5. Daniel and I are celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary this September.
4. I had to have my first mammogram.
3. I'm starting my 16th year of teaching. That’s more than halfway to retirement.
2. Sara is starting middle school this year.
1. I just got the invitation to my 20th high school reunion.
It's not that I mind getting older, but did all of these things have to happen at once to drive the point home? And where did all of the time go? I'm not sure any of us can answer that one. It's eaten up with doing laundry, driving kids to soccer practices, making dinner, grading papers, etc. One reason I started the blog is to help me remember all those little moments that make up the year so it doesn't just become a blur.
Friday, the kids and I took advantage of the tax holiday to do some of the much-needed back-to-school shopping. We spent the whole day roaming around the stores and people-watching. We played a fun game of spot the ladies with the zebra purses. Have you seen these things? They're black and white zebra-patterned leather (possibly pleather..haven't gotten up-close to tell) with straps and trim in green, pink, and blue. The three of us find spotting them as much fun in the stores as playing punch-bug is while driving down the road. If I remember correctly, we saw five of them on Friday alone.
Anyway, some stores had good sales - we got great deals on Owen's soccer gear for this season. Other stores were craftier in their marketing. For example, the week before we had been shopping and there was a good sale on jeans for both the kids at one of our usual shops so I bought them both a couple of pair. On Friday, this store promoted a BOGO sale, but when I calculated the purchase, I had gotten a much better deal the week before. The lesson here is an item may have a BOGO sign and still not be a good deal.
The most hilarious part of the day was a stop at our favorite big box store. We were shopping away when the power went out! There we were completely in the dark. All the shoppers in the store got silent. It was dark for maybe a minute and the power came back on - business as usual, except for the PA announcement that it takes 5 minutes for the registers to reboot. We shopped for awhile longer until the lines at the register diminished and then we decided to checkout. I had the pen in mid-air ready to finalize my debit card purchase when ... the power went out AGAIN!!!! This time it was out for about two minutes. My purchase hadn't been finalized so we had to unbag all the items and start all over. Thankfully, everyone seemed to keep their patience. I didn't see anyone making a scene. I still haven't heard what happened. There wasn't a storm and the traffic light at the entrance was still working so it must have been isolated to that store. Anyway, it made for a memorable day. I'm sure we'll all be saying "remember the time..." whenever we shop there in the future.
This summer has been filled with lots of fun - baseball games, family get-togethers, vacation, miniature golf, movies, and just laughs with each other, but this past week has brought us a different sort of adventure - life without air conditioning! Our tempermental heat pump (only 4 years old) has gone out once again. In the past, it has gone out at the beginning of the season before the weather got too hot. This time, it waited until mid-summer. Thankfully, it wasn't during those 100 degree days in June, though! The unit for the bonus room still works so we're spending lots of time there and we're trying to divert as much of that cool air downstairs as possible. We've also got lots of fans going so if you call the house and it sounds like we're in a wind tunnel... we are! The repairman is supposed to arrive today. We are praying it will be an easy fix and our days in the wind tunnel will be over.
