Please Summer, Don’t Go

I am fighting the end of summer in the worst way. I wait all year for it to get here –plan as much travel, camp, eating warm just picked tomatoes, not waking up before the sun, lazing around as I can fit into the months Carter is out of school. Meetings don’t happen, or if I want to skip them I can use the “it’s summer excuse,” the phone does not ring, e-mails are more junk than requests for actual work, everyone is forgiving.

Last week Carter started back at school, but I still was in denial. It had been a big summer, Africa, Maine, Baltimore, Washington, Hamilton, Mass. Carter had five weeks of camp, we had a week of family camp and three days at Warren’s Maine HoJo’s retreat. I got nothing done at home. Piles of to-do chores continued to build up. Magazine work sat on my computer. Cars in need of inspections sat in the driveway unchecked. Requests lay in my in-box unanswered, even invitations to probably really fun parties went un–RSVP’d to which is a major pet peeve, except in the summer.

Since going to Maine I let my walking get cut in half to 10,000 steps a day so that I might actually get something productive done with the last few days of summer. All that happened is that I walked less. No closets were cleaned out, or clothes taken to consignment even though they did actually move from the ottoman in our bed room to laundry baskets by the garage door months ago.

Now all my desks both standing and sitting are full of piles of things like Carter’s Honor Camper certificate and trip itineraries from our safaris so I can have a reference when I actually get around to finishing our Africa photo book. I owe e-mails with pictures of all the friends we made on our travels who I promised I would send pictures to. But nothing is happening because my mind is still in summer mode with no end in sight.

I extended summer a little by driving the Cheerio reunion gang to Charlotte this weekend and taking a mini alone vacation in which I intended to actually get some work done. The only problem is I had too much fun on that overnight because Charlotte friends read my blog I posted at 7:00 that night and invited me to have dinner with them at the last minute. How could I say no, and why would I, it was still summer in my mind and the heat proved it.

Here is the problem. Summer is over. I need to start looking at my calendar a few days ahead and see what I am supposed to be doing rather than a few days after and see what I have missed. Today at noon I opened the freezer in the garage and was reminded that I was in charge of the vegetarian entrée and the delivery of a friend’s cake at a church new members dinner that was held last night. Being a summer slacker as an excuse is going to start to wear thin.

So I offer this blog as my blanket apology if I have owed you something, missed a meeting, or thank you note. I may make it back into the land of the super organized, over achieving, pain-in-the-asses, but then again, maybe not. I really like summer.