What has been your highlights of the summer?

Summer just seems to come and go.  Seems like the school years just seem to fly right by.  That was one thing my Mom always used to say, "Enjoy every moment as once they get in school it fly's right by."  And she also said to never wish your time away.

And it is so true, that once your children are in school, it just seems to evaporate and at the beginning of summer we find ourselves thinking, "Where did the time go?  The kids are another year older and going onto the next grade.

I've got two in high school this year and my girls are in the last year of their in between school before they head on over to the Middle School.  Mine go through four different schools.  They go to the grammar school up until second grade and then head over to another school for three years and then onto Middle School and High School.

For me growing up, it was just Grammar school and then for Seventh grade we moved to the Junior High.

I loved being a part of my children's schooling.  I was more active in it when they were in Grammar school, dropping them off every day for their preschool program that was in the Elementary.  It had the EEE kids and then 8 other kids.  Because of Jake, all my kids got to go.  Now it's just the EEE kids but my kids got lucky.  When Sean was little, he was the only kid that didn't have a disability.  Because of Jake, they let Sean be a part of the preschool class room.  Some of those teachers became some of my best friends and one was like a mother figure for me after mine passed away.  She was there for me, through lots of things.

I need to go back for a visit at some point.  Last time I went was to drop off the manuscript to my first published novel so they could pass it around and read it.  Maybe next year I will be dropping by with The Glorious Money Tree when it is done.

But anyway, school just comes and goes.  Sean has two years left of high school and then it is on to college. That is hard to believe that I will have one leaving the nest in a short while.  I won't wish it to come here yet, but it will.  He's already thinking that he wants to go into Biology or something along that lines.  He would like to be a part of finding new species and all that stuff.  Last year he was really into photography.  Although, I think he would continue with the photography too as he would be wanting to photograph new species, etc..

I think this interest of his is partly because he will be taking a Botany class this year and is excited about that.

But their interests do change and very often, they don't know what they want to do until they are a Junior or a Senior.

I knew what I wanted to do early on.  I knew that I wanted to go to Art school.  But I did also look at freelance writing with my guidance counselor.

So what have been your highlights to the summer, now that it's here and in three more weeks school will be kicking in again?

I'm not sure what my highlight has been for me.  Of course visits to the pool have been fun and trips to my boyfriend's house.  But every day seems to be a highlight for me just being around my kids every day.  That's fun.  And selling on Ebay has been lots of fun.  I'm loving a job that will allow me to be home with my kids.

I would also have to say The Girl's Birthday party.  I always look forward to that every year.  It always means that I get to have some of my family visit for it.  My sister always comes with the three kids and my Dad rides with them.  This year was a treat as her husband was able to come.  And some years my brother and his wife come too and we have a full house with all of them and my ex's parents come over too.  We had such a blast this year.  I love having a good relationship with my ex and his parents.

And when everyone gets together, it just seems like old times.  It's nice to have the whole family remain friends.

And it's such a great time to have my kids get to see their cousins.  It's always a special time.

And another highlight was getting to see Jake's reaction to the new Spiderman movie.  That was classic and was definitely his highlight of the summer.  That was his birthday treat.  And a Macdonald's trip for supper one night and a gluten free birthday cake on his actual birthday.

Other highlights are always a fun trip to Maine to visit family.  We usually stay at my sister's house.  Last year I had to have a special trip to stay at my Dad's house (the childhood home) for a few nights and visit all my old haunts.

I've got to check my backup files to find some of those pictures as they got erased from my laptop for some reason and all those pictures luckily got saved onto one of those little hard drives or backup gadgets.

I'll have to make myself look at that as I think about a months worth of pictures went missing.

But now, summer is almost over.

Tomorrow is almost here.  My kids are going camping in Maine with their Dad all week.  Which means I will get to have full control of my laptop all week while they are gone.  They are coming back next Saturday, which means when they get back Julia will have full control of my laptop for a few days as I will be camping with my boyfriend for the weekend and we're going to a big car show.

I will be charging up one of the little cameras as Sean wants to bring my big camera on their camping trip.  I'm going to let them bring the rest of my marshmallow bag with them camping.  I bought a bag earlier this summer for one of the other camping trips and after two toasted marshmallows, I had had enough.

