Monday, September 19, 2011

Summer reflections...

Summer’s almost gone and I’m a little sad….as much as I like fall, it also signals another year older for my daughter. She started 8th grade this year and I think it was kind of a bummer of a summer for her a little bit.  We weren’t able to do much that would be considered exciting this year…my husband having been laid off for 8 months and things being tight. 
At the beginning of the summer, just when school finished, we took a trip to Salem, MA, for a weekend and in true pre-teen fashion, she bitched the entire time we were there and we were all miserable, and then lamented because she complained the whole time and didn’t appreciate it like she should have.  Sigh…but I’ve had numerous reports from other parents that this seems to happen a lot, with all of them.
It was also rough for her the rest of the time a little too….she spends her days with my mother, who has reached that point in her early 60s where she is just losing it and can make everyone around her bonkers and frustrated on a regular basis…combine that with a know it all pre-teen and it’s a recipe for disaster. The ride home each night was very draining, having to listen to all the things that went wrong in her day. Of course, she also learned to shoot pool, drive a gator tractor and was able to spend her days lounging by the pool…but she’s not of the age where these things count just yet.
Most of our summer nights were spent watching the reruns of Little House on the Prairie…not exciting by any means but I had hoped that some of the little life lessons they taught would rub off on her, and they might have…at least she enjoyed watching it and we were able to spend time together as a family. I also think it was hard for her to hear about all the other fun things her friends were doing…one friend seemed to go away every other weekend.
And to top it off, we never made it to the beach….this I’m sad about.  But I’m hoping to rectify it this week, before summer “officially” ends.  If she will let me…sometimes her anxiety doesn’t let me do things I’d like to do, because the thought of anything out of the ordinary sends her into a spiral that is easier to just void than try to push through. I’m going to try to take a ride down to the ocean the last night of summer.  My husband is working the evening shift, and we’ll be able to say good bye to the season.  I’m hoping she’ll understand the symbolism of my last ditch effort to get her to the beach…even if it’s not  exactly how she wanted it to be.
On a more positive note, we created ourselves a witch bottle this weekend and will be burying it (hopefully) this weekend…something strange did happen to it though and I have to see how that’s going to pan out. It was sitting on the counter, and when I looked at it the next day, the metal top (Ball canning jar) was dented up…when I took off the cover…it was bubbling LOL and I have no idea why….so it now sits on my porch in a cup, and I’m patiently waiting for it to stop bubbling…I assume it will eventually.  I am glad I hadn’t gotten around to sealing it up with wax just yet.  I guess this is just another example of how hearth and home witchery really can be exciting…you never know what you’re going to make explode in the kitchen! 
This week I need to get off my butt and plan out my Mabon ritual, decide what I’m making for dinner that night and pick up a bottle of celebratory mead. We had a mini-celebratory meal last night…I baked the good bread, cooked a chicken with the fixings and had some Octoberfest beer. I figured better to do it now while we’re all together, since I didn’t know just yet if my husband would be home Friday night. It’s a season of many feasts, I think anyway…so we might as well start early and make them most of it!
I’m taking part in the Practical  Magic Blog Party this weekend as well….I haven’t a clue if what I did is what’s expected, but I think it will be ok….I get to play the clueless novice blogger card if it’s not that great LOL Unfortunately, I can’t make midnight margaritas…heartburn and I’ve started to realize these days that tequila shortens my temper to such a short string that it’s just safer for everyone if I just avoid it all together.

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