Summer in Stolen Minutes

For best effect of reading this piece, please click the song and let it begin playing while you read...

This past Sunday marked the end of free time. Everyone would return to school the next day. Two still needed hair cuts, I hadn't found the locker shelf and we kept forgetting to purchase a protractor, but otherwise, everyone knew we were ready. School would dictate the next nine months. Colleges would be picked, records made, grades that marked where one would go the next year, and show whether we had a blip last semester, or a problem we had to face. 

But we wanted one more plunge into the pool of possibilities, so my husband fired up the grill. The kids donned swim suits and we spent the day drinking coke from a bottle, eating ice cream on cones, and playing whiffle ball while dodging the teens armed with water pistols. No one worried about calories or sun screen or mosquitos. We willed ourselves through the day, with the stereo blasting the Eagles and Jimmy Buffett, eating fresh tomato salad.  I cut big slices of watermelon for everyone. 

When everyone showered and the last of the teeth were brushed, I found my husband testing out his father's day present for the first time. The hammock on a stand had become something of a joke, a thing we'd meant to get to, but never did. He'd been away that weekend visiting his own dad, the rings didn't fit and when we finally got the replacements, it just hadn't become a priority to set up. 

Now, laying under the fan on the screened deck, strands of favorite songs playing, the very air screamed, why have you waited? What kind of madness have you held onto that you could not want to just experience rest? And we lay there long beyond the normal dutiful "I'm testing it out" time, pulling into our hearts, the immeasurable gold of Summer, unplanned, unstructured, unintentional stillness.

Two More Weeks Please

School starts in six days.  

I am not ready.

The kids are not ready.

Bedtime is still something negotiated and I've yet to have greater success than the UN.

Several still have last minute projects they aren't finished with, but which they do not seem to feel require urgency.

Three need haircuts.

Four need new clothes.

The dryer isn't working.

I'd like a day to sit and do nothing at the pool before school starts.

I'd like it for all of them too.

I'd consider home schooling, but it might mean summer went on too long.

Because I'm the biggest lover of these hot sleepy days.  

In case you've forgotten...a flash from the past.

What We Didn't Do This Summer.

I'll be outside making s'mores if anyone needs me.  That is all.

Rather Like Summer

I just looked at the calendar. It's August 5th! 

School starts in 20 days.  I feel robbed.  

We haven't been to the pool or the fair or the park enough to feel sated.  We haven't blown bubbles or read all 100 books or baked enough fresh berry cobblers or skipped enough rocks.  Fall is too noisy, cluttered, scheduled and demanding to loom only three weeks away.    Like a waterslide or a good book or a good movie, or the tide, it's all ebbing away far too quickly.   

Now I know each season has its charms, its delights that only come when they come like white nectarines and cherries, ice cream trucks and baseball.  But I'm not tired of them yet.  And neither are my children.   We still need to catch and release fireflies, eat fish we caught and go to a fair and ride on cheesy carnival cars that take us past things that don't scare us and things that do.  

And I know why I feel the breath of time so keenly on the back of my neck. 
My second child leaves for college.  I know she needs to fly.  For her, childhood feels stale. She does not know what more she wants or needs, only that she needs and wants more than this home, even with all its people can give her. 

But for me, I'm holding onto each moment, hoping somehow to coax out a few more minutes, a few more memories before we become mostly the past, the last of the syrup of childhood before she goes.   I know it is not the end, but it is the end of something.  Sigh.  I love and miss her and she hasn't left yet.  She's rather like summer and I wish the world still believed summer should be from Memorial Day to Labor Day. 

7 Quick Takes Friday

1. End of Summer

Bet he was thinking, Book Reports!

2.  So Naturally, I start a New Project...

Normally, I'm more of a Hammond fan, but James May is on to something...

We began the great house purge of 2013.  Children will remember it as the day Mom went utterly mad.  She took all toys downstairs. She started sorting. Three days later, you can walk from one room to another, but some children may still be trapped in the undertow of legos and the bed is sagging from the sheer volume of stuffed animals.  I'm stating for the record, Christmas, birthdays, random generosity presents...think gift cards to food and or movies and or i-tunes/book stores.  I am fairly certain if I really worked at it, I could replicate our house out of random assorted blocks in the event things ever got dire.  

3.  Epiphany!

Found this lovely image when I googled Epiphany and it fits the moment I took all the laundry to the laundry mat!  What would have taken at my conservative estimation 4 days minus the folding, was done in two hours.  I have something of my life back.  I may never use the damn machine in our house again. My mother and one of my best friends have been telling me to do this, I know why I haven't...I'm stupid.  I'm one of the shepherds out there, not one of the wise men.  So I had to be told...get over there and finally, once I got there I thought...I am the weirdest person in the world.  Why?  Because other women go to the spa.  But me, I was beyond joyful because the machines were washing my stuff.  I came home. I still have to fold. (talk about a bummer), but I still considered driving back again to finish off any and all spare clothing that needed to be washed.  I may yet.   Because I need more projects.  

4. I'm Not Nuts...I'm Just Busy

Yesterday was so full, I still can't wrap around all that transpired.  We got up at 6 so I could take the oldest daughter to high school to start her senior year. Then I came home, fixed breakfast, cajoled four children to consider their math books, went down to work on the basement, scheduled a visit with the 4 year old's teacher, forgot about open house, bathed two children who needed it, shopped for uniforms for the three that needed it, fostered world peace amongst the warring nations in the house, made an emergency trip to Best Buy for the oldest, got the refrigerator fixed and realized at 9 o'clock, I'd still not purchased school supplies or shoes for the elementary set.  For the record, I decided to blog instead of flogging myself to the store last night.  Today, I will be going.  But not yet.   

5.  Today my husband comes home!!!! He's awesome because he gets our family to do together, what alone I cannot.  Back on July 5th, I told all of you about the Vine! Here is the video proof that what we worked on to pull out, was actually a monster sized weed.  

I don't have anything to add to this other than YAY! 

6.  I still hate Flat Stanley.

This time, it's because we went to Disneyland. We had premo would have been the coolest ever Flat Stanley opportunities and we were...Flat Stanley-less.  

We go to Disneyland, all 12 of us...maybe I could help her make a project of "Where's Flat Stanley?" and show everywhere we went without him.  

7.   Because this 7 quick takes has been largely a picture portrait of the week, I thought I'd try out a new Catholic meme.  I made one, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get it from there to here, so here's the link.  Maybe one day...sigh.  I remain technology challenged.