The End of Summer
The dog days of summer are coming to an end and I can't say that I am not happy about it. I am the type of person that tries to turn lemons into lemonade but lately all I have been coming up with is lemons in a glass with no water. When I was little we never really had the money to take real family vacations like to Disneyland, or Disney World, or even the water parks. For the most part we did local things with my grandmother like going to the local parks and going to free city events and playing with the cousins and having make shift spur of the moments picnics in the front yard. My grandmother was one of those people who would find you something to do for free and then take you to the places to do it. My dad died when I was young so it was just my mom, sister, and brother. My mom wasn't really into those things finding stuff for us to do she was more homebody type when she wasn't working and we accepted it and spent as much time as we could with Nana.
When I had my son almost 11 years ago I wanted to have some family vacations with him but well, it didn't exactly turn out that way. One summer, about two or three summers ago before my mom got sick we did a tour of the local parks as I called it and every week we would go to a park and he would play and swing and slide and have fun. I think that summer we went to about two dozen parks before the summer was over. We also went to a couple of free things around the city and a couple of Farmer's markets. I figured that those were things we could do for free and spend time together. Plus my nephew would drive us and my sister would come too so it was kind of a family thing too.
This summer has been different. My mom had a stroke, two strokes, last summer in August and then again in February and then a broken hip in the middle of all of that and so we have been taking care of her and more or less home bound except for the necessary errands and trips to the stores and pharmacies to pick up meds. My son plays with the neighborhood kids whom all think that one day they will all end up in the NFL and be highly paid football players because they go to football practice a couple of hours per day. So, for the most part they play football in the street all day long or until someone gets tired and yells that they are no longer playing because someone is cheating or someone threw the ball wrong or some other complaint that only kids could think of.
After a while, the noise and their is a lot of it drives me nuts. I am not sure if it drives me nuts because I am getting older and getting less tolerate to noise or the fact that you can hear them in three counties. And that is no lie. And the fact that their parents hardly ever check on them when all the screaming and battling over balls and who cheated at what game and eventually someone ends up in tears or stomping up stairs and slamming doors. When my son is gets tired I bring him in the house for a break. Of course that doesn't stop the outside noise of screaming and arguing between the remaining kids but it does give me a break too from getting up to see what the commotion is all about outside. There is no deep chair sitting. These are the days I wish for a backyard where he can play and I can go back there and relax and put my mom out there with us and sip iced tea. We have lived backyard less for about 8 years now. Given the choice I would like to have one.I miss the smell of flowers and the leaves of the trees and watching the leaves change colors in the fall and I miss the BBQ's that you can only have in a backyard setting and I even miss uncomfortable lawn chairs that my Nana used to make us drag out from her basement every Memorial Day and Labor Day for our picnics at her house.
I have tried to make peace with our current situation. Which I am not really complaining about because a lot of people are worse off then we are and we have been worse off then now but I am always wanting better. I guess better in the sense of being comfortable in a home. A home not a house. We had a home once a long time ago, well, 8 years ago. It was my grandmother's home and it felt like home not a house that was just rented until you move to another place. I am not sure if a home will come our way again with everything becoming more unaffordable daily. We were lucky in a sense to find this place when we did because if we didn't we would be paying twice as much rent or possibly three times as much. That I am very grateful for.
Well, soon the kids will be back in school for the next 9 months or so and the neighborhood will become quieter until at least 3pm and it will be back to homeschooling for us and the house will be the same and as good as it gets for now. We will take some walks around the neighborhood and try to find the beauty that is all around us that we otherwise miss.
When I had my son almost 11 years ago I wanted to have some family vacations with him but well, it didn't exactly turn out that way. One summer, about two or three summers ago before my mom got sick we did a tour of the local parks as I called it and every week we would go to a park and he would play and swing and slide and have fun. I think that summer we went to about two dozen parks before the summer was over. We also went to a couple of free things around the city and a couple of Farmer's markets. I figured that those were things we could do for free and spend time together. Plus my nephew would drive us and my sister would come too so it was kind of a family thing too.
This summer has been different. My mom had a stroke, two strokes, last summer in August and then again in February and then a broken hip in the middle of all of that and so we have been taking care of her and more or less home bound except for the necessary errands and trips to the stores and pharmacies to pick up meds. My son plays with the neighborhood kids whom all think that one day they will all end up in the NFL and be highly paid football players because they go to football practice a couple of hours per day. So, for the most part they play football in the street all day long or until someone gets tired and yells that they are no longer playing because someone is cheating or someone threw the ball wrong or some other complaint that only kids could think of.
After a while, the noise and their is a lot of it drives me nuts. I am not sure if it drives me nuts because I am getting older and getting less tolerate to noise or the fact that you can hear them in three counties. And that is no lie. And the fact that their parents hardly ever check on them when all the screaming and battling over balls and who cheated at what game and eventually someone ends up in tears or stomping up stairs and slamming doors. When my son is gets tired I bring him in the house for a break. Of course that doesn't stop the outside noise of screaming and arguing between the remaining kids but it does give me a break too from getting up to see what the commotion is all about outside. There is no deep chair sitting. These are the days I wish for a backyard where he can play and I can go back there and relax and put my mom out there with us and sip iced tea. We have lived backyard less for about 8 years now. Given the choice I would like to have one.I miss the smell of flowers and the leaves of the trees and watching the leaves change colors in the fall and I miss the BBQ's that you can only have in a backyard setting and I even miss uncomfortable lawn chairs that my Nana used to make us drag out from her basement every Memorial Day and Labor Day for our picnics at her house.
I have tried to make peace with our current situation. Which I am not really complaining about because a lot of people are worse off then we are and we have been worse off then now but I am always wanting better. I guess better in the sense of being comfortable in a home. A home not a house. We had a home once a long time ago, well, 8 years ago. It was my grandmother's home and it felt like home not a house that was just rented until you move to another place. I am not sure if a home will come our way again with everything becoming more unaffordable daily. We were lucky in a sense to find this place when we did because if we didn't we would be paying twice as much rent or possibly three times as much. That I am very grateful for.
Well, soon the kids will be back in school for the next 9 months or so and the neighborhood will become quieter until at least 3pm and it will be back to homeschooling for us and the house will be the same and as good as it gets for now. We will take some walks around the neighborhood and try to find the beauty that is all around us that we otherwise miss.
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