I can­not believe that sum­mer is near­ing its end. How did that hap­pen? I sup­pose the travel and the manic sched­ule might have some­thing to do with it.

I had so much I wanted to get done this sum­mer before I am swamped again with school and the daily grind.

But, here we are, sit­ting at the end of August, with the list of projects still mostly untouched. Does that ever hap­pen to you? Lofty plans left undone?

I guess I have a list of excuses as long as my to-do list: a three-week vaca­tion to Cal­i­for­nia {which was AMAZING}, fam­ily camp, com­pany in and out all sum­mer in between our trips, catch­ing up on my busi­ness orders, soak­ing up the sun with the kids before we are stuck indoors again due to snow and cold…

How­ever, this past week­end, my amaz­ing daugh­ter in law came to spend a few days with me while our hus­bands were rough­ing it in the untamed Alaska on Mon­tague Island. We tack­led my laun­dry room. I think it took us about 10 hours together and 1287 trash bags to get through it. It was our own per­sonal Haz­ardous Jour­ney.

Seri­ously, where did all that junk come from? To be fair, my laun­dry room isn’t a single-purpose room. It is the col­lec­tive closet of all the chil­dren. It con­tains the bulk of my linens. I also have all of my craft­ing items stored in there. From 1987 to today. We laughed so hard at all my old sewing pat­terns. Remem­ber the 80s and 90s with the huge col­lars? Yup. I had pat­terns for those. And the Prairie dresses. Not sure why I had those. I don’t remem­ber wear­ing any of that stuff. Maybe I have blot­ted it out of my mem­ory. Let’s not dig up the old photo albums, okay? While I took many things to Good­will today, I threw out the pat­terns. I thought I would be kind to soci­ety and not let those stay in cir­cu­la­tion. We ought to learn from our past, right? And not des­tine oth­ers to make the same mis­takes we {may have} made.

And now my laun­dry room sits in its beau­ti­ful mag­nif­i­cent glory. I used a label maker. Do you have one? They should come with a warn­ing: Cau­tion! The use of this machine is highly addic­tive. Keep small chil­dren away or they may end up labeled along with the pat­terns and fab­ric and zip­pers! {Yes, I have a label for my zip­pers. I am *that* orga­nized now.}

So, beloved Sarah went home on Tues­day with her hus­band safely returned from the wilds. And the bug had bit­ten me. Hard.

I tack­led the school room. I can be down­right vio­lent when it comes to throw­ing stuff out. You would never know in my nor­mal daily life. But, another 672 trash bags later,  a label machine smok­ing in the back­ground, and I have a pris­tine school room.

The lit­tle girls were giddy. After the fact. They were very ner­vous to come any­where near me dur­ing the process. Not sure if they thought I’d throw them out with the other heaps of things or if I’d put them to work on some project that looked like it might take up all their free time. Hmmm. They did help. Just with caution.

But, as the room came together again, they were so excited. I kept hear­ing cheers and excla­ma­tions to the effect of “I can’t wait to start school!!” and “Hey! This is where our Latin goes! Mom has a label right there!” Yes, I’m doing Latin with all three girls this year. Should be fun.  Right? I look for­ward to watch­ing Faith tackle it. She already thinks she can speak French. {She can’t. She says nor­mal things in a French accent. Makes us laugh. The usual.}

So we are going to start school next week at some point. We have com­pany com­ing on Mon­day for a few days. Our Eng­lish Irish friends are send­ing rein­force­ments. We have the great joy of hav­ing their old­est son and his lovely wife com­ing to visit. And then I believe we will start school. I don’t think I have any­thing else on the cal­en­dar to give us a good excuse to delay any longer.

So, so long, Sum­mer. You were fab­u­lous this year. We will soak up the fad­ing rays of sun while we can until you join us again in all your glory next year. Thanks for the memories!

Top Photo credit: A.Moltini / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA