We are in the heat of summer, and do I mean HOT! Kansas City has been in a heat warning for over a week. That is more than this girl from climates north can handle. Thank goodness our a/c is working! And can I tell you, I am not even a fan of e a/c, but this week I am grateful it was invented.
Even though I cannot stand the heat, I really do love the summer. I love the 'freedom' we have from bedtime routines and all the extra-curricular activities. I love to watch the fireflies flit in the night sky while I drink a glass of red wine in the adirondack chair. I love that the kids march down the stairs with their pillow and stuffed animals to sleep in the back yard in the tent. We let things like bed time and the quantity of ice cream and marshmallows slide a little since it is summer. Today the kids went to the movies at 11am just because they could!
Yet, I am starting to gear up for the Fall; for Elul and the holidays; for our trip as a family to Israel. I am thinking about how I want to decorate my Sukkah and the crafts I would like to make with the kids. I rifle through magazines looking for perfect recipes to bring to the table. I want to can our summer harvest to make sure we have captured the abundance of the summer and can carry it into the waining daylight and dropping temperatures. I even started sewing an insulated plata cover to keep our food warm on Shabbat. 105F outside and I am inside quilting an insulted cover; even I am wondering how crazy I have become nesting for the fall.
The freedom from all the regularly scheduled activities and all the extra daylight makes me manic!!!! When we lived in Alaska it was even more sever. With 18-19+ hours of light, it was as if every day was a work day followed by enough hours of daylight to feel like a week-end day. I was so manic there. I got a year's worth of work done every summer. October I would crash from exhaustion and move my sleep from 5 hours a night to 9 to compensate for not having gone to bed before 1am since sometime in April.
There is just so much more for me to do before its time to get all serious and have the kids tucked away every night by 8:30pm, teeth brushed, lunches made, clothes washed, homework done. I have books to read and trips to the library to make. I want to plan family vacation to Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Hawaii - not all at once mind you, but I want to think about how we can make all that happen over the next five year. I want to figure out the finances, make sure everything is high and tight so we can spend 9 months not thinking about that and rather thinking about math and the study of halakha and Talmud. I want to paint the front room - that I have had the paint since December, maybe even November.
I will sign off for now so I can get to work on my audacious manic summer list. Or maybe not. Maybe I will just pour myself a glass of wine and enjoy the fireflies before they go away for the year.
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