Late Summer Settles In.

Hello again. I am back sooner than usual. Let’s think it’s a trend for now. 

It’s August, which is a month that has snuck up on me every year for the past three. Working in a seasonal business as I was, summer always went by in an absolute flash, and then August settled in like molasses. Even with the shake-up, this year has been no different. 

A short time after I bowed out at work, we headed to Florida to visit Benjamin’s family there. We had such a good time, enjoying the beaches and the sunshine and the fellowship with our relatives. The drive was long, and New Orleans is way too close to our route for me not to yearn to take a pit stop, but we made it back and forth without any beignets or major mishaps. James did quite well in the car, but then he has always been a good traveler. We broke him in early on that one. So we arrived safely home and got back to work the next day. Benjamin as a driver for the canoe rental, and me with a writing deadline creeping up on me and other obligations waiting. Back to the grind, a bit tanner than we were before. 

What am I reading? Hemingway, A Moveable Feast. I have wandered far and away of how much I used to be able to read. I attribute that to marriage, family, work, and so, so much technology. I am doing my best to slowly detox myself and unhook my lighted rectangle from my hand as much as possible. In addition to my devotions that I do frightfully irregularly, I am purposing to follow Hemingway’s instructions to being a good writer: reading. As someone who read avidly as a teenager, I never knew picking up a book would be so hard for me. Honestly - it was a struggle to get back into the habit of casual reading. What have we done to ourselves?

What am I cooking? Easy, quick meals on paper plates and trying not to light the stove if I can help it. I am lazy, so I have struggled to get up with Benjamin and cook breakfast for him before he leaves for work, but hopefully I can remedy that soon. I am packing lunches - salads, leftovers, tuna on a croissant. Since I am not in air conditioning as much as I was at work, I am finding my body getting back to the style of eating I grew up practicing. No breakfast, a few cups of strong coffee, a late, light lunch and a bite of supper. Yes - I drink water, and yes - I feed my son. Don’t come at me if this isn’t healthy, it’s just my late summer appetite. 

What’s new with James? So, so much! He is learning new words left and right, and sometimes stringing them together in lispy sing-song. I have always been skeptical of the “sensory play” Pinterest-Mom stuff, but with all of the mosquitos and all of the ticks and all of the other terrors fighting us outside, I have tried to keep him inside in the buggiest parts of the day. So I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up some things for us to do together to make up for outside time. Some wooden beads to string on pipe cleaners, stickers, paintbrushes to dip in water and swirl on construction paper, and puffballs to pile into little paper sacks. I don’t know if he is too young for these things, but he picks up the motor skills to do them quite quickly and it keeps him busy for sometimes an hour or more. I can live with that. 

I don’t know that I came here to write about anything specific, just perhaps to ramble on about not much of anything. I am sure something substantial will come to me soon, but for now August is dripping by, it’s humid and hot outside, and life bustles on. 

What are you reading?

What are you cooking?

What is summer doing to you?

Blessings, 

Tracy M