a farewell to summer

happy first day of autumn my friends – the day of the autumnal equinox.  and as if on cue, the weather in my neck of the woods seems to have finally gotten the memo…  the past couple of days have been extraordinary.

i went over to my girlfriend kim’s house friday evening with a couple other friends, and there the four of us shared the last two bottles of her summer rosé… a perfect way to sort of bid farewell to summer.

look back and reflecting on some of my original intentions for the summer, this connection (along with many other things) was one of my hopes. and in addition to friday night, there were so many other moments of complete magic this summer.

for the most part, i feel like i did a pretty good job of documenting it here on my blog and celebrating it in photos, so i won’t bore you with a reprise.

so now i could just end this blog post right here….share a few more photos and that would be the end of the story.  and you might might gather that indeed our summer was a wonderful season full of family and friendship.  magical moments and wonderful adventures.   and that my friends would be 100% true.  and a couple of years ago i probably would have done just that.

but the thing is…. it’s not the whole story.  because in addition to all the wonderful things i had hoped for, there were many things that didn’t go as planned.  things that were unexpected.  things that got away from me.

so for instance there’s the usual frustrations as in dogs who love to dig.

and then here is the current state of my vegetable garden.  i pretty much gave up on it around the end of july.  i always have such high hopes that i’m going to grow all these tomatoes and can a bunch of homemade salsa….yeah…that hasn’t happened.

i’ve also got this hideous vine.

i just cannot seem to keep it under control.  i’ll go out there and pull it all out and within a week it’s right back again choking my zinnias.

and then there’s the sad state of my crape myrtles.

usually crape myrtles are the one thing that can take the summer heat and drought.  but because of the weird summer weather, before they even bloomed they were covered in aphids.  and so we sprayed and sprayed.  and then now they have some kind of weird powdery mildew or something.  so that was kind of disappointing to not have this summer beauty in full bloom this year.

oh and then there was this colossal fail….

earlier this summer i decided to get down and dirty with the weeds growing up in the monkey grass along our sidewalk.  well in my zeal to remove the grass, i accidentally punctured the sprinkler line that runs along this strip.  so now i have only weeds and no bermuda grass.  way to go there missy.

now to me, all of this kind of sounds whiny…which is part of the reason i rarely post stuff like this.  but i thought it was important to show you the other side of the coin.  share with you the proof of my very ordinary, real, not-so-perfect life.

in the spirit of full disclosure, there were other things this summer…things that did not go planned.  unexpected bumps in the road.  personal trials and big challenges…heartache and tears.  but now, with a little time and some distance from those difficult days, a new perspective if you will, i am able to put them into context with the bigger story of my life.  which truth be told, is what i spent a fair amount of this summer doing.

so as i bid farewell to summer today, of course i am thankful for all the beauty and the magic.  but i am also thankful for some difficult lessons learned.  so thankful for my parents.  thankful to my family and friends.  thankful for my faith which has been the key to this good place i am in my life right now.

so as i look forward to fall, i am thankful for a new way of seeing things.

and as always, thank you for letting me share.  love,  kelly