This summer kicked off in high gear and never showed signs of slowing down. First, there were the back-to-back band camps that my son attended, which required adhering to a schedule. Then there was the dog’s foot surgery, and all of the supervision and work involved in trying to keep it clean and dry and out of her mouth. (She managed to remove her bandage and stitches three times. Long story. Another post.) I was still finishing up yard work late into June after getting far behind this Spring due to my unexpected knee surgery (and slower-than-expected recovery), and never-ending rains, which kept me and everyone else inside. And then there was the planning and packing for vacation, which always leaves me, well, ready for vacation. In between work and all of the above, I seemed to be either chauffering M. and his friends around, sometimes multiple times in one evening, OR pumping gas at the local station so I could cart them around some more.

As June morphed into July, I had the dreadful feeling that this summer was going to blaze by with barely a chance to soak up some down time. And then we hit week three of this month, and I could feel the pace of life being taken down a notch or two.  (The record heat and humidity, which is scorching a large part of the country, might also be a contributing factor to the meltdown slowdown.) I utilized last weekend to settle back in from vacation, and by Friday, I was pretty much caught up at work. All in time for this weekend, which had no things-to-do or places-to-be scribbled on the calendar. Could this be my chance (finally) to catch up on reading and maybe, just maybe, carve out some time to work on my shoe story? The answer is a huge YES!!!!! I feel extreme gratitude for finally being given the opportunity and space necessary to leaf through magazines and leftover newspaper articles, and more importantly, to work on a story that I initially wrote approximately five or six years ago. I spent some time Saturday reworking my piece based on critiques I received in a writing group last month. The group meets again in a few days, and I was determined to have the revisions in place for a second reading by the constructively critical eyes of the other members. Deadline met! As if that wasn’t enough, there was also time for journal writing and the posting of my weekly online dating summary. AND, I drafted another post about the ramblings of 13-year old boys, that I will complete and share with my readers early next week.

This weekend was reminiscent of snowy days in January where you hole up inside with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate,  escaping the frigid temperatures and biting winds whistling just outside the door. It is July, and much of America is barricaded indoors due to stifling humidity and triple digit temperatures and/or heat indices. Suddenly, January doesn’t seem so bad.