Tag Archives: summer

it’s august

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No schmaltzy title quote about August – let’s cut right to the chase – it’s August!!

July was long. It’s Tour de France month around here and being a good fan of professional grand tour cycling is a time commitment. For three weeks in July, Brandon and I watch four to five hours of stage racing every night except for rest days, and then usually another hour or so in the mornings listening to podcasts and reading news about the cyclists, the teams, and the stages. It’s fun to be that obsessive about something but by the time the peloton rolls into Paris we are ready for the podiums; we shed our tears and reclaim our lives and free time. (But not before we saw my favorite cyclist Wout van Aert take a blistering victory in a shockingly thrilling stage 21 on Montmartre!)

In spite of our commitment to the Tour, we also spent time at our pool club, ran a 5k, went to a couple of local parades, annoyed the neighborhood with fireworks, and spent a lot of time indoors because our neighbors did a complete overhaul of their yard, paving, and landscaping that took two months and involved seemingly every possible variety of heavy machinery.  They luckily escaped to one of their other homes during the construction, which saw our street clogged with construction vehicles for the aforementioned two months, but as we are humbler types, we simply had to crank up the air conditioning for white noise and become friends with the workers (who were all really nice fellows). Then our air conditioner wheezed to a halt and one of Brandon’s friends Frankensteined a new motor for it that has been happily cranking away keeping us cool ever since and we’ll replace the whole old unit in the fall. 

Looking ahead, August will be a busy month. The kiddo is wading into her senior year activities and every once in awhile I realize that the clock is ticking down on her childhood. I am then seized with such a wave of complex emotions that I can’t begin to process without sinking to the floor in a fetal position, so I push it off and like Scarlett O’Hara, tell myself that I will think about it tomorrow. In the meantime, she asked me to chaperone her final marching band camp and God help me I agreed so for a week later this month I will be overseeing a cabin of band campers in a remote location without cell service in the forests of western Michigan. 

In the meantime, this weekend I have a lot of free time – Brandon is at Jazzfest in Ohio with his childhood friends. The kiddo and I have the last college tour on Monday, and before then I want to buy new porch flowers as my wave petunias crapped out mid-July, and break my week of non-running. I did great in July  with running and then this last week just felt totally fatigued and unmotivated. Last night the kiddo went to bed early (she’s working a lot of hours outside at the garden nursery this summer) and I whooped it up on my bachelorette Friday night. I watched “Mr. & Mrs. Murder” on Hulu and ate a thin crust pizza and went to bed late and left my socks on the living room floor and did ZERO KNITTING even though I have two projects that I’d planned on finishing in July. 

I’m almost looking forward to having some band camp stories to tell later this month. I’m told the food is good but in my head this is how I picture myself. 

Be well and we’ll talk soon. 

on summers past

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One of my favorite bosses (my last boss, in fact) loves summer and used to encourage us to make the most of it. “Michigan summers are fleeting,” she would say, “so you have to get out there and make a point to enjoy it while it lasts.” While this is undeniably true, and I loved her for saying it, for many years, summer was just a big problem. Honestly, summertime is just hell when you work, you can’t stay home and need reliable child care – it’s a no-win situation. For years when my daughter was young, and I was a divorced working mom, once school was out, summers were patchwork of expensive camps that I always had high hopes for, but ultimately ended up just being a place to park her while I worked. These were the days before “work from home” was any kind of a thing and clock watchers abounded in my corporate environment- you walk in a few minutes late one too many times, or try to sneak out early, and someone would notice.

I’m a victim of my own nostalgia so it’s easy for me to think that an ideal summer is like my childhood memory of summer. Long days fighting boredom with imagination, books, and neighborhood friends, sleeping in front of a box fan and eating snacks and microwave pizzas and watching too much television before being shooed outside to ride bikes and drink out of the hose and come home only when the fireflies starting their slow blink in the backyards. It should be sparklers and the excitement of a big summer movie and a summer road trip, Otter Pops and bug bites. Nowadays, if you’re a kid with working parents, you have “day camps” to look forward to, most of which cost thousands of dollars, and many of which don’t even have hours that match up with a 9-5 job (unless you purchase additional pre-care or after-care). 

