So Long, Summer

After weeks of griping about it, it appears that all my murmurings and mutterings have caught up with me... summer is officially over. Well, for our family, anyway. It seems like it’s only been a week since I wrote about the beginning. Has it really been almost 3 months?

You’ll be happy to know that all the myriad crayons, pencils, glue sticks, scissors, and folders have been properly labeled... the Mario backpack was found, and both backpacks are packed and sitting on the floor by the front door, ready to be grabbed in the midst of the early morning rush. Orientation is over, teachers have been met (incidentally- Ashton’s 2nd grade teacher taught Jeremy in 5th grade. One wonders why she’s still teaching after that...), and classrooms located.

As for me, I’ve said my goodbyes to summer, with only a little regret. I’d like to give a little nod to all the things that have helped make this summer happy for me:


These albums, which have been my summer soundtrack:

  Songs worth repeating:
North Country Blues
Boots of Spanish Leather

Songs worth repeating:
Marching Bands of Manhattan
Brothers on a Hotel Bed

Songs worth repeating:
Don't Worry Baby
God Only Knows

Songs worth repeating:
Furious
Deep Cries Out

Songs worth repeating:
Still Saving Me
Immortal Invisible

Songs worth repeating:
My Father's Father
20 Years

Songs worth repeating:
Perfect Opening Line
Star, Star

Songs worth repeating:
Walking Far From Home
Godless Brother in Love

Songs worth repeating:
Sun and Moon
Heaven Fall Down

Songs worth repeating:
Pretty
Dreams

Songs worth repeating:
A Stick, A Carrot, and String
The King Beetle on a Coconut Estate

My constant staple- solid colored layering camis... they got me through the sweltering heat:

I’ve read too many books to count this summer, but here are a few that stuck with me, requiring extensive discussion, and in some cases, rereading:

Summer wouldn't be
summer without my
friend Elizabeth.

There are 3 in this
series currently out.
Nothing better than
hot faeries, right?

This book reminded me
a little of The Shack. I
definitely recommend
it!

My mom lent me these
from her Kindle. I read
the whole 6 book series
in 3 days. And then re-
read them. No joke.

Another childhood staple.

This book (series- there are
5 so far) required exten-
sive midnight discussions
with my brother Ben.

I really think Stephanie
and I could be BFF's.

These movies:

Let's just say I have
a healthy interest in
The Avengers now.

I liked the first one better.

Well, you all know how
I feel about this one. I
wrote a whole blog
about it.

I don't think I even need
to say anything concern-
ing Captain Jack.

Hi-freaking-larious.

I read this book last summer,
and couldn't put it down.
The movie was
incredible. I shouldn't
have even bothered
wearing makeup.

And finally, some of my favorite photos from this summer (if you've already seen some of these, bear with me. There's a reason they're my favorites) :

So thanks, Summer, for making me smile. See you next year.


Now bring on Christmas!!!

School Days

School is starting for my two oldest kids next Monday. That means it’s errand time at the little box house. Today we did haircuts. Well, a haircut for Ashton, and a virtually non-existent trim for Chloe. She wavered for a few minutes on whether she wanted it all hacked off again- last March, for her very first haircut, we chopped off 13 inches and donated it to Locks of Love. I won’t lie. It was heart wrenching to say goodbye to all that hair. All I could think of was the very ends of that hair being the hair she was born with, the hair I’d first put in tiny Velcro bows, the hair that had curled around her fat little neck... But I’d do it again, if she wanted to. Today, in the end, she decided to keep it long for Daddy’s sake. I’ll never understand the deal with dads and long hair. The first time my mom tried to trim my almost thigh-length hair, at the age of six, I squirmed mercilessly... causing her to have to keep cutting it to keep it even. In the end, she ended up taking about 7 inches off. I remember her crying, worried about what my dad would say. She laid the hair out on a sales paper- it was K-Mart, I remember, advertising a sale on bikes- and left it on the washer for him to see when he came home. He cried. I remember it. The whole “a woman’s hair is her glory” thing, I think. Lord knows, I haven’t embraced THAT particular scripture, having hacked off my hair at the age of fifteen and never gone back.

The rest of this week will be spent searching for an elusive Mario book bag- I knew I should have bought the one when I saw it, but I thought I had plenty of time. And now they’re all gone. Then packing said book bags, labeling folders and pencil boxes and every. single. Crayola in four 24 set boxes. That’s right. School requires that every crayon, every pencil, eraser, and glue stick be labeled with the child’s name. I suppose I understand to a degree, but it still seems a little extreme, to have to sit on my couch for an hour with a fine tipped Sharpie, laboriously writing “Ashton” and “Chloe” on four sets of crayons.

Part of me is ready for school to start back (the other part is screaming about my late nights being taken away and replaced with early mornings). My kids have been undeniably restless, Ashton especially. He gets bored so easily, and irritated at being the only boy- we’ve talked about this before, remember? There’s nothing I can do on that front, no matter how much he begs for a baby brother. He’s just out of luck there. So, school is his only other option to hang out with “the guys”.

