Buckle Up! Summer’s Heading Out.

A friend asked me last week if I’d bought my kid’s school supplies yet. I stopped. Turned. And stared at her. “Umm, excuse me, but what did you say?”

“I was just wondering if you’d bought your school supplies yet,” she repeated, looking a little defensive. “I mean, they’re already being picked through….”

I walked away from that conversation feeling a little ill. How is it possible that summer is almost over and I need to buy school supplies already? I guess I was in denial.

But then I went and spent $150 on supplies and reality hit home.

But enough about that. I have to say that it’s been a great summer and a lot of the greatness is due to all the hard work that many, many willing adults put in to making a ton of great activities for my kids to participate in. Kids need summer activities. Yes, they need to relax and just hang out but they can’t do that for three solid months. If they did, they and I both would go insane.

And so we signed them up for a few things. Not as many as some years, mind you, but a few, well-chosen things. My oldest two did Summer Band at the middle school and they both loved it. I have never seen my daughter so excited about her band instrument, as she was able to begin playing a “Frumpet” because French Horns simply aren’t marching band instruments. Along with my son on his marching band tuba (read Susaphone), we had several marvelous duets in the evenings and loved every minute of it. Thanks so much to Mr. Anderson and all of the band teachers and helpers involved with that program.

A little Frumpet action.

My daughter also was able to participate in Summer Orchestra and she enjoyed that very much, remembering what it is like to pick up a viola after quite a few weeks of…I admit it…not doing so. The students were even were able to take a field trip to the National Music Museum in Vermillion, SD, which definitely is a place our whole family needs to check out, from the sounds of it. Thanks to Mrs. Loy for a great couple of weeks!

Most recently my two oldest kids enjoyed Kid’s College out at Minnesota West. For four days they experimented, learned, played, created, and soaked in the atmosphere of the college and many willing and capable instructors. Too bad it couldn’t be longer, says this mom!

Not his Susaphone, but you get the idea.

Not to be forgotten, our youngest, too, had weekly fun at the Summer Library Program at the Nobles County Library, thanks to all the hard work of Jackie Van Horsen, the children’s librarian. Three Hershey’s kiss gnomes, a caterpillar, an ant, and something that I’m a little unclear as to what it is exactly – still grace our family room with their smiling faces. Her crafts are all smiling, according to her, because she was having a great time making them with her friends at the library.

Library gnomes.

There were other activities our kids did – and other activities they should have done (read swimming lessons) – and somehow, all of a sudden, summer is winding down and there is very little I can do about that. Okay, there’s nothing I can do about it, I just like to pretend that maybe there is.

One thing that was very different for us this summer was not being involved with the summer musical at the Memorial Auditorium here in Worthington, as we were for the past two summers. Instead, we were able to sit and RELAX in the audience and enjoy the hard work that the cast and crew of SHREK THE MUSICAL put in over the summer to entertain us all. I intimately understand how much effort it takes to put on such a show, and I appreciate their time and commitment so much. I can’t say that we didn’t miss doing a show a little bit, but mostly, we were just glad to have summer evenings at home. But yes, in case you’re wondering, I’m sure the stage will lure us back one of these summers, if not more than one.

Summer has been lovely, but all good things must come to an end. School is important, and I guess I’m ready for it, at least as far as my kid’s supplies go. Mentally, though…I’m thinking I’d rather cuddle with my six year old a little longer, savor my coffee on the deck with a good book, watch the kids catch lightning bugs, and have just one more day to sleep in.

But this is my life, at least for a few more years. School supplies, alarm clocks, homework…. Someday I’ll miss all that, they tell me.

For now, I’ll buckle up for the ride.

Didn’t catch him flashing, but here is a lightning bug…in all his non-glowing glory.

One got caught in Boo’s hair!

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Summer in Full Swing: Check

Kids off to summer band – check. Kids off to science camp – check. Girls off to Girl Scout camp – soon to be checked. Church camp and Bible camp – nearly checked. Children’s library reading time – checking all summer long. Swimming lessons – not yet checked. Cleaning the house – checking. Worst-ever sinus infection – check. Flowers, tomato plants and herbs bought – check. Planting said flowers, tomatoes and herbs – not yet checked.

Weekend away with the family – check. Longer vacation with the family – yet to be checked. NOT doing a community theater production this summer in order to actually have a summer – check. Removing ticks from the cat – check. Bird watching out my windows – checking each and every day with joy. Doctor appointments, dentist appointments, veterinary appointments – check.

Strawberry shortcake – checked several times. Iced coffee consumed by the gallon – checking daily. Grill used and appreciated – check. No time to write – check. Barely able to blog – check. Taking advantage of every moment possible to cuddle and read to kids – check. Reading a lot myself – check.

Getting verklempt every time my six year old reads to me with her newly-acquired fabulous reading skills – check, check, check.

Summer in full swing: check.

Sometimes the Pen – or the Keyboard – Has a Mind of its Own

The things that really matter.

