Every year during summer vacation I get this sensation of being at the top of a roller coaster that’s about to head down a vertiginous drop. Right now, I’m just about at the point where your stomach is about 10 feet above your head, and simply not falling at the same rate as the rest of you. There’s a lot of track ahead, too. Experience tells me that I’ll be able to get off this ride sometime after Mocksgiving. (In fact, often we have a very slow Thanksgiving break just to recover from autumn!)
Here’s a bit of what’s on my mind –
Ramping up at church
It’s time to kick off a new school year with my 3 – 5th graders. Today two of them got through all the books of the Bible with only minor cobwebs (you forgot Philippians!) This is great for their education and learning, but means I actually need to come up with, you know, some new curriculum to teach them. Since I’m great at scripture and terrible at arts and crafts, this is usually something I do without an external curriculum. So wish me luck. In addition, the various committees I chair have real work to do this fall, and I need to organize us to do it. GO!
All the fun stuff
I ran a 5k this weekend to raise funds for addition treatment and recovery. I’m running a 5k next weekend to raise funds for scholarships to Camp Wilmot (not too late to donate!) I went to Cape Cod yesterday for a Mom’s group outing. Next weekend is my 40th birthday. The weekend after that I’m going to a LARP in Connecticut, because when you’re old and decrepit like me you should try new things. Then it’s Grey’s birthday, Columbus Day, Adam’s birthday and Thane’s birthday, followed by Halloween. One weekend between when Adam’s off gaming, and then it’s Mocksgiving. WHEN DOES THE LAUNDRY GET DONE?!?!?
The attic
I have this dawning hope that at some point the attic will actually be, you know, finished. When it is, we need to move upstairs or this will have all been in vain. Stuff needs to be sorted, identified, thrown out, moved, rearranged, thoughtfully placed, cleaned, installed and photographed. This is particularly difficult work for me – I know that all the efforts that have gone before will be highlighted or diminished by these final choices: towels, curtains, rugs. We just decided that the Container Store closets are crap and we’re better off building our own, but uh… that ain’t fast. Or even all that cheap. Hard decisions and careful thinking are required here.
Also, work
This time of year is often one of the heaviest loads in the office. Everyone is back from vacation. You have all sorts of stuff you want to get done in 2018, and diminishing time to do it. Sometimes summer is lazier (it wasn’t this year) and sometimes Christmas is quiet (man, that was not true in 2017) but fall is always busy. No slack there – and possible some travel will be required.
Wait, I have kids?
Both kids are doing soccer – which is awesome. Thane has just started playing trumpet in band, and I love practicing with him. Grey’s new homework load is the heaviest yet and requires support and encouragement. And my family… well, I almost wrote “appreciates eating healthy home made food” except that’s not true for the kids. They’d much rather eat crap. But they need to sit around the table and eat foods that include kale with us. Speaking of which, my refrigerator currently looks like a refugee camp for produce. We had a “boil water” order in effect on Friday (when I’d normally wash and freeze some of my produce). I’d blame that on why I just stuck it in the ‘fridge, but the real reason is because we had guests. Then Saturday I ran a 5k and took a ferry to the cape. Then today I went to church & taught Sunday School, headed to the Container Store to be disdainful and then watched Blake Bortles beat the Patriots with my friends and then I caught up on the emails I should’ve handled Friday at work and then wrote this blog post. So there’s still accusatory broccoli rabe in my ‘fridge.
Anyway, it’s all going to be amazing and fun and we’ll all enjoy it tremendously and almost certainly survive. But hoo boy, it’s a wild ride!
My Truant Pen 