The closest to camping we will get this summer.

The kids and I have been really good this week about getting over to mom's house and cleaning out some of the remaining junk.  We've pretty much cleared the main living areas and have a couple of boxes in the den and a few boxfuls of things in the walk-in closet.  That stuff, of course, will multiply and turn into several car-loads full of stuff when we start to go through it, but we've really been doing pretty good.  We've taken at least 4 loads of stuff in my tiny SUV to Goodwill.   The problem with this is that mom's yard has not been mowed or treated with any kind of pesticides and it is full, apparently, of biting insects.  I have been terribly bitten on each of these trips.  My right forearm alone has about 11 bites, if that tells you anything.  :-(

Then day before yesterday, our central air went out and our house quickly went up to nearly 90 degrees inside.  Our wonderful air conditioning repair man came out almost as soon as he was called yesterday and got it fixed in just a few minutes, so we were only without air overnight one night.
I laid there, dosing on and off, itching, sweating and listening to the frogs and crickets outside and thought up the title to this post.  "That's the closest I will get to camping this year, maybe ever."
And by that, I mean primitive (real) camping.  If my husband wants to invest in an RV with A/C, I'm all over that.  :-)  

Some of us around here are seriously starting to feel that we need a vacation, but mom's house, getting it ready to sell, has to be the priority.  We need to focus on that exclusively until we get it done.  I was dreading selling mom's house at first, but now I really can't wait.   Funny how time changes things.

Dreaming of the beach ... it's been almost 4 years since we've taken a vacation.