Chloe, of course, has been asking for the past 3 weeks when she gets to start kindergarten. I know she’s excited... but I can’t really picture her learning anything. She’s such a little butterfly. It’s hard for me to imagine her coming home to do her homework, practice her reading... more than likely she’ll tell me what so-and-so was wearing, or how many people told her she looked cute that day. Not that she’s ignorant, by any means. Just... flighty. And used to playing the damsel in distress. She’ll always- ALWAYS- let someone else do the work for her. I’ll have to be careful with that particular little character flaw. She knows if she plays helpless long enough, I’ll get frustrated and do it for her. See? Not ignorant. Quite the opposite.

What are you doing to get ready for school? Hopefully not labeling 100 crayons... but if you are, rest assured that you and I are sharing the back to school experience.

Not-So-Biker Chick

Okay, the final installment in our anniversary trip... I realize this has been a long, drawn out process... What can I say, I’m a busy lady. Thanks for sticking with me.

Tuesday, July 26th was our actual anniversary... we headed out to the Virginia Creeper Trail to ride bikes. The trail is a former railroad track, with 40 some bridges cutting through it. I’m not sure how long it is- we rode 17 miles of it, most of it downhill, thank God- but we heard from locals that it’s twice as long as that.

Here’s the thing. I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was maybe 13. I know they say once you know how, you never forget... that’s true in the sense that I didn’t have a problem actually peddling, balancing, etc. But I must remind you that just the day before, I’d spent two hours on a horse- Jack Skellington butt, remember? It didn’t help that the bike with the cushy seat was broken, so I got just a regular old skinny seat (I would have much preferred one as pictured above- basket and all). Also, seeing as I hadn’t ridden a bike in probably 15 years (man is THAT depressing... I’m 15 years older than 13...), I was nervous. Lack of confidence doesn’t bode well in a 17 mile bike ride. The trail is actually 2 miles away from the place we rented the bikes from, meaning we had to ride 2 miles on the open road in the mountains. Oh yeah- and my last bike was a banana seat beach cruiser type bike... I had no idea what to do with a 10 speed with hand brakes. Jeremy had to remind me almost immediately not to brake with my feet. Whoops. Word from the wise: don’t use your favorite elephant print TOMS to brake.

Our starting off was shaky... I wasn’t prepared for the downhill grade, wasn’t prepared to see houses and trucks flying by me with no control over my speed (this was before I remembered the hand brake thingies, although I’m sure they have a technical term), and I definitely wasn’t prepared for the little Jack Russell Terrier that ran alongside me and made me run into the side of the mountain. He wasn’t vicious... I’m sure living on that road, he sees plenty of bikers heading for the trail, and most likely he just meant to keep me company. Regardless, I braked with my shoes again because of him... and fell over against an embankment type thing. Not my finest hour. Jeremy, of course, had to show off his mad BMX skills and “sweet jumps” on every little twist, turn, and bump in the road. He used to “ride bikes” in the extreme sense, back in his heyday.

We finally made it onto the trail... the whole 17 miles down I felt like Maria in The Sound of Music, the Do Re Mi song where they’re riding the bikes under the trees. That’s what it looked like, minus the lederhosen.  And the singing... that only existed inside my head.

The trail is beautiful. Cool, quiet, bathed in sunlight filtered green and blue through the trees. Just the sound of tires running through black gravel. Occasional waterfalls, swimming holes, bridges, and old railway ties piled on the side of the road. We stopped at Green Cove, the original station turned museum. The man in the museum told us the station had been in the same family for 100 years, and had been donated to the state in the late 70’s:

This cracks me up: "Children call it the 'Fun Laxative!'"

Side note: On the shuttle back up the mountain, we happened to meet the family that owned the station- they live in a huge house right next to it, that I didn’t remember seeing at all.

The ride was uneventful, mostly. Well, maybe not uneventful; peaceful, anyway. We stopped at a few streams, at one of which my necklace popped right off my neck and wedged between some rocks (I caught it!), and another one at which Jeremy took amusement in encouraging some kids to jump off the rocks into the water, even though their mother was telling them to be careful. Ever the antagonist. A few miles from the end of the trail, we passed a construction sign warning us that there were men at work. I told Jeremy we needed to take a picture of it to prove that we were, after all, still in Virginia, the only place where they would have construction crews working in the middle of a retired train track on the top of a mountain. Jeremy scoffed at my idea... until we rounded the corner and saw this:

Proof that we never left Virginia

We spent about 15 minutes at this detour, chatting with a local man who rode the trail 3 times a week, up AND down. Jeremy was fired with the notion to ride out the rest of the trail to Abingdon, or at the least I could pick him up there in 2 or 3 hours if I didn’t want to go with him. I got him away from the crazy local man really quickly after that.

By the time we got to the bottom of the trail, my tailbone was hurting so bad from my non-banana seat bike that it was knocking the wind out of me every time I shifted. I don’t know how people ride bikes everyday (especially this guy, who I've been following on Facebook for a few months. Lord bless him!). I was never so happy to see a highway in my life. Not that I didn’t love the trail, or the time spent with my showing off husband. But when Jeremy said something along the lines of: “Oh man, I could do that again tomorrow!”, my response was not only no, but- you guessed it- H-E-double hockey sticks no. I don’t think my hindquarters will ever be the same.

But maybe, next year, if I could get my banana seat beach cruiser, I might risk it again, Jack Russell Terriers notwithstanding.