One month down, one to go
For those who count summer as the months of July and August (ignoring the spillover in June and September) then I’ve got bad news: summer is half over.
I didn’t really have a bucket list of things to do this summer. But as July comes to an end, I am taking inventory of some of the things I accomplished.
1) I reconnected with former classmates during my YCMHS Class of ’87, 30-year high school reunion. In a selfie photo our committee took that someone saw on Facebook, in which I was wearing a graduation cap, I was even mistaken for a “young grad.” That was an added bonus.
2) I managed to once again kill the hanging plant I hung on my front veranda for probably the 19th consecutive year. I love the look of a hanging plant there, but then I always forget it’s there since I spend my time on my back deck. Note to self: maybe next year a plastic hanging plant is the route to go.
3) I have gotten better at slamming the screen door shut before a gazillion moths fly into the house when I’m letting the cats in or out in the evening. I have even mastered the arm motion of flicking them in midair as they attempt to fly inside. I guess I’m more brazen when it comes to moths as opposed to June bugs that send me screaming in the other direction.
4) I have gotten lots of exercise putting away and taking out my patio furniture cushions before and after it rains. Only once did I get soaked in the process when I remembered during a rainstorm at 1 a.m. that I hadn’t put them away. I seem to have developed a love-hate relationship with the cushions, as have my kids when I yell out, “Can someone help me with the cushions?”
5) I have renewed our expired passports in case we decide to go somewhere, which we probably won’t. I only managed to make mistakes twice on my youngest son’s passport application – including a mistake I was forewarned not to make and made anyway.
6) We became the owners of a pet bunny. Gotta say, I didn’t see that coming. He’s cute, but he’d be a whole lot cuter if he didn’t poop so much.
7) I have managed to be only 45 minutes late when en route to pick up my youngest son at friends’ houses when I say I’ll “be there in 10 minutes.” Turns out my camera and I get easily distracted by summer sunsets and summer nights.
8) And over the weekend I put the finishing touches on the last compact tab issue of this newspaper. Check out our new look to the Tri-County Vanguard next Wednesday.
Meanwhile, as we enter phase two of summer, my hanging plant will still be dead, I’ll have swatted a few more dozen moths and I’ll have picked up a lot more rabbit poop.
Hey, I never said my life was exciting.
As for other August achievements, time will tell.