Last night, while I was cooking dinner, those patchwork summers pre-Covid came back to me – how did we make it through? Nowadays, flex work is much more of a thing and if I need to, I can work from home. What I would have given for that flexibility ten years ago! I remember those days but they seem like they happened to someone else. Mornings waking up so early to make sure her bags and lunches were packed, dropping her off, many times with strangers, long commutes to work, white-knuckle gripping the steering wheel after work to make sure I could pick her up by 6pm – even the additional after care would close at 6 and then there would be additional charges and the horrible feeling of walking in to see your kid one of the last two or three to go home, looking as tired and bedraggled as I felt. Then home with her to cook dinner, clean up the dishes, baths and bedtime, only to have to wake up and do it all over again.

And I was lucky – enormously lucky. I had a great job with a great team. I had reliable transportation and could afford child care. What about all the families and single working parents who can’t? I stood there thinking about it and feeling immense gratitude that those days are over, and feeling anger at the same time that the US won’t do better (I almost wrote “incapable” but that is not accurate- we’re fully capable, we just don’t). Could I have done something differently? Or better? What options do people have? And what will it be like for her in the future, if she ever decides to become a parent? Will she struggle with the same guilt and self doubt? I would drag myself naked over gravel to keep that from happening (and no one needs to see that).

As I’m musing over these somber things, she comes padding into the kitchen, almost seventeen, four inches taller than me, all long tan legs and longer glossy hair. If I were to ask her, she would probably just shrug and laugh at some of the silly memories of Girl Scout camp or Camp Invention or the Nature Camp and ask when dinner will be ready. Her bare feet are planted firmly in the present and I can take her lead on that. All we have is the summer we are in and to circle back around, it’s fleeting. So maybe I need to make some plans for Otter Pops, fireflies, and sparklers.

august ahead

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July has flown by and here we are with August ahead, which used to be a summer month (albeit an elderly one) but is now the back to school month. The kid has a driving test on Sunday, and then the hustle begins with pre-band camp, band camp, her sweet sixteen, picture day, and then the first day of school before Labor Day.

Brandon is still in Iowa but we managed to carve out a long weekend for a Chicago museum spree. (And gosh, I love Chicago. Maybe being a Midwesterner makes me biased, but that city has a vibe and an easygoing indifferent accessibility – a history and a style – like none other.) We stayed in a glass loft on the South Loop with a view of the rail and the river on one side and a glittering expanse of Lake Michigan on the other. It was blistering hot and stormed at night, lightning brighter than the city lights all around us.

“Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

We saw Georgia O’Keeffe’s ‘My New Yorks’ exhibit at the Chicago Institute of Art and although I’ve never been a huge fan of her flowers or Southwest motifs, seeing the city through her eyes and brush changed my opinion on her altogether.

“New York Night” by Georgia O’Keeffe
“The Shelton with Sunspots”

I’d vastly prefer my mister to be here, but with him gone, the structure of the summer has softened and turned uncertain. With more time to myself, I turn inward. There have been lots of summer evenings on the front porch with books, watching the sun wheel through the western sky and come down in sprays of green and gold through the leaves of our old tulip tree. I’ve read some really good things this summer – I loved a book of Kate Atkinson short stories ‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’, and Lev Grossman’s ‘The Bright Sword’ was wonderful (and the last sentence flooded me with unexpected emotion and tears). I am reading a fantastic biography of Georgia O’Keeffe that reads almost like a novel and having these other little worlds to dive into after the workday is done (and sometimes before evening calls with my colleagues in Japan as we negotiate a thorny contract) has been like a swim in a very cool pool when you’re hot and sticky.

