Here at the Bradley house, summer begins tomorrow at 11:40 am, when my daughter completes the last exam of her freshman year. She's going to celebrate by joining me at Faith in Action for the last few hours of my usual Wednesday shift, something she actually thinks is fun. She and my son both love the Wednesday crew at FIA.
We had a fantastic graduation weekend--a full house of family, a lovely graduate, three small lively nephews. And I'd like to say one final time how very proud I am of my son. Meanwhile, once all the family left, a sense of anti-climax--or was it exhaustion? crept in. Yesterday morning, other than picking the old dog up from the kennel (he'd spent the weekend there so that he couldn't bite the babies), I could not think of one single thing I had to do. Well, okay, laundry. And the dishes. But other than that? Nope. It was raining, which ruled out everything outdoors. And I thought, nothing. I want to do nothing.
So I did. It was bliss. I read a book about hoarding, and I ate crackers and bar cheese, and I napped. And when I woke up I was amazed at the transformation. First of all, I could think of several hundred things to do, and I did a half dozen of them immediately, with energy.
Second, I had slipped into summer.
Summer is our busybusy time. We fill summer up, let it overflow. My daughter has pony club camp and tennis and the regional pony club championships. My son is going to the U.S. Open (golf) with friends, and to England with his Dad. My husband is going to England with our son and to Atlanta to golf, and having friends come here. I'm running the pony club camp (yikes) and competing my horse. We'll take a family vacation in July and we're expecting lots of family for fireworks on the Fourth. I wanted to take a few days to go visit Angelica, one of my fabulous horse trainers, but her schedule looks a lot like mine, except that our free days don't coincide. We've had text conversations that have gone like this: "The last week in May would work for me." "No, I'm in Europe over Memorial Day weekend." "Well, not Memorial Day weekend, I'm busy then, too. How about the first week in June?" "That might work!" Later: "No, sorry. How about the week of June 24th?" "No, sorry--I'm pretty much booked June 10 through August 5th." "Okay. How's September?" Yesterday I tried to call her and her phone sounded funny, as though the ringing noise had changed to a busy signal. A few minutes later she texted, "Can't talk--I'm at dinner." It was 2 pm. My time. I thought for a moment. She was already abroad.
Yesterday my son had had friends spend the night. The friends arrived after my husband and I had gone to bed. I tiptoed downstairs in the morning and was relieved to find the family room empty, since it's right next to the kitchen where those of us who hadn't just graduated high school were having breakfast at 6:30 am. I was fiddling around--this was before I'd decided to do nothing, when I was still just aimlessly doing nothing--and one of my son's friends came downstairs, telling me sleepily that he had to get home so that the lady whose lawn he was supposed to mow could call and cancel, since it was raining. "Okay," I said, "But first tell me, who is in this house and where are they sleeping?"
We had a fantastic graduation weekend--a full house of family, a lovely graduate, three small lively nephews. And I'd like to say one final time how very proud I am of my son. Meanwhile, once all the family left, a sense of anti-climax--or was it exhaustion? crept in. Yesterday morning, other than picking the old dog up from the kennel (he'd spent the weekend there so that he couldn't bite the babies), I could not think of one single thing I had to do. Well, okay, laundry. And the dishes. But other than that? Nope. It was raining, which ruled out everything outdoors. And I thought, nothing. I want to do nothing.
So I did. It was bliss. I read a book about hoarding, and I ate crackers and bar cheese, and I napped. And when I woke up I was amazed at the transformation. First of all, I could think of several hundred things to do, and I did a half dozen of them immediately, with energy.
Second, I had slipped into summer.
Summer is our busybusy time. We fill summer up, let it overflow. My daughter has pony club camp and tennis and the regional pony club championships. My son is going to the U.S. Open (golf) with friends, and to England with his Dad. My husband is going to England with our son and to Atlanta to golf, and having friends come here. I'm running the pony club camp (yikes) and competing my horse. We'll take a family vacation in July and we're expecting lots of family for fireworks on the Fourth. I wanted to take a few days to go visit Angelica, one of my fabulous horse trainers, but her schedule looks a lot like mine, except that our free days don't coincide. We've had text conversations that have gone like this: "The last week in May would work for me." "No, I'm in Europe over Memorial Day weekend." "Well, not Memorial Day weekend, I'm busy then, too. How about the first week in June?" "That might work!" Later: "No, sorry. How about the week of June 24th?" "No, sorry--I'm pretty much booked June 10 through August 5th." "Okay. How's September?" Yesterday I tried to call her and her phone sounded funny, as though the ringing noise had changed to a busy signal. A few minutes later she texted, "Can't talk--I'm at dinner." It was 2 pm. My time. I thought for a moment. She was already abroad.
Yesterday my son had had friends spend the night. The friends arrived after my husband and I had gone to bed. I tiptoed downstairs in the morning and was relieved to find the family room empty, since it's right next to the kitchen where those of us who hadn't just graduated high school were having breakfast at 6:30 am. I was fiddling around--this was before I'd decided to do nothing, when I was still just aimlessly doing nothing--and one of my son's friends came downstairs, telling me sleepily that he had to get home so that the lady whose lawn he was supposed to mow could call and cancel, since it was raining. "Okay," I said, "But first tell me, who is in this house and where are they sleeping?"
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