July 31: A Heaping Helping of Summer

Well. The last of two goes of summer family visits left about an hour ago. They are excellent picker-uppers, stripping the beds, collecting their gear, and double-checking for forgotten items, so it was easy to get the laundry in and hung out and that sense of peace and space back. And today is one of the heart-breakingly gorgeous Maine summer days that have been threaded sparingly through the chain of this summer. It's breezy, so the bugs stay off, but the sun rules about 97% of the time, so I am sitting on the patio in my now-dry bathing suit as Andy snoozes in the hammock and Nate is delivering the paper with the rest of the day off. These two weeks of July have been largely vacation: no school reading, no school emails, no school planning. We have been to a wonderful family wedding, seen all of our family except my step-niece and nephews, seen Lyle off to his Nepal adventures (and heard a bit from him!), contacted our AFS daughter who arrives August 10, spent some quality time at the Park biking, hiking, wading, and sight-seeing, done several touristy trips through Bar Harbor (whew), eaten a lot of ice cream, eaten out some but not too much thanks to my lesson in planning from the Skibsholts' visit last year, had some fun festive meals out and in, and generally lived it up. Yay, us.

However, I think patio time is my favorite part of summer. The cats are lolling around (okay, that's a bit pastoral as I just rescued a snake from Katniss's clutches and chucked her inside), Z has been snoozing on the warm stones and recovering from his very active swim with us this morning, I'm reading a fluff book, and Andy has been asleep. The leaves rustle in the breeze, I can see the lake sparkling at the bottom of the road, and there's a nice ratio of sunshine to shade. I could do school work, I could make phone calls, or I could do what I'm doing: not much. I am sucking the juice out of my last day of July, prepping for the demands of August. What luxury!

And August:
dentist, doctor, eye doctor
Camilla's arrival
prep for Camilla's arrival
school stuff!
school itself (okay, a ways away, but still. Same month.)
cats to vet
flea the animals
N's final college visits?
N's driver's test?
a few more school meetings. . .

But oh, it has been a lovely July.