My oldest hopped a bus to third grade this morning, my youngest donned a uniform and began his educational trek with his first day of kindergarten and I swear I hardly cried at all!
We had a good summer. The end was a little dicey with the hurricane and my mother in law's passing but all in all, it was a good break from the rigors anf rogamarole of the school year. Despite the broken pool, we all worked up a good tan at the beach, my baby sister got married and we managed to slip away on a quick three day camping weekend. The boys attended their first (and second) minor league baseball game and we had many, many good nights of friendship and fellowship with the other members of our little village. All in all, I am rested and ready for the new year- a very different feeling from last year at this time.
Since my husband was gone for the last two weeks of summer vacation, we decided that :Labor Day weekend was going to be about family fun- we were going to take summer down to the very last minute!
On Saturday, I learned to drive the riding lawn mower. Later, my little sissy and her baby man spent the day with us (Mom is still visiting!) and we ended up with a big dinner at our favorite restaurant- kids eat free on Saturdays!! Following dinner, we tucked all the kids in bed and when my brother in law got out of work, we had out last official Summer Game Night. (Now that does NOT mean, game nights are over by any means, just that summer is ending....)
'90's Trivial Pursuit is the bomb by the way!!
Good snacks, good friends, good family- cheap, old fashioned fun!
We always play guys against girls- even Mom stuck around and played with us. Thank you Mom, for sharing your wisdom!
The girls won, by the way. And no one cheated!
Sunday my new brother in law cooked up the most massive piece of prime rib ever with all the fixings and we all feasted until we were closing to exploding. I told my sister that if they ever divorce, weekly meals cooked by my brother in law needed to be a part of the divorce decree! After dinner, my neighbor whipped us up a batch of Mommy Milkshakes for the women and we sat on the deck in the summer twilight as our men spent some time "bonding" around the kitchen table. I am pretty sure Sam Adams and Mr. Daniels may have attended the session as well. It was a really great day and night.
On Monday we met the neighbors at the stadium for the last minor league ball game of the season. The boys had a blast, I got some last minute sun and we all relaxed in the final hours of our summer vacation.
A dip in the neighbor's pool followed by some good old fashined hot dogs and hamburgers topped off the day and wrapped up the last weekend of summer quite nicely.
All in all it was a really great summer- the only real down point was losing someone we cared about.
Now, as the new year gets started I find myself thinking back on the past couple of months and I can't help but smile. I survived my first real hurricane on my own, learned to operate "heavy" machinery and grew actual, edible watermelons in my back yard! (Nothing grows in my back yard...)
I have two goals this year- to vamp up my lesson plans and really try to instill a love of chemistry in my students and finish my most recent novel. I am also conisdering organinzing all the closets but that may be asking way too much!
They say that all good things must come to an end and a really good summer vacation is about to end. I refuse, however to say that the things about summer that I really enjoyed- family and friends and just enjoying being alive are coming to an end. I have learned so much in recent months about what it really means to live and discovered so much about what life is really about that I want to keep going. I want more game nights, more big family dinners, more sharing time with people I care about. So I am decreeing right now that I refuse to let it end. We will just change course, adapt life to the changing seasons and keep on living, learning and loving.
There is a picture in the faculty restroom at the school where I work that I love to read. It begins with somethign about when we die, no will know how much money we made or what kind of car we drove but they will know the mark we have left on the world. I want to be remembered because I was loved. I want people to feel my loss because of me, not the stuff I have or the places I have been to.
Some day when you are gone from this world, people are going to sit around a table and talk about how they remember you. How will you be remembered?
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