August...

Oh my. It is flying by.

I have been taking it all in, trying to keep all my plates spinning in the air. I've dropped a few, and blogging is one of them. My bad. I'm going to try and pick up the pieces.

Here is a mishmash of my last month, mostly in pictures.

Sand. Still washing and sweeping sand out of every nook and cranny of our lives. I don't think I'll ever get it all out of my car. Not complaining, just commenting.

But look - there are so many kinds:

I love this sand collection my daughter and I put together. It is one of several, including a smaller tin of smaller metal containers and a set of  tiny, tiny bottles. She gave her partner a little bottle layered with all the sands they played on this year.

I can almost identify all of them now without looking, and they make my inner geology nerd extremely happy. The one in the upper right full of shells was literally what yards and yards of Tybee Island GA was covered with. Every step was crunchy as those fragile tiny shells broke underfoot. I couldn't bear to walk on them.

Well, we are done with all this for a little while. I thought we would keep playing in the sand until the weather turned, but the pull of high school volleyball was too strong and she has laced up her shoes and put on the knee pads for one more go around in the gym. We are thrilled to get to cheer her on one more season. It will be crazy hectic with her new job, but she won't regret it, I'm sure of that. Somehow I ended up the team mom, and I'm equally dreading the extra work and thrilled to get to hang out with the girls, they are a wonderful bunch, and I won't be doing this kind of thing again, ever. Senior year, endings and beginnings.

This is a picture of our last day at the beach in Chicago. We all had a great day.



On the home front, the yard and garden have gone into late summer lush. Everything is so green and busy, with the last push of the season.

I'm hopeful about the melons and inundated with cucumbers. I've already made three batches of refrigerator pickles.  I'm trying to keep up with the watering, but some of my full sun containers are a lost cause. Luckily, the garden is doing its thing, and I am letting it. The chaos bothers my orderly husband, but I just tell him not to look. I never was good at thinning or pulling volunteers. And there are lots of volunteers this year, especially tomatoes. 

There's one huge beautiful plant in there that I have no idea what it is or where it came from, it looks like celery or parsley family, very decorative, and a swallowtail caterpillar ate it for days until it disappeared. I regret not bringing it inside to keep it safe.

Even a few fall colors are creeping in already, in this oddly cool August, likely because it's been so dry lately.

Tucker has enjoyed both kids home for the summer. He's kept the yard free of squirrels, chipmunks and baby bunnies, and has let no neighbor walk or jog past without barking insanely at them until they are out of sight. Some dogs just have to do that I guess, there's no stopping him.

  

He's keeping me busy with the let me in/let me out game.

This is right before his paw got stung by a bee. It was a pitiful display of trembling and limping for about an hour, but he rebounded quickly. The mornings have been cool and damp and the bumbles have been slow to get moving. He must have gotten too close while he was eating grass, one of his favorite things to do.

Other significant happenings this month included my first baby turning 20, and we watched the old VHS home movies of him as a happy baby, a curious toddler, a funny young boy and they made me cry. Not because it was sad, but because it was so sweet and I wanted to be back in those happy moments again.
I could never have foreseen the young man he would become, and as much as I miss that baby and that boy, I'm so glad to know the man he's becoming.

(I was also happy to find Friendly's Ice Cream. Its an east coast thing, I think.)

He celebrated his birthday and then his second anniversary with his girlfriend. He helped get her moved back into school in Missouri and heads back to his school in Illinois next week.  It's going to be pretty quiet around her with him gone.

My first fairy garden has been an endless source of amusement to me this summer.

It went from this....

to this....... overrun, but in a good way.

I'm not sure how I'll keep it alive this winter, but I'm going to try.

Hope your summer has been full and lush and magical with a touch of nostalgia thrown in for good measure.

I'll try to check in again before the fall.......

xo

July so far...

...is pretty darn good.

I flew with daughter to Florida, for the University of North Florida sand camp, then visits with Stetson and Jacksonville Universities. Georgia State really wanted her to come for a visit. Tulane and University of Alabama were still emailing her.... the girl had some options. It felt good, but scary, because we are not optimists and nothing is for sure until it's for sure.

