Tag Archives: endofsummer

labor day 2023

Labor Day weekend has been very hot and sunny in SE Michigan. As always, I look forward to the cooler days of fall, and am ready to put the summer behind me. I love Michigan summers and they have to be valued and spent wisely, but Labor Day feels like the real New Year. I’m prepared for shorter, darker days with a more rigid routine of school for the kid and work for me, with more office days per week.

The kiddo and I hit the outlets for some shopping on Friday, and having some new clothes made me conscious of the stagnant energy in my closets. So after a day of pounding the outlet pavements, I came home and filled six bags of donation clothes, shoes, bedding and linens. Goodbye dusty ankle boots that in pre-pandemic days, I wore to work with trousers that are now too small. Goodbye too-tight sweaters and summer tops that don’t spark joy. It made me super happy to hang up some nice new things in my closet and see the empty shelf space.

Brandon & I met up with his cousin for drinks at the brewery downtown. We went to the nursery where we bought a gorgeous new azure blue pottery planter for the patio, half off, and fall plants for the containers on the porch. We ordered a couple of full size skeletons to sit on the porch for Halloween and I pulled my basil plants and dried the leaves & flowers. I spent time on the porch reading until it just got too hot and we watched the Vuelta de Espana (one of the professional cycling grand tours). We talked about fall bucket lists that include trips to the orchard and the Renaissance Festival.

It’s going to be record breaking hot today. The porch and patio are scorching hot and the hummingbird feeder is attracting all of the angry bees who, unlike me, aren’t looking forward to the change of seasons. I don’t want to go to the crowded pool for the last day festivities and instead, am planning a day on the couch in pajamas, napping and reading, and getting ready for the week (and the fall) ahead.

labor day weekend and greasefest 2022

I took an extra day off on Friday to make it a four-day weekend and it was a much needed break. The weather was evenly split – two days of very hot and humid sunshine, which broke sometime Saturday night, giving way to two days that were cooler and overcast. Friday was a kiddo day – she had the day off from school, so we picked up ice coffees and went shopping. We tried on clothes, and she spilled more tea about her first full week of high school, and we got overcaffeinated and then went home to order pizzas and watch Netflix.

Saturday was a friends day. Brandon’s family on his father’s side is of Hungarian descent, so his cousin and girlfriend and another friend came over that night for Szalonna. For those of you who are unfamiliar – this is Hungarian greasy bread, where you slowly roast chunks of pork jowl bacon over a fire and drip the grease on white bread. You eat the greasy bread with cut-up peppers and onions and sloppy dashes of Hungarian paprika. GreaseFest 2022! Unfortunately, it was super hot to be roasting pork over an open flame, although everyone had fun (“Everyone’s down for GreaseFest 2023 – we won the hearts and minds,” Brandon reported). Except maybe for the kiddo who is a newly minted vegetarian. I made her a huge pot of homemade macaroni and cheese and a big salad to have instead of greasy bread and ended up eating it with her because Szalonna really tested my reserves. And my intestines. The meat plus the heat made for a wakeful and somewhat nauseated Saturday evening…I was happy to wake up on Sunday to a cool breeze and grey skies.

After GreaseFest 2022, the remaining two days were mine. The kiddo went to her dad’s house on Sunday, and I went running both days. I finished It Girl, the newish Ruth Ware, which I really enjoyed. Brandon spent several hours on both days at the skate park with the Old Bros, and I did a thousand loads of laundry, cast on a knitted hat and watched the first two episodes of the new Lord of the Rings on Prime. I’m not sold on this yet, but I think if I dispel the thought that this is going to be like the books or the movies, I can get behind it. I have to view it almost as a complete standalone, a piece of entertainment that I can enjoy the way I enjoyed the Witcher, and leave it at that. It did give me a wistful sense of nostalgia for the story, though, so I found myself curled up on the couch on Sunday afternoon with Sarge and my battered copy of the Fellowship of the Ring, while Brandon made gouda burgers (apparently this weekend was also about consumption of fatty meats.

I’m hoping it’s a fairly light week back in the real world – there’s no home game this week, so no Marching Band tailgate and football game to prep for, and the kiddo is with her dad, so I’m going to try to focus on work and get ahead of the curve a bit (just one office day, though). I hope everyone had a rejuvenating weekend and that all’s well with you and yours. xo