This summer was different than most. And it was certainly not the summer I had planned or hoped for.
I worked for half of it, and the other half was spent with two Korean student house guests, and two Chinese student guests / new family members (they will be living with us for the school year). It was also different, because the warm summer weather was delayed, slow, and at times non-existent.
There are things that have been staples in our home and family, that just didn’t happen this summer. Things like daily swims in the pool (we have become wimps … and just do not go in the pool on cool or overcast days), nightly ‘tribal councils’ (we sit out under the stars to the light of the tiki torches, laughing and talking … and texting each other … while only a couple of feet apart), summer school work (I usually give my kids summer school work, to keep their brains engaged over the summer, but working made it hard to find the time … this is something that my kids have NOT missed 🙂 … I have never seen them so happy about me working. But, I digress), and a time away for all five of us 😦
The following is a wrap up of my summer:
Days when I did not have to leave the house … ZERO 😦
Days I had morning coffee on the deck … THREE
Days of temperature over thirty degrees … TWO
School lessons taught … ZERO (Mom 😦 … TWEEN kids 😀 )
Nights of ‘tribal council’ … THREE
Books read … ONE HALF (thanks to my flights to and from New Brunswick)
Pool parties … ZERO
Toes dipped into Pacific … ten
Toes dipped into Atlantic … ten
Korean students our family got to host … TWO
Chinese students who have become part of our family (for the whole school year) … TWO
Camps our two youngest attended … THREE
Summer debt accumulated … ZERO (thanks to my summer job). And every minute and hour of it were worth it! I got to work with fantastic people, learned much new information, and got a paycheck.
Was I loving working in the summer all the time? NO! I did have a ‘poor me’ day, where I griped and complained to hubby that I was working my tushie off and would have nothing tangible to show for it. Last week, as we were admiring the brick patio (bricks that we had, largely bought used … transported here, then carried up our mountain of a property) that our friend (who we had hired when it became obvious that we would not have time this summer to complete on our own) laid for us. And hubby instructed me to look at it, and see that my extra working did have something tangible to show for it.
And, it was good.
So, it was a different summer. It was not the one I had planned on having. Working was not what I had wanted to do. But different is not bad, it’s just … different.