We visited Stetson first, in DeLand Florida, 40 minutes north of what my daughter considers one of the most magical places on earth, Disney. One college visit this trip and done. Cancel the rest.

Stick her with a fork, I texted my husband. They had her at tree lined main street. At the cute little shops, at Mr. Bill's homemade donuts, at the snow cone store, the cute and welcoming public spaces....

Really, the main drag through campus is covered in trees.

All the little shops are this cute. No empty stores, no struggling economy to be seen here.

There was art everywhere. Murals. Statues. Fountains. Sculptures. And places to sit everywhere too.

Then there was the picturesque campus, the historic, unique and eclectic buildings, the music building with windows designed in keyboard configuration, the hammock club, rocking chairs and wrought iron cafe tables and chairs everywhere, the gazebos, the pet friendly dorms, the court of palms......

Then there was the new athletic center, the athletic complex, three sand courts with spectator areas:

They had me at #2 ranked school in the Southeastern US, and the minute I met the coach, whose smile says almost everything I needed to know about her. They really had me at 95% paid for with academic and athletic money. I could see the stars in my daughter's eyes. I could tell that she had found her team, her home and her magical place. Living the dream, as our new California friends would say.

So she said yes, right there. And the coach smiled and my daughter beamed, radiated, emanated while they shook hands on the deal. I didn't cry, I'm proud of that. I just smiled and said what does mom need to do next.....

What we did next was go to the best lunch spot ever in the most perfect little restaurant and make it official, me on facebook, her on instagram.

She's been on cloud nine ever since.

She emailed all the other coaches and said thanks but I found my place. 

They were all congratulatory and gracious. 

Then she finished her North Florida sand camp, won queen of the beach, winning the most points paired with all the other girls, and then I put her on a plane to LAX and was so proud of myself for not crying again when I watched it take off.

She's staying with some older players, travelling up and down the coast from LA to San Diego for tournaments and then camp at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. 

The Olympic Training Center. Pretty Legit, that's what she said. I agree. 

There's a tournament at the end of camp, at Hermosa Beach and I'm flying back to cheer for her and bring her home. She'll be really ready to come home after two weeks away.

Then we rest her up and then off to the Nationals in Milwaukee.

We have really high hopes, after both girls have trained in California for a few weeks, and they've been gelling so well on and off the court.

They are super competitive and pretty bad ass, if I don't mind saying so myself:

But no matter how their season or rankings end up (did I mention they are in the top ten USAVolleyball Junior Beach Rankings?) I know they've both had a hell of a good summer already. And so have we, the proud and long suffering parents, forced to sit at the beach with coolers of cold beverages and fruit and sandwiches, watching our daughters do what they love and what they are exceptional at doing. 

Yep. 

Living the dream.

And my son is having a fine summer too, a little work and lots of fun with his friends and his girlfriend.

The husband and I are good, business is good, the dog is good.

I am counting my blessings daily.

Yep.

Every one of them.

July is pretty good so far.

Blessings abound, the universe is abundant, life is good.

I don't feel worthy, just really, really lucky. And really, really grateful.

And maybe just a little jet lagged and disoriented from all the travel.

I will not complain.

I will keep smiling and feeling lucky.

Hope you're feeling lucky too.

xo

June, the short version

June, where did you go???

We were on the go, go, go and I'm still in the blur of unpack, pack, rinse and repeat. It's all volleyball, all the time here, with a short chicken interlude to liven things up.

First the volleyball. Milwaukee, Racine, Chicago, Milwaukee, Ft. Lauderdale, with Michigan City, Indiana tomorrow and Chicago Saturday. Daughter has been representing. Three firsts, three seconds, and lots of great competition and experience. And oh, how vindicating to beat her old club, the one that rejected her, told her she was average, said she made a huge mistake leaving them. What revenge to beat their best teams at every turn. Who's sorry now?

I was getting panicky, though, about college recruiting, the dozen spots left on college sand teams, and the many dozens of girls trying to secure a spot. Some of those girls are fierce, and I was worried, petrified that my girl's dream might die on the vine, out hustled by girls with better training or better connections, better something. It felt like we had to win the lotto, the odds didn't look good. She had been talking to coaches, but nothing looked like a sure thing. We spent a lot of time hoping.

