea, and how the first Americans arrived and survived here. We're also working our way through a book on Builders throughout history. We have a few more books to read on early US history before we're ready to move onto our next themes -- books and libraries (we got started on that last month but we've been so immersed in our early US history stuff that we let the other theme fall to the side for a bit) and our newest one: festivals! I'm really looking forward to all the cooking and craftiness that's gonna come with that one.

Sarah's been having fun with badge-making on one of the game sites she likes to visit, so she's expanded her summer badge project. Now she's working on Reading, Bravery, Art, Gardening, Wizardry, and Adventures. I'm particularly looking forward to working on the Adventures badge together!