I’d Walk Around on the Surface of the Sun for a Good Piece of Junk

Wow, are we actually halfway through 2018? Yesterday my calendar told me it was July and I thought the heat must really be getting to me because that doesn’t seem possible.  How can it be July already when I haven’t gotten any of my summer projects started yet?! That’s usually my measuring stick…..how the projects are going tells me what day it is.  But since the house fire it’s been impossible to really know if I’m coming or going.  Not to mention a lot of travel lately, which always throws my internal calendar way off.  If you’d asked me yesterday morning what day it felt like I would have said sometime in 2012.

But alas I know it’s 2018 because my youngest child is 11 today.  Yes, I said my youngest!  When you’re in the thick of babies and all that comes with you think it will never happen.  You think that the life cycle of changing diapers and never being able to leave the house without extreme preparations is going to last forever.  Then one day the calendar tells you it’s the middle of 2018 and your youngest child is 11 and you could probably just go to the store right this minute if you wanted to without even saying goodbye to anyone.  And you wonder how you got here.  And you can’t decide if you’re happy about it or not.  It’s sad that the kids grow up, but the whole leaving the house when you want thing is pretty sweet.

I should have realized it was July when I nearly had a heat stroke last Friday while flea market shopping in Canton, TX.  My 11 year old and I decided to stop there “kind of” on our way home from Dallas.  He loves old junky stuff like his mom and we were so close and we really didn’t think about the 105° temps.  It was basically like walking around on the surface of the sun.  But totally worth the slight dizziness and nausea because we nabbed a cool old car part to hang over his bed.  He also had to wear my extra pair of sunglasses and tolerate all of the old ladies telling him how “cute” he looked.  There’s no price too high to pay for a great piece of junk.

At one point we were strolling through some shaded areas trying to cool off and I saw some old red lockers.  I have a thing for lockers so I suggested we buy them for his room.  “Why would we buy THAT?” he asked.  I looked longingly at the lockers and told him, “Because it would look so perfect in that one spot and would give us extra storage and things like this really add character to a room.”  He stared at me and replied dryly, “Well don’t you think the things you put in MY room should reflect MY character?”  Apparently he doesn’t have the same passion for lockers that I do.  Bummer.

One thing I sure was glad I had with me for our flea market outing was my peppermint oil.  I did actually start feeling ill from the heat and needed to cool off.  We got some ice and sat in the shade for a while, but I really wasn’t recovering well.  I remembered I had a bottle of peppermint so I opened it and kept holding it to my nose and smelling it.  I would have added it to my water if I wasn’t drinking from a styrofoam cup.  Never put oils in styrofoam or plastic.  If that’s your only option just smell them.  Or put a drop in your hand and breathe it in.  The peppermint really helped perk me up and we managed to do a little more surface of the sun shopping before heading home.

Since all of the other kids will be gone this week, Levi and I are planning to do some b-day celebrating and get his room put all back together.  I’ll try to share pics with y’all soon!  The whole house is in a state of “almost done” and if I could get just one room finished it would really help me feel like that project measuring stick will someday work again.

So that’s me.  What’s happening in your world this summer???