The Lost Summer

I can't believe that I haven't written a post in over five months.  Have I done a Rip Van Winkle and slept away the summer?  No.  In fact, I'm more the anti-Rip.  Ripless, even.  I have spent the last two years struggling to cobble together more than four or five hours of sleep a night.  No, I guess my hiatus has more to do with coping with family stuff, being tired and glum, the ubiquitous competing priorities and myriad other commitments linked with our daughter's summer activities including a stint as an assistant coach for her soccer team, which, on the whole, I really enjoyed.

With the girl back in school and summer soccer season over, and my getting much more sleep (a blog post on its own), I have a bit more time to maybe write more regularly.  I'm looking at my last post and realizing that despite everything, I made some progress on a number of the projects I identified in the spring.  Let me first say that planting a garden and the bedroom remodel didn't happen.  Other than that, though, I have made some modest progress on the other fronts.  I am building momentum on the shop renovation, mostly in the past two weeks.  I have gotten rid of a ton of unneeded stuff and have begun getting everything organized.  A lot still to do, but hopefully by the Spring at the very latest, I'll be mostly done to the point where I can start doing some actual woodworking projects (a.k.a. blog fodder).

I also made very modest progress on the lawn.  In the Spring, I de-thatched, fertilized and over-seeded.  Thanks to a fairly wet summer, a lot of the seed has germinated and matured and it looks a little more filled in.  The casual observer may not notice, but I do.  Again, the progress is modest, but there.

Finally, the never-ending quest to rid ourselves of a lot of junk has been moving forward.  We have thrown out, donated and otherwise disposed of lots of stuff.  I try to make sure that in any given period of time, more stuff leaves the house than comes in and we have been largely successful.  Lena, our beautiful little girl, has been contributing.  She's so sweet.  A few months ago, she had identified a number of toys and games she was (FINALLY) willing to part with so Kate and I thought we would bring the stuff into the local consignment store, sell it and give the proceeds to Lena.  Lena takes such good care of her stuff that it sold quite quickly and we recently cashed in what was owed to us and gave the money to Lena.  She was appropriately grateful for the cash, but she said she would rather donate her stuff to a local women's shelter and help out some kids who are going through a tough time and this more than money would make getting rid of some of her stuff easier.  When we found out we were expecting a child more than a decade ago, my modest goal as a father was to try to raise someone who would not grow into a psychopath.  So far, so good.

Well, that's about it.  Though the past few months have been a struggle for my family and me, I feel like we've muddled through.  In addition to the hardships a number of neat and cool things have happened that I hope I can write about in the coming days and months.  I'll try to be a little more diligent.  Til the next time.