sweet goodbyes.

Everything ends at some point. Some endings bring relief, like the end of childbirth or a difficult test or race, while other endings cause a sort of grief, like reaching the bottom of a good cup of coffee or book or, like today, the end of a vacation. July 31. The last day of my summer vacation. I mean, I homeschool, so in some ways dates are artificial. We’ll still swim through September (because it’s Texas and our summer here extends into October) and play at the park and meet up with friends during our school year; however August means Mark’s return to work, removing him from our home again for long hours at a time. I do realize this is the way most American families work (thanks to that glorious Industrial Revolution), so I’m choosing to be grateful for these two months of having him home with us, opposed to pouting which is what I really want to do.

Mark and I spent most of last week rearranging and re-organizing our home to prepare for the looming school year and our new housemate moving in this week, but with the 100 degree temps keeping the kids indoors more, the kids’ bickering seems relentless. We needed some relief. Ironically, we chose to start a fire in our new fire-pit area of the backyard as our relief. (Of course a glass of wine was involved too.) We toasted marshmallows and found relief in the cooler evening breeze — sweet goodbye kisses from our summer break.