I head out on a business trip tomorrow which will likely be a short and uninspiring parade of a boxy interstate hotel and strip mall restaurants and then home for a weekend of hopefully not much by the pool with Georgia as she meets Alfred Steiglitz. There is a cardinal sitting in the pine tree outside of my open home office window singing for the feeders to be refilled. August ahead looks – busy? and short with all of the activity. It is a birthday month for a few very important women in my life – mother, grandmother, and the kid. Anyway, I hope to greet it on the porch with a book and possibly armed with a knitting needle. Be well and enjoy the last heavy breath of summertime.

summer is fleeting

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Living in Michigan, summers are valuable and fleeting. We can reliably count on a solid 3 months of good weather – some years more, some years less – and that good weather comes after months of cold. I love autumn, and the time between Halloween and Christmas, when hygge coziness is in full effect. I despise January thru early April, but understand that maybe I wouldn’t love summer as much as I do without the contrasting months of cold and dark.

Summertime means long days, light until well after 9pm. It means hearing the deep tones of the wind chimes through windows open to catch an occasional breeze. It means gaining an extra room in our house, because we spend so much time on the front porch, with snacks, books, evening drinks, morning coffees, my knitting. Saying hello to neighbors passing by with kids in strollers or walking their dogs.

It means morning running and coming home sweaty to putter around with the hose, watering my flowers and filling the bird bath and then sitting for awhile in the sunshine to cool down.

It means the Tour de France! 21 stages of complete absorption in the world of cycling, several hours a day of watching and more hours spent listening to the podcasts analyzing each stage.

It means long drives to the west side of the state, busy roads becoming more rural and enclosed with greenery, to take the kid to her twelve-day music and art camp and then pick her up. Sitting in the shell with the sun on my neck on that final Sunday listening to the kids perform their musical selections (usually with sock knitting on my lap).

Summer means knowing that it is a season that won’t last and doing everything you can to soak up that sunshine and heat and store it in your bones so you have no regrets when the darkness returns.

spring into summer

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I always have the best intentions to regularly update this space, and then I finally get around to writing and look back and realize I haven’t been here since March.

So what have I been up to since then? All the things I usually am. The kiddo has gone from her school year activities of band, soccer, and theater to her summer activities of Driver’s Ed (how??), band (always band), and art camp. Work has been busy and I have been active with running (sort of), knitting (probably need a whole post about that), and Weight Watchers. I have been pretty consistently on the WW app yet have only lost about 5 lbs in 2 months…menopause is a bitch.

We saw ‘Six’ at the Fisher, the kiddo had a spectacular run in ‘Hello Dolly’, we got a bond at the local pool club, and I got braces.

And I turned 50.

I started a whole solipsistic post about that and didn’t finish it (you’re welcome). I know age is just a number, but I really do feel a sea change about this particular number. I know I can’t just entirely retire in this decade, but I have been able to begin the process of evaluating where I am investing my time and energy and more importantly, why. During this decade, I hope to be more thoughtful about that and begin to swing away from doing things for other people and more for myself. Less because I ‘have’ to and more because I ‘want’ to. And when that’s not possible, to give myself grace in how I approach those things. For example – can I quit my job? No. Do I sometimes dream about retirement? Yes. But when I stop and think about it – I really like my job and even in retirement I don’t plan on giving up work altogether unless I’m forced to. So is it my job itself that I dream of giving up, or the mental stress and pressure I put on myself ABOUT my job that I can reconsider? It’s more about shifting the narrative about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I work because I love being able to financially support myself, my home, and my daughter. I work because I really love the people I work with and am interested in the job I do. I GET to work. However, I also love who I am without work. I have no interest in being promoted, making more money, hustling, changing jobs, or advancing myself in any way other than showing up and doing a solid, ethical job at what I’m responsible for – but putting work on an equal footing with my family, my home, and MYSELF. Not letting it usurp other things I love and need, and take up more space than it should – and this decade, that is enough.

