Now That Summer Is All But Over . . .

I feel like this picture represents me facing Back-to-School. Eyes closed, nose plugged, just waiting for it to engulf us.

This Summer has been a study in contrasts. We’ve been very busy with camps and reunions. There have also been slow weeks where the atrocious B word (that’s BORED, if you didn’t know) has escaped out of a few mouths.

The beginning of Summer was glorious, cool and green. Our yard looked like a million bucks. Now the grass in back is brown and crunchy and we are shouting for joy because we finally had some rain today.

We have laughed and experienced true joy with family and friends. We have made glorious memories. We have also learned sad things that have made us weep and worry, pray and prepare. It is hard for me to imagine feeling such feelings at each end of the spectrum almost simultaneously.

Our kids are about to enter a year of first and lasts. We have a first time driver in Hannah. We have a first time bus rider in Owlie. Chris is in his last year of high school. I have to watch myself or I could view this whole year with Chris as just a long list of lasts.

In July at the Hubby’s family reunion, Owlie was in water wings, plugging his nose each time he entered the pool. Now, a mere month later, he is swimming in the pool like a fish with goggles, in the deep end, no nose pluggged. It finally clicked for him and I am so happy he figured it out.

I know going back to school will me much the same for me. I’ll figure it out. It will click for all of us. We will find our rhythm and swim like we’ve always known how to handle the water.

One Year …

Gulp.

That’s me swallowing. Trying to push down the giant lump in my throat because I have one year left with this boy. One more year to love on him physically, teach and advise him while in his company, laugh at his goofy antics, tell him to clean up his pigsty of a room, tickle his feet to wake him up in the morning, make all his favorite foods, create lasting memories and hope that I’ve done my part as his momma to prepare him for life on his own.

And that’s why I say gulp.

Sometimes we’ll all be driving in the car together, kids probably fighting, and I try to imagine what it is going to be like in a year when there is one less person in the car. I can’t. It is too strange to even think of.

I know cutting the apron strings and letting children go out on their own is part of this job I signed up for as a parent. But knowing it and actually doing it are two different things.

We are already inundated with Senior stuff and the school year hasn’t even begun. Yearbook pictures, college applications, scholarship applications. I’m trying to stay ahead of it all so I don’t get swallowed. I’m trying to not fear the year and let it control me, but instead control it and have plenty of space in between activities and demands to create memorable moments with my first born child.

I love Chris so much. We really have settled into a place removed from hard core instructional parenting to watching him take applying the lessons we’ve taught him over the years. I see us as advisors – consultants of a sort. There is a beautiful give and take that is occurring. It is not without glitches and setbacks, but I can see him becoming the man he’s meant to be.

All this to say my mind is full of love and thoughts of stopping time and making time count and all sorts of other sentimental freak out stuff. Good times, for sure.

Confessions Of A Guilt Ridden Former Blogger . . .

I used to be a great blogger. Not that the content of my blog was great, but I wrote five days a week. I was devoted. Writing was just part of my every day.

Now I’m a bad blogger. Wait, I don’t think I can even say that. What I meant was, I’m a guilt ridden former blogger. I have walked by my computer no less than seventy-five times in the past month and a half and in my head said the words, “I don’t want to.”

I’m pretty sure the catalyst for this complete slump came by way of the absolute sabotage of the Spiritual Program I was supposed to present at our Stake Girls Camp due to freak weather, including torrential downpour, for the exact two hours the program was scheduled to happen. And so it didn’t happen. To say I had the wind knocked out of my sails would be an understatement. I’m still not recovered from it. The last time I wrote on this blog was two days before the NON-program.

Since then, I’ve hosted two family reunions (one in Arizona!), seen kids off to a week at EFY, had a husband gone on High Adventure, gotten over a nasty cold, and just relaxed and tried to relish the Summer with my kids. I can’t remember the last time I really just enjoyed Summer and my kids. Here are some more of my Summer confessions:

I’ve been walking for an hour every morning by myself, listening to spiritual enlightenment, followed by thumping music recommended by my teenager. Taking that time for ME has been extremely gratifying. It has also made me tired. I need to be tired, because my sleep has been quite messed up lately.

Sometimes, if I don’t get my walk in during the morning, I drag the Hubby out and he walks the hills around our neighborhood with me in the evening when the cicadas are humming and frogs are jumping out into the road. He rescues the frogs and I count rabbits in the grass. I need that time with him. We talk and work through our life’s problems. Mostly I talk and he listens.

I’ve made a conscious effort this Summer to take my younger boys to the pool frequently. We have a great pool in our neighborhood, but in past Summers I didn’t used it because Ollie was little and it was too much work. Plus I am allergic to most sunscreens, so it was a pain for me.  Now Ollie is a fish and I’ve found a sunscreen that works for me which means the boys beg me each day to take them swimming. I suit up and actually get in the water with them. It is good for all of us.

I’ve been cooking on the grill as much as possible. We’re enjoying shishkabobs, Naan pizzas, grilled pineapple, barbequed pork chops – anything I can grill. I love the simplicity of it. We’ve even had several days in July where the food came straight off the grill and onto the table outside because it was cool enough to dine al fresco.

I’m slowly checking some long overdue house projects off of my list. I’ve painted some furniture, recovered six chairs, gone through and organized all of our arts/crafts, cleaned the garage, donated trunk loads to the thrift store and washed all the windows. Two huge projects are hanging over my head to be finished up – our basement stairs and repainting the kitchen cabinets.

I’ve read for pleasure this Summer. I haven’t done that in a very long time. I have missed it like an old friend. So far I’ve read In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown, which I recommend highly to anyone looking good reads. Two are historical non-fiction but read like novels, which I’ve discovered I enjoy very much. I’ve also reread Heaven Is Here by Stephanie Nielson and Persuasion by Jane Austen. Thumbs up to both, again! I know it isn’t the last time for me to read either of these books. Now I am thoroughly enjoying The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Last confession. On Sunday nights this Summer, I’ve had a 9:00 date with PBS to watch the new Poldark. Last year, upon the insistence of my mother, I watched all twenty-eight hours of the original Poldark (starring Robin Ellis) which she had loved some thirty years ago. We are both enjoying the new adaptation very much and love discussing and comparing it with the original. And in an awesome twist, my mom has been emailing Robin Ellis’ wife!

So there you have it. Confessions. I’m alive. I’m just a bad blogger trying to do better.