This week I’ve been feeling as if I’m in a winding down phase.  Summer isn’t over, but I know it will be soon enough.  This makes me very sad, as it does every year. Kinda nutty, to live for three months a year, but I do.

The budget being what it is, we haven’t really done much with the kids.  Add in time spent focused on unwell Flower Child and dying mother, and  the past 7 weeks have been lost.

I’ve begun the process of cleaning out my mother’s apartment.  It’s slow, she had an incredible amount of stuff packed into that tiny space.  Strange, because she seemed to be the opposite of a hoarder. Why did a woman who never entertained and never cooked need enough china for 50?  Also, I’m pretty sure the salt I found in the shakers belonging to that set was from 1961.

I haven’t even begun the work of sorting through photographs.  I know that will take forever.  My parents weren’t big on pictures or photography, but still, it’s a lifetime. More than one, because I’m sure I’ll find the photos from my grandmother, and whatever my father had from his family. For all the purging she did, I never saw my mother throw a photo away.  I get it, it feels wrong to do so, the guilt of a sin.   When I first got a digital camera, the concept of the “delete” button for terrible photos took a while to sink in.  Should I do it? Maybe I’m going to need four shaky, dark photos of that door knob. Is anyone looking?  Yes, yes I can delete the fuzzy picture of the floor taken by one of the kids. Liberation of the digital age!

Can’t I just stay on the beach for the next three weeks? I know there are plenty of people around me who will. The problem is knowing that this gentle, mild-palpitation inducing slide downward will be full tilt careening within days.  Three weeks, and I haven’t finished paperwork! Two weeks, the boys still need clothes! And shoes, and everything else. One week, where did the summer go, can’t we squeeze one fantastic splurge day out of the budget?  Flower Child still hasn’t recovered from the last school year.

I don’t do roller coasters. Ever.  But if all goes well, I’ll be on the beach later today.