It’s Friday night, but not just any Friday night: it’s the Friday night of a long weekend. Monday is the bonus day, during which I hope to achieve nearly total inertness…Or is that inertitude?
After weeks of long weeks–the two Great Printer Projects beating down on me, along with all that the normal part of the job requires–it will be nice to have that extra day to use to just try to recharge. I’ve said it all along, though: these projects are very good things professionally, and I’m not complaining about having to do them. They’re just tiring, even though I seem to really “get” printing and enjoy what I do with them.
School preparations are the order of the weekend. Shopping was completed this evening, and I’ll admit that it was a bit odd: for the first year ever, Patrick didn’t have a supplies list provided by the school. I know, I know…He’s in high school now, they expect the kids to be ready and will tell them what additional items they’ll need. But it was still strange to wander through the store with just a list of the girls’ needs in hand.
This weekend is the last of the trifecta of summer ending events: you’ve got the State Fair, Patrick’s birthday, and Labor Day weekend. After that last milestone, it’s all normal, or at least the normal that comes from the family all being back to a fixed schedule day after day. It’s those seventy two hours of summer that will give way on Tuesday to “Fall,” even though it isn’t.
I’ve decided that either I’m getting old, or I’m anxious to just get on with things, because it seems like summer just started, or at least the part of the summer that marked the kids being home every day and not having school. Today seems too soon after Patrick took his servant trip to Chicago, experiencing his first truly “big city.” This weekend seems to be following too closely after going on an afternoon swimming trip with the girls, Patrick, Jenni, and my parents. Just seventy two hours remain before all of the memories of the summer are placed in the memory box in my head with everything else marked “last summer.”
I’m looking forward to the year: Jenni’s one step closer to getting her master’s degree. The girls are fifth(!!!) graders at a school that is being remade right under their feet, giving us a lot of things to think about for them for the future. And Patrick…Well, you’ve heard all about that situation.
By next summer, hopefully the Great Printer Projects will have finished successfully, and I’ll have gotten the promotion that they qualify me for. Hopefully the kids will be that much smarter, more well-rounded, and larger. And hopefully, Jenni will continue to find God’s calling to be what she wants. I don’t doubt any of it, it’s just where things should be on the other end of the school year: the part bracketed by Memorial Day weekend–seventy two more hours to rest and transition.
Enjoy your weekend.
See you tomorrow.








Tonight’s movie: Born Romantic, a fun, slightly confusing, romantic comedy. Sort of…