We went to Florida last week for a recruiting showcase, with ten colleges in attendance and then a tournament with a new partner, more coaches watching. We were both so nervous about the competition that we started emailing coaches with no athletic scholarships just to have some options for her to be on a sand team. She doesn't care what school she goes to, or what she studies, as long it's warmer than here and as she has a spot on the sand volleyball team.  A really short list.

Sand Recruits Pompano Beach

One of the coaches emailed her and asked her to call when we got home Monday. She offered her a spot on her team, and between academic and athletic money, it would be basically a free ride. At a good school. With a good sand program. I think I cried for half an hour, I was so overwhelmed and happy for her.

Then the next coach called. We still have two visits lined up and who knows how this will all end up, but it looks like baby gets to live her dream, and all that hard work, all that drama, all those hundreds of miles and hours in the car and freezing in the midwest and coach hopping and playing up in the women's leagues and strength conditioning and determination have paid off. She's gotten so much better, and none of this would have happened if her first coach wasn't such a control freak and a giver of unreasonable ultimatums. I can't stop thinking about him calling her average, and nicknaming her tofu, because she was a bland player. The college coaches see her very differently and she's getting some really head swelling feedback right now. Again, vindicating.

I won't jinx it yet. When she commits, I'll brag my ass off about where. I'm just so very proud of her, and so relieved she gets what she wants out of this, and so freaking relieved that we don't have to worry about how to pay for tuition for the second kid.

So life right now is pretty good, even if it's crazy. We leave 3am Monday for Florida again for more camps and school visits and then she flies straight to California for tournaments, camps and tournaments with the best of the best. She'll be gone three weeks, home for three days, then straight to Milwaukee for the Nationals.  Whew. Then it will be August and I'll be asking where July went.

And then there was the chicken. Pretty Penny, the Polish Golden Laced hen who showed up wet, lost, afraid and immediately stole our hearts. What does one do with a chicken in the suburbs? We kept her for two weeks until it became obvious that this is not a farm, we do not have a flock to keep her company and the neighbors could call Animal Control on us whenever they wanted, because of the no chicken ordinance. So we found her a good home, a farm full of wonderful critters and lots of all kinds of chickens and we hope she's happy but we miss her, and that egg a day program. Having a chicken around really can change your life. Even my husband fell hard for her. But this was the right choice, for right now. Especially with the travel schedule we're looking at this month. I wish we could have kept her, because we bonded. I'll be calling to check in on her, for sure. Maybe arrange a visit. I should have negotiated shared custody.

She's pretty fancy, eh?

So, thanks for checking in, reading all the way to the bottom, of a too long post. I hope you have a wonderful Fourth of July Celebration if you do that kind of thing, barbecues and watermelon and whatnot. We'll be on the beach, again. Not a bad way to go.

xo

More pictures from lately

Summer came fast too.

Not many words lately. I keep thinking about the word fleeting, because time is flying. How did the yogurt I kept meaning to eat get to be best by February, and here it is June today, how does that happen?

I keep hearing that line from Always when Dorinda says "These things are fragile!!" I love that movie, Holly Hunter is perfect in it. It's about love and fire fighting and Steven Speilberg directed it and if you haven't seen it, you should. Chick flick of the highest order, but wonderful. And things are fragile, Dorinda is right.

I'm feeling a little tongue tangled and lucky and raw, wabi sabi happy sad and who knows why. Maybe this is what old women do. I got my mammogram and bone density scan yesterday, and the lovely nurse and I commiserated about the indignities of being an aging woman with bodies that are slowly betraying or disappointing us. I suggested she make older friends, as they can be very supportive and inspiring.

I'm sticking my nose in the flowers and trying to remember how they smell for when they are gone. Being grateful when my back and knees let me do what I want, and trying not to be too pissed when they don't.

Can't control or figure out or understand anything, so I'm tending to my gardens big and small, pulling the weeds where I'm standing, trying to keep calm and carry on. :)

Hope all's well with you.

xo