Lately...

It seems my head has been in a swirl lately- like I am quickly circling around the toilet bowl and am ready to take the plunge. Yep. Summer is over and school is here once again. And with that comes my busiest time of the year- nervously wrapping up odds and ends at home while setting up a classroom and planning academics (and this year its a whole new grade). I fully enjoyed the first half of summer and we had some great trips- now, I have no clue where the second half of summer went and we have had some botched attempts at fun trips. Maybe going back to school is a good decision?

Last week I wrapped up my summer nanny job and tutoring jobs as well. I also got in a dr. appt for some swelling cankles (the pics are for my sisters who can relate)and a dentist appt for an achy tooth (whoever heard of exposed roots?! My teeth are healthy as can be but for some reason a tooth in the back does not like exposure to cold food and apparently there is no way to fix it). I got a little shopping down but limited myself due to my varying size and income.

My biggest and saddest and most anticipated achievement last week was selling my beloved car La Fonda (the Honda). She was a sweet ride but way too much for me and what I was willing to pay. I tightened my purse straps but she hung on for six months until the right people came along (but it was the worst possible timing for us). I miss her (and my fabulous key fab with power door locks, which I choked up over when I handed them off) but if I save right, I can one day have another like her (minus the car payments). We had La Fonda for exactly 27 months to the day, and drove her for exactly 27,000 miles (from off the car lot to the parking garage of the bank). My sister called when I was signing the papers to buy her (my first ever solo car buying experience) and my other sister called when I was signing her off to her new owners.

Awww, life is full of ironies. We had a trip planned next weekend to Wildlife Safari in Winston, Oregon and then we were going to head over to Diamond and Crater Lake. The one time I tried going to Wildlife Safari was with my family and I came down with a case of pneumonia and we had to return home...it was a special surprise trip by my parents, which made it all the more sad. Now we have to cancel once again due to the fact that we have no road-trip ready vehicles at the moment. Maybe one day we will get to go...we were looking forward to now because it was to be our final moment of summer and our first time vacationing alone together of the summer.Oh well- maybe next year.

We did get to try something new last night that we had never done before but I had always wanted to: We went to a drive-in movie theater! At one time there were over 4000 across America, and now there are only around 400. This particular one kept true to tradition and played old concession stand commercials, played the national anthem before the movies started and advised going to church. It was a fun time!

Today was the best part of the weekend: We got to take Dad on his birthday trip to the Oregon International Airshow. We had great parking, great seats and overall great weather, though it got a little hot toward the end. We saw awesome flight and aerobatic maneuvers and we got to see a fire breathing Robo-Saurus "eat" some cars. We spent all day there though the time flew by because it was so fun!

I had a ton of stuff to do tonight in anticipation for tomorrow but only a fraction got done. I cannot wait until we are into the new routine of things at school and at home. Though I am sad summer is over, I absolutely love fall and watching the progression of the season is what I am looking forward to most. Lately I have been wistful for the "lazy days" of college and strolling around campus in the fall- riding our bikes everywhere, living in the dorms, playing outside, eating brunch in a small local cafe...all things we can do here (except live in a dorm) but there was something especially more pleasant about doing it at OSU. Maybe because college was not yet real, real life...and there wasn't so much to always be doing!