Summer's Final Days

This summer has been fun, if really crazy & busy. As the first summer where I had a kid home most of the time, I have had to be patient in a new way. Learn to find things to do. Thank goodness we have a pool, cause the kids have been in it A Lot. Now that it's starting to cool off a little bit, they're spending more time in their play fort, and the pool has gotten a little more boring. We've played at the parks, gone on trips, boat rides, played with puzzles, watched scores of movies.

Right now I'm watching the flickering of afternoon slanted sunlight on the blue of the water. Maia is scheming to catch something that has fallen into the pool, crouched like a little monkey with a stick in the ant pile. Sean has had enough and is inside watching Bolt. (Again.)

It will still feel hot, for a while, here. But summer is officially on its way out the door. So the world spins and my garden grows. Sometimes a little weedy, sometimes too tall. Sometimes not what I expected. But thriving, even.

Next week planszzz

Who wants to come with me for pedicure + tattoo + martini lunch day? Say, Wednesday?? Cuz next week is my summer vacation in like, four days.

And I realize this day negates my earlier post about diet week starting next week. Maybe diet week starts Thursday, after PTM day.

Feels Like Autumn Already

Not to be a totally banal weather blogger but the last week plus week ahead here in the Swampland is rain rain and then more rain. With brief periods of muggy heat. Right now, in fact, as I sit here, it's dark and feels like earlier than it is. In our bedroom, it's super dark, and if I want the kids to wake up before noon, I'll have to turn on lights and make noise. I'm blessed with kids that will sleep in the morning (it wasn't the case when they were infants, however). But if I let them sleep too long, they won't nap and will be crabby all afternoon, so it's a fine line.

But the point is that because of all this rain and no sun for so long it really has started to feel, this week, like a turn towards Fall. I know it's not that long now until I'm taking the kiddos to "real" school again and going back myself. I have the syllabus I created last year for a new class I've never taught before, and there are about 8 students per class registered already (since it's mostly an all Freshman class, it's unusual for it to fill up before late Drop/Add).

I have big plans once this Fall semester starts. Academics tend to do this: the Fall is another "New Year" for us. We get new clothes, new students. Some of us try to clean up the office space at work. Me, I'm going to renew my efforts at the gym. I was being really good at the start of the summer but then when Sean went to his sporadic summer school schedule, I just lost all the extra time in my day. But I am recommitting seriously to the plan to lose 30 pounds of extra and re-muscleify re-aerobicize, re-tone my flabby tired almost 40 year old body. It will mean an actual diet, I think, this time. Complete with "nutrition shakes" for breakfast and light meals. And NO liquor for at least the first 6 weeks. I may quit altogether forever except for special occasions. It seems to me that it's half (perhaps even more than half) of the weight loss problem. You drink your "just one" glass of wine with dinner, and it tastes really good so you want another, then you figure "I'll just have a bowl of ice cream too" and then that is a BIG bowl and then there's an extra 500 calories in your day. That's more than a total hour's worth of walking on an elliptical, at least. If you're really killing the machine. And the most fit of people over 40 that I know, most of them don't drink much at all. It's a youthful thing. (Except for the French. And I seriously think they're tricking us somehow...) :)

Anyway. That's a long blog post to say: it feels a bit like the renewal of "back to school," back to work back to being something other than a slacker in PJs again. Just because of a week of rain. It'll go back to sunny & too hot, I'm sure, before summer really gives up the ghost but it's a tease, and I, for one, am looking forward to it. Even with the pain of working out and weight loss goals.

The Pool is Dead; Long Live the Pool

The source of so much summer fun, our little backyard pool, is languishing. The pump/filter thingy is broken, there are leaves clogging the bottom, and Sean has chucked dirt off the porch of his fort so that there is sandy crap all over the shallow end. In the deep end is the beginning of a greenish algae bloom, hampered only by the cold weather.

I feel guilty. I should do something, get it fixed, clean it. I know it's too cold to swim in right now but it just looks like a swamp. Perhaps a ghost will start haunting it, being picturesque and gothic. Only nice ghosts, please. None of those violent ones.

And yes, right now, that's the biggest news around here that's fit to print. :)