I live out in the country, on ten acres of trees and grass and stream, surrounded on all four sides by farmland. Don’t get me wrong: we are not farmers. We are not even “gentleman farmers”. We have no horses fertilizing my future garden patch. No chickens wander around looking picturesque in the front yard. No cow provides our morning milk. No cats purr at our ankles. No dogs annoy the mail lady. Not even a goldfish graces our counter top.

We do have many visiting wild animals. Foxes. Woodchucks. Feral cats. Skunks. Deer. Racoons. Opossums. Beavers. Muskrats. Coyotes, occasionally. Cougars, supposedly (though we’ve never seen one), frogs and toads and birds of many a varied feather.

Reflection.

This makes me, I suppose, an imposter. I really don’t belong here, growing up as I did in a different state, a milder climate, a separate frame of mind. In the Pacific Northwest, people are radicaller than they are here. (Yes, I know that’s not a word. I’m using it anyway.) Here almost everyone goes to church. At least at Christmas and Easter. They mostly grew up here, are raising their children here, will be buried here in the prairie cemetery on the edge of town where an old cannon raises its shiny nose to the sky. And that’s okay.

Another little bit of summer.

But it sometimes makes for a little discontinuity with this former globe-trotter. I said something to our son the other day that began with the words, “When I was in Russia…” and he said, “I sometimes forget that you were there, Mom.” And I said, in a whisper of realization, “So do I.”

And that, too, is okay. I mean, I want to live in the present, to enjoy and thrive in the here-and-now, rather than pine away for what was. And, truly, I tend to be a home-body anyway. I’m content to linger over breakfast with a good book. To put off the grocery shopping until the milk turns sour. I say “no” when I feel I can, to “opportunities” for involvement. (There are still plenty of things I can’t say “no” to!) I hate when night after night brings obligations, meetings, and trips into town.

Perhaps this makes me an imposter as well. I live in a world where how busy you are proves your worth. Or, at least, it feels that way. One thing I witnessed many times while doing Beauty and the Beast was the backstage hustle and bustle of the players. Often I’d see fellow-performers RUN from place to place – whether they needed to run or not. They’d run from one side of the stage to the other, only to stand there, out of breath, waiting their turn to enter from the wings. Sometimes, of course, we had to run. Sometimes we’d push each other out of the way in our hurry, our need, tripping over cords and props in our rush. But often, the running and busy-ness struck me as a need to look important. “If I run from here to there then everyone will see how vital I am to this production.” I too, fell into this trap…until I realized how silly it was.

I don’t mean to disparage anyone…it’s just that it struck me as so interesting. So like real life. We tend to think that if we’re busy, we’re vital. We’re needed. It’s all part and parcel of finding our value in the stuff we do…rather than in WHO we are.

I’d prefer to find my value in the way I think. The way I behave towards a stranger. The way I like to wave to a slow-moving tractor on my dirt road. It doesn’t matter how much I do, or where I’ve traveled. What matters is valuing people the way God wants me to value them. Being kind to my children. Spending time with my family. Being calm enough that I can smile as I face my to-do list…instead of weeping with the overwhelming urgency of it all.

This isn’t what I meant to write about. I meant to write of farming, of summer, of crop-dusters zooming over my house like gigantic dragon flies and sending us running outside in gales of laughter, grabbing the camera, waving like mad. I guess that will have to wait until next time. Sometimes the pen – or the keyboard – has a mind of its own.

And that’s okay.

There is beauty to be found on the prairie.

It’s also okay that I fail at practicing what I preach each and every day. I mean, it’s not OKAY…but it’s reality. I guess what matters is that, hopefully, I am improving.

Seize the day, my friends. Enjoy the moment. Live in light of eternity. Stop and smell the pungent tomatoes. Summer is almost over.

And that, too, must be okay.

Washing Dolly Clothes

One of my favorite pictures of all time. Katie washing dolly clothes.

So, I said that there might be occasional “non-Tuesday” posts…well, today’s the first! I couldn’t resist posting this – though it has nothing to do with writing or publishing or editing. But it has everything to do with ME!

Today Lucy and Katie washed dolly clothes – an annual ritual in our house, as it was when I was a child. (And some of the doll clothes are of that vintage!) As they did so it reminded me of this photo…from a few years back…of washer-woman Katie. (Who is, I might add, a far kinder and gentler – though perhaps not much better at actual washing – washer-woman than Mr. Toad of Toad Hall.)

What is it about household chores that hold interest to children? Why is it so thrilling to help fold clothes, stir the pasta, get the mail? And where, along the line, does that intrest disappear to? What deep, dark corner holds lost interests? And is it the same deep, dark corner that hold lost socks? Lost arguments? Lost loves?

And what about lost time? Wasted opportunity? My sister, in high school art class, caligraphied this poem and I’ve never forgotten it: “Four things come not back: The spoken word, the sped arrow, time past, the neglected opportunity.”

May the end of this day find you content that you have not wasted any of these things. Especially the arrows.