Another Summer Is Gone, Welcome Fall

Another summer is come and gone! Where did the time go? Summer flew by between Miranda at Kinkaid EMSI and our Germany trip.

Miranda and I in the Black Forest

I finished the blog about Miranda's Sweet Sixteen trip or #GermanySweet16. Go check it out if you haven't. It's just a few blog posts chronicling our adventures through Germany.

Life has been good and I've been feeling very grateful. I'm so grateful for the trip that we had and for the time I got to spend with my girl. I can't wait to do the same thing for the boy in 3 years but his dad will take him on that trip.

Between now and then I'm hoping to take a trip to Canada with the kids and somewhere really cool in the US. Maybe Chicago in November.

I've also been very happy at work lately and really happy with my recent promotion. I have been very lucky to get another awesome manager in my career. I know that isn't always the case so I am very thankful for that.  Life has been good.

It's the weekend before the last weekend before school starts. Uniform shirts for Seth have been purchased via Amazon, ordered 2 different size pants from Target and will find out which ones are better when I receive them, but thank goodness he has 3 pairs I bought him in the spring when he grew. Bought Miranda some khaki pants today and a skirt online and buying her all her uniform shirts on Thursday when we go pick up her textbooks and laptop at the new school. I also bought basic school supplies today so they have something for the first day. I'm almost done with Back to School shopping! All I need now are M's shirts and her white tennis shoes for hospital visits.

The beginning of school also means a couple of important things. One is that fall is on it's way! The second big thing is that it's time to start our applications for high schools now. Even though he's only in 8th grade the boy goes to high school in exactly one year. Unbelievable.

Waiting for fall, scarves, boots and lattes!

The End of Summer and Another Milestone

On the Friday prior to school starting I reflect on this summer that just flew by so fast and how we never really made it to the beach and to the sounds of the glorious ocean rolling up on to the sand. I missed the beach this summer. We only went maybe once or twice. I can’t even remember how many times, but it was not much.

It started with torrential rain all around Memorial Day in May. Then Miranda was attending the Kinkaid EMSI program and before I knew it half the summer was up. We attended a family reunion in July in the Rio Grande Valley and that was our summer vacation- a long weekend in South Texas.

As we prepared for the kids to go to their grandparents’ house in San Antonio in August I realized the summer was already over. I was tasked with buying uniforms and school supplies to prepare.

So here we are, practically on the eve of the first day of school. We are crossing over into new territory this year. Seth will be starting middle school and Miranda high school. I feel like the mother (Patricia Arquette) in the movie “Boyhood” when she says, “You know what I’m realizing? My life is just going to go. Like that. This series of milestones.”

I don’t want to say, “I just thought there would be more.”

I want to be able to say, “There was so much in life and I got all that I could out of it.”

Here we are at the end of the summer and I wanted to go to the beach this weekend. We had the rain at the beginning then weeks and weeks of extreme heat with no rain. So wouldn’t you know that it’s been raining this week? 

It’s supposed to be overcast with scattered showers all weekend but I want to see if we can squeeze in one last beach visit on Sunday morning. I want to sit on the beach with a drink and the waves at my feet before heading back to the crazy schedule of the school year.

End of Summer, Looking for a Job or More Clients and Life's Adventures

I was looking back at some old posts on FB and I was talking about looking for a full time job or new clients in March! March people! It is now August. Where did the time go?

The summer is almost over. The kids are going back to school in 23 days. I am counting down the days because that is also my target day to either have a full time job or another awesome client to add to the client I have now. I work 15 hours a week for her and I want to add another client at 15-20 hours.

It has been a really great year and an extra summer when I think about it. We went to DC, Philly and NY last year. In May we took a quick trip to LA/San Diego and Disneyland.

But the best part was Friday night when I was sitting on the sofa watching "Brave" with my kids. My daughter snuggled up to me and asked if other daughters were as close to their mothers as she is to me. Priceless. That moment alone makes the entire year and 3 months I've been home so worth it hands down.

I didn't set out to take this much time off and I didn't think about what age the kids would be when I started this adventure but as the year went on I realized what a crucial age she was at. She turned into a teenager this year and she completed the most dangerous grade that either makes or breaks a teenager- 7th grade. That is such an important year in the development of a teenager and I was here for hers.

♥

In other news, the fabulous Marisa Treviño, publisher of the online journal Latina Lista contacted me to see if she could feature one of my dad's "Dicho a Day" once a week. I told her that of course she could. I was so touched and surprised when I saw that she actually wrote a story about us as an intro to featuring his dichos.

♥

I changed my Facebook cover photo to a fortune from a cookie that I got at the beginning of the summer. It reads, "Do what you love and the necessary resources will follow." I want to believe that so bad. I want to believe that writing, blogging, doing these videos with my dad and his dichos, and consulting with companies to help them succeed will pay the house note, put food on the table and pay for sports and clothes. I want to believe that.

I have a quote by Crafty Chica, Kathy Cano-Murillo on my lap top where she says that "the only sure way to make your dream come true is to make it a goal, research, take risks, take action etc..." and she reminds us that "the way to NOT make your dreams come true is to wait for it to one day fall in your lap." So true!  So the question I ask myself is, "WHAT am I doing to make my dreams come true?" Because so far I feel like I've wasted a lot of time on things that don't work. I realize that she also says that we have to "accept that rejection/change/adapting is part of the journey" and that we must "be open for alternative paths" but I can't help but feel like I've wasted so much precious time this year on following the wrong path.

Now I'm out of time and I have to go back to work full time.... That doesn't mean of course that I won't continue to follow my dreams. I will still keep writing and blogging. It just means that I wasn't able to make it happen in this one year that I was off. It's just something that is still meant for the future and I'm okay with that. I have to be.

Vacation Was Good and Now We Prepare for School

Very quick 10 minute blog. Vacation was fabulous with the good, the bad, and the ugly. I fell down twice, don't ask me how. Once I fell all by myself in my kitchen and the second time I fell at Baskin Robbins. Probably a message that I did not need to be eating ice cream.

That makes this Anne Taintor magnetic postcard even funnier now. I used it on my skirt! blog when I was getting ready to go on vacation.

I ran around town with the kids to the doctor, the dentist, the Children's Museum, and the Museum of Natural Science. Then we ended it with a fabulous 3 days at the beach. I absolutely LOOOVED that and will do it again one day. We rented a cute cute cute little hotel called The Breeze on Surfside. It faces the beach and we spent the entire day on Saturday on the beach. I have the tan to prove it.

I came back with a broken a/c in my SUV but that's fixed for now. I also found out that my little one has a bacteria in his tummy. Something we will have to treat for 14 days. FUN!! More on that later!

School shoppng is almost done, at least all the uniforms part. All we need are back packs and lunch kits now. I wonder if they sell lunch kits with a GPS inside for my little one. He is guaranteed to lose his lunch it at least twice in the school year.

This is the last weekend of our summer vacation and our 14th anniversary. Our last anniversary. Bittersweet...We are trying to decide if we should do anything. Maybe dinner with friends on Saturday.