Good-bye, crappy first half of the year.

Jason works the night shift at a hotel. He goes to bed at 2 in the afternoon, sleeps until 10, is at work by 11. This is a schedule that works for us as a family: we go to the beach at least once a week, during the day when the tourists are low; we go grocery shopping as a unit; he gets to go do the menial errands, like paying the water bill and going to the bank, without me. I get to take Violet to pre-school story time at the Library without lugging along CJ. I don’t have to drag both girls along with me to doctor’s appointments.

But there are certain things I miss…the main one being primetime television with Jason. Even though his night schedule increases family time, it severely decreases couple time. This leads to watching a lot of America’s Got Talent/Wipout type shows with Violet instead.

In order to still have time to connected, I stay up late on Friday nights. Jason doesn’t change his sleep schedule on the weekends; we found out through trial and error that it just made for a grumpy, grumpy husband. So, Friday, I put the girls to bed and hang out by myself for awhile, until Jason wakes up. Then we watch a movie or whatever TV-on-DVD he is currently hooked on, laugh, catch up on our lives, sans kids.

So, I was up at midnight on Friday, and realized that August was officially here.

The year is officially on its way out.

Thank Heaven.

There have been some amazing things that have happened this year. We have moved to a lovely place where I get to go to the beach for no reason at all. I have a beautiful, wonderful little elf of a new baby girl. I get to finally be the Stay at Home Mom I longed to be.

But, ho-lee. Everything this year has been a struggle. I feel like I have been clawing my way to normal all year. From the reoccurrence of my PPD to Carli puking up nearly everything we fed her to just the one million everyday things that seemed to take over my brain. Nothing tragic, just…hard. Maybe it was the whole Mercury-in-retrograde thing.

But the past month or so, things have started to lighten up. Maybe because my brain is beginning to return to normal, maybe because we are settling into life here. Whatever the reason, I am grateful.

And I am looking forward to fall. It is my favorite time of year…pumpkins and scarecrows and crunchy leaves and the tinge of non-barbecue smoke in the air. Halloween and Thanksgiving. I can’t wait to take Violet and CJ trick-or-treating without having to layer them in long johns. And to have cool nights when I can wear my favorite, 10 year old hooded sweatshirt again.

I am just excited. Something has lifted, and I feel joyous again. Bring it on, last half of 2009.