I can't believe they sell those jumbo marshmallows.  Those things are sickly sweet.  Even just popping one into my mouth, I have a hard time getting the whole thing down.  I guess mini marshmallows are more my speed.  I used to love the assorted colored ones.  And thinking of this brings back memories of those big circus peanut candies.  Remember those?

I'm looking forward to posting on my blog more often and maybe writing another chapter to The Glorious Money Tree.  I have the rough draft hand written and will rewrite that one later.  I've got to go back to the previous chapter as I couldn't remember the names of the mom, Lara's two scrabble guests.

I'm also looking forward to doing more blog hopping and commenting and keeping up with promoting the blog and other stuff.  And it's always fun to surf the net to look up things.  Last night, I started searching for cable knitting stitches and found a free site with the stitch patterns, so I want to go back to that.

And of course later today is the beginning of yard sale weekend.  It's 8am now and the morning is still young.  I've been at the kids house for a little bit this morning already and am getting lucky to get this post in before Julia wakes up.  She's sleeping late this morning.

Last night, I watched Quantum of Solace while I finished painting the floorboards in my living room.  I got quite a surprise when I pulled out my hutch away from the wall.  Of course lots of cobwebs, but also a pile of junk that has been festering there for a few years.  An old piece of bubble gum, probably some remains of some food as I could see those little squirmy bugs that resemble silverfish.  I hate those things.  So I found myself squooshing them before attempting to see what was there.  Most of it was junk, but I managed to dig out a few toy mouses for the cats, pens, a thimble, a kids pair of scissors, one of those toy Chinese finger traps of Sean's, an old buck tooth mouth piece (Halloween), and a piece of fabric that I was working on years ago, and a few other little odds and ends.

The fabric piece I found was my template for this flower petal.  Four or five years ago, while I was still living at the kids house I started this flower blanket using these petals.  I finished one row and never finished the whole thing.  It was pretty and later on I should find it and take a picture of it.  It resembles the yo yo throws where they are attached and there's holes in between.  It's a set of six flower petals that I sewed up and attached.  And each flower got attached to each other.  I probably finished about four or five flowers to the row.

And another cute little thing I made with them was baby teethers.  Those are fun.  For those, I added a layer or two of tissue paper inside.  And then, I embroidered around the middle of each flower.  I think I had sold one at the time and a while ago I found one Halloween baby teether left.

So maybe that's another project later to re do the flower idea.  So maybe I will be cutting a few petals later today too when I'm cutting up more yo yo's.  I've got quite a large basket of the yo yo's now.

And I've been saving all the scraps as I go for use for the bracelets.  Maybe crazy quilt bracelets or very small nine patch squares.  It's good to save your scraps as you never know what you can use it for.

And today, a shirt that didn't sell is getting cut up for the yo yo's.  I listed it more than several times and it didn't sell.  I bet it would sell in the fall as it's pretty, but I want the fabric for my yo yo's.  It's a small yellowish beige fabric with tiny red flowers on it.

Well, I guess I will finish up this post as the girl will be waking up soon and I'm going to jaunt out and see if there are any Friday yard sales.  Sometimes there isn't a lot of Fridays.  Saturday tends to be the big day for it.  And it looks like it's going to rain.  But maybe I can fit in a 20 minute walk this morning.

I didn't walk yesterday.  I was sneezing and blowing my nose all day.  I think my allergies are acting up.  I've been sneezing all week.


I've got to make myself walk more days.  I like when it is cooler out.  Some days, it's been so hot and it's not as fun to walk in the heat.  I hopped on the scale and have lost a few more pounds.  Yay.

I'm also looking forward to doing some blog hopping this week and other stuff that I haven't been able to fit in while sharing the laptop.

Well, Julia is up and waiting now.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted August 4, 2012

Where does your time evaporate to?  There's never enough time in a day.

 a yellow rose to remember all that are gone.

Kind of what it looks like outside this morning.

My azaleas earlier this spring or summer.

I need to take new pictures later and take some tonight over to my house so I can share what that hutch looks like now after getting creative with it.  I should do a little more painting to it tonight.  I might have to sand the bottom drawers before I paint that.  The cats did a little scratching to that one.

Next month, I need to treat the cats to a new scratching post.  Last night I treated them to a new cat toy with the cat nip in it.  I can't really tell if they play with all those balls.  But the other night one did decide to play with a whiffle ball in my studio.  I almost was going to throw it out and then, I got thinking a whiffle ball would someday come in handy with grandchildren.