Summer's End

Summer has come to an official end, here, today. The last weeks have been full - starting school, adjusting to new routines, planning and organising for my teaching year (piano, recorder and bible study).

Emily has settled right in to high school life, and at her camp tried all sorts of exciting new things including sailing and giant rope swings, which she never would have attempted in the past. She was glad to come home, though, and we were glad to have her home with us again!

Laura surprised us all by announcing that she was going to enter the 50m backstroke race at the school swimming carnival, she's not a great swimmer so she's never swum 50m before, but after a practice at the pool with Daddy she was ready, and I watched proudly as she swam steadily to the finish line, knowing that it was a harder race for her than for many of the other swimmers that day.

In February we've had ...
... hot days and cold days; humid days and stormy days ... tomatoes growing and piled up on the kitchen bench and zucchinis shriveled outside in the heat ... days of rinsing out swimming costumes and days of relaxing in the airconditioning ... days with delicious dinners and days where we were glad to have something easy out of the freezer ... days when the house was almost completely tidy and days when it looked like a bomb had hit... days when I sat quiet and tired and days when I was filled with energy and decluttered for hours at a time.

Laura has a new Irish Dancing teacher and a new flute teacher and a new school teacher, and Emily has the same saxophone teacher but of course all new teachers to get to know at high school. Steve has been in his new job now for almost 2 months, and has gotten used to the train/bus combination each morning and evening. I've almost gotten used to our early starts with Steve leaving at 7.20 and some days we girls beat him out the door to rush to band or choir.

And so tomorrow is a cooler day for the start of autumn, we've just had a thunderstorm here. I don't expect life to change dramatically in March, but I do hope to cope with it all a bit better now that I've got things running with my students.

And also ... tomorrow I will be working on a big project, which I'll post about soon!