August 2009

Both kids’ camps end. Grace is devastated by the prospect of no cafeteria trips for ten months. Whit seems unfazed.

Ethel Kennedy Shriver and Ted Kennedy both die; for some reason I am surprisingly affected by both of their passing.

I turn 35 and am none too psyched about it.

Bloggy friends start a provocative conversation about what we really want. This makes me think about how little I know what the answer to that is for me. Eek.

I have dinner with one of my college roommates who is in town from London. Such a treat to have an uninterrupted evening with her, and we both laugh and fight tears more than once in the course of a dinner.

I start really thinking hard about the challenges and joys of being fully present in our lives.

We spend a week in Vermont, a few days with Grandma and Grandpa and a few days on Lake Champlain. Then we have a few days in Marion for an end-of-summer vacation. Labor Day was so late this year that the last week of the summer was really the first week of September, and I felt keenly aware of it being fall already.

Kathryn and Eloise come down to Marion the day before my birthday for a swim, really great to see them both.

The annual Marion Book Sale is a huge hit, as usual. Where else can you buy 50 books for $15? And what better way to round out the Berenstain Bears and Magic Treehouse collections?

The most stunning sunset I can remember was the backdrop for a last-day-of-August dusk swim with friends in Wareham. It makes me shiver to remember the colors as the sun went down on the summer.

I read Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan, After You by Julie Buxbaum, How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely, World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler, Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje, and Time of my Life by Allison Winn Scotch.