Same with my health. Would I love to lose 20 lbs and be the same weight I was ten years ago? Yep. Am I willing to put the work into doing that? Probably not. Am I tracking and using WW just for the weight loss and how I look? No. I feel better when I consider what I am putting into my body and have goals about the kind of foods I am eating, about drinking less wine, drinking more water. And running. Would I love to set a half-marathon PR that crushes what I could do ten years ago? Yes, but I don’t run because I am trying to do that (or even think that’s really possible). I am not doing these things to flog myself into being something I’m not. I run because I feel better when I move my body and I know that these things give me a greater ability to grow old gracefully in a healthy and happy way.

So those are the big things. In other news, it’s summertime here in SE MI and I’m looking forward to a relaxing evening at home with Brandon and then a busier day tomorrow. The Girl Scout troop (yes my kiddo and her friends are still hanging in there with Girl Scouts) and accompanying mom troop are all headed to Cincinnati on Sunday for a couple of days hanging out in a sprawling, historic AirBNB Victorian, cooking for each other, shopping, eating, and visiting King’s Island. Ten years ago the thought of these 2-3 days would have given me hives. Now – I’ve known these women since our kids were in second grade and they’re my mom tribe. They’re the women I text when I have questions about marching band or something happening at the high school. We are who we turn to when the school is on lockdown because of a threat investigation (which has happened no fewer than 8 times this year). So while this probably isn’t the ideal way I would spend my vacation days, I no longer have any anxiety about it – I’ll load up my books and knitting and they’ll know that I’ll be the first to go to bed and no one cares.

I do have plans for a knitting post and a Favorite Things post – I have lots of little fun conspicuous consumption items that I’ve found and have been enjoying. Whether those posts come in June, July, August or beyond – I make no promises. But be well in the meantime!

recently (summer 2022)

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Summer 2022 – gradually coming out of a pandemic mindset, feeling more normal (although it’s a new normal).

We didn’t take a long vacation this year. The kiddo’s schedule was not the ‘mellow sleeping in until noon’ that we had expected – she starts high school in the fall, and had a long musical arts camp at Blue Lake, she took a high school credit course online, and her high school marching band had 2-3x weekly rehearsals and sectionals. So while it wasn’t the full onslaught of the spring track & field plus theater, it was still a lot of chauffeuring and sitting-in-the-car-knitting while I waited for her. Oddly, these are some of my favorite times and memories from this summer…I am valuing them because it’s not long now until she starts to drive, and will be more independent with her activities. (*sniff*)

Brandon’s sister came to visit for a weekend in July, and we enjoyed our downtown Founders’ Festival and the local 5k color run. Brandon has been at the skateboard park with the Old Bros club every weekend, and he & I went back to our fave restaurant Lucy & the Wolf in Northville for a date for the first time since the pandemic. I’ve been splitting my days between working from home, and going into the office 1-2x a week. I’ve read lots of books, listened to some great podcasts, run not as many miles as I’d like, finished a Night Owl cross-stitch, watched some great documentaries and Stranger Things 4 and spent an inordinate amount of time with the Tour de France (JONAS VINGEGAARD!!!!).

We did take a long weekend in New Orleans in June to celebrate school being out. It was ridiculously hot and in retrospect, a somewhat odd place to take a thirteen-year old. (Her first assessment is that it was dirty. LOL) But I love NOLA, the architecture and the history, and we tried to soak that in despite the 100+ degree swamp temps. We lounged in Jackson Square, went to the aquarium, went to Marie Laveau’s voodoo shop, had the kid’s fortune read, took an open top bus tour of the city (and got rained on), we ate tons of amazing food, and we ventured outside the city for a swamp tour and met Elvis Jr, an enormous alligator. We took a Dark History walking tour and learned all sorts of macabre tidbits, I found a knitting shop in the French Quarter (Quarter Stitch), and we visited a vintage book store (Crescent City Books). We fit a lot in during our time there.

Summer isn’t over yet but the kid has a week of band camp and then school starts before Labor Day on the 29th. It’s not long now. The only thing to do is enjoy it! We have a pool pass for the month of August, I’m looking forward to back to school shopping and the first home football game & band halftime show (which happens even before school starts), and lots of front porch knitting & reading with a glass of wine.

I hope everyone is enjoying their season. All the best from our house to yours. xo