Things I have found recently:

1. The camera, inside my folded up stroller. Of course.

2. My wallet AGAIN. I have had very good luck in the wallet stakes but this was insane. I was walking to class from my beloved coffee shop and was caught in a herd of parents and students taking a tour and thinking kind of crankily (shocker!) "Here's my tour of This College. It's hot. The food sucks. I spend my life in exactly 2 classrooms and intend never to attend any kind of sporting event, so I suppose I am no kind of guide". ANYWAY impatient to get past them, I maneuvered into the herbaceous border and heard a kind of Thunk - turned, looked, saw nothing. Went to class. Walking back along the very public footpath after class, 1.5 hours later, there lay my wallet, fully intact. It had fallen out in my detour. I gasped, grasped and thanked the universe and This College for their honesty.

3. Target is going to replace the gift card, so I kind of found it. Thank bejesus. I would like a new bra after this insanely humid summer.

4. I found a bit of my sanity. My kid slept all night last night, as opposed to the insane up from 2 am to 6 am crapfest the night before that made me feel like a crazed person. I was sleeping on her floor on a wool blanket, trying desperately to keep the neighbors from killing us and back in that dark, deep place where you seriously and honestly examine your soul for why you had kids and cannot find a toenail's paring reason as to why you may have made that stupid, crazy decision. This POV has obviously changed with a few hours of unbroken sleep. I also cooked my first proper meal in the house and we all sat at the table and ate it and a little piece of my soul and sanity said "Ahhhh". This is so important to me. A clean, organized kitchen and a huge platter of salad nicoise with a Magic Hat Hefe w/lemon grounds me.

(As an aside, while I was in the kitchen cooking, Terri Gross was interviewing Jason Bateman and I fell just a little but more in love with his modest, wry persona.)

Today was the first day of classes and I was dreading it. Not motivated at all and missing my friends who had graduated. But I put myself out there, put on a non-snarky face and connected with some good people. Am excited about my projects and ideas for the semester, which I was sure I wouldn't be. Must embrace my last year of higher education, it's a privileged position.

Then I went to work and I won't bore you with the details but I located, inspected and helped rush some really interesting Ted K. footage from 1964 for the news tonight. They needed it on a deadline and it was a kinda shot of adrenaline in the sleepy archives world. Like there was a point to my job, an application, which of course there always is but I rarely see it. Anyway, I came home bursting with tales and inspiration after a sleepy summer.

Maybe things are going to be okay after all.