Summer Time

I have lived my life on a school schedule. Summer time is the weeks that you aren't in school. But my administrative job is year round and August 6 IS still summer and my June has been way too busy so I am declaring Melinda's summer of 2015 to be June 21-September 21 .... Like the calendar says. 

Now I realize that that may sound silly to do but sometimes you just have to declare things so that your old habits and ruts are forced to sit up and take notice. Here are my terms:

1. I will not rush to have vegetables and fruit and jelly put up in July. It's too early!! I will plan to can and harvest all the way through September.  

2. I will not even consider putting away my flip flops and tank tops until September 21. 

3. I will plan to go to the beach, lake, pond and river through September .....I act like they put them in storage when school starts back

4. I will not get caught up in back to school frenzy. I am not on that schedule. 

5. I will squeeze every drop of hot, dry fading light out of September that I can.

Ok.....that's it.  Hello, Summer. 

J O B

Perhaps it's a cultural thing. Perhaps it's human nature. We define ourselves by our work choices. I'm a teacher. I'm a doctor. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I'm a nurse. I'm self employed. I'm unemployed. I'm between jobs. All statements laced with emotion, undercurrent. 

There is a lot of chatter about "doing what you love."  But what does that mean? We can't all quit our jobs and be actors and singers and artists and professional athletes and inventors. 

Sometimes I don't love what I do at work. There is a lot of filing and red tape and organizing that is not fun to me. And I feel like I am not impacting lives like I did when I was a teacher. - I am a school district program administrator  - Of course the truth is I am impacting more lives, just not directly. The way I do my job impacts hundreds of students and lots of teachers. But that is hard to remember on days that I have to do the parts of my job that I don't enjoy. So I have been considering going back to teaching or looking for a school administrator job. Something in the trenches. Do what you love. But my job has so many many perks and so many opportunities to create systems that help and protect the weak that I just can't justify leaving it. So rather than "do what I love" I'm going to work on "loving what I do."  Look for upcoming posts to monitor my success or lack thereof. 

Emme

I have two grandchildren.  The oldest is 3 and the youngest is 1. I became a mother at 21 and a grandmother at age 45. Kind of young, but I've always been in a hurry to do everything. There are a lot of things about this life that I am not sure about - but one thing I know is that a grandmother can be an enormous influence in a child's life. Memories of my grandparents fill my mind and shape my life. My mother's parents lived 12 hours away so we visited once in the summer and often at Christmas. That grandmother died when I was only 8 years old, leaving my 29 year old mother to raise three children far away from her home with no mother for guidance. But even at 8 and only visiting once or twice a year, I have a sense of orderliness and decorum, grace and classiness that she exuded and with which her house was filled. My maternal grandfather was a writer, a journalism professor, an amateur museum guide and a comedian. We visited Florida every year growing up and I never knew that it was the home of Disney World. But I am familiar with most of the museums, historical and natural sites in and around Gainesvile. He gave me that great gift. And he taught me comedic sarcasm. They had a pool. My most abiding memory of their home is lying in bed, listening to adult murmuring and smelling the fabulous smells of toast and coffee. I would get up and eat looking through their hurricane windows (the horizontal ones that you crank open), through the palmetto plants, gazing out at that sparkling pool. They would all insist that I eat breakfast and then rest for 30 minutes - remember? - but then I headed for that glorious pool. And stayed there all day. The smell of toast cooking, a summer breeze and a sparkling swimming pool all take me back to my grandparents house. 

And then there are my other grandparents. I will have to write a separate blog (or series) to fully describe my memories of them. They are the ones that I grew up with. Our extended family gathered frequently when I was growing up, and I also stayed with them as often as they would let me. I really will make those memories a separate post because there are just so many and the point of this post was intended to be that I want to make sure that I offer my grandchildren that same rich experience of being with grandparents. There is just a magical connection there. 

Weddings

Yesterday my second cousin got married. She is 22 and the oldest of her 7 first cousins. She has planned her wedding for a long time and the planning and preparation paid off. The whole day was calm and organized and well executed.....three things that are very elusive on wedding days!!! It was also very sweet and special. They both are strong willed and mature people and really took the wedding into their own hands and made it what a wedding should be.....a glimpse into the future that they intend to build for themselves! And the future looks great!

That is in fact what I liked most about yesterday. I got to see a lot of old friends and lots of my favorite relatives.  But, as always with the oldest, I got to witness the beginning of the changing of the guard. Just as my cousins and I at some point moved from the kid table to the grown up table, now our children are beginning to take their place with us at the grown up table. And it's comforting to see.