The End of Summer

Today is the first day of school in Texas, and that includes Hicksville. I made a point of getting up a full TWENTY minutes earlier than usual to make sure the boys were up and ready in time to get to school before the bell rang, and still managed to be 25 minutes late to work. Of course, that was thanks to the lovely road construction around Big University where I work. I do wish they would tell us ahead of time that they are taking out a *major* section of my normal route to work. Sheesh.

I will be a nervous wreck this afternoon, as they are taking the bus home for the first time since the move, and I've totally convinced they will somehow get on the wrong bus and get left in the middle of nowhere and it'll take me days to track 'em down. I hope E remembered to take his cell phone. I know - it's silly. I mean really, when I called to find out what bus they need to ride home, I was told it was bus 3. THREE. Even when I went to school in AlmostHicksville right outside of Big Town, the buses had more numbers in them! So it's not like they have too much of a chance of getting lost in the multitudes. But still.

You just never know.

I just hope they are not traumatized by their lack of actual trapper keepers that they were to have today. I sent them off at the WalMart to track one down, and last night discovered what they came back with was not a trapper keeper, but rather some kind of expanding file folder thing that just will not do. Unfortunately, before I could give them the lecture about sticking to what the school supply list says, we discovered I had purchased two each of several colors of the WRONG folders that were listed. There goes *that* life lesson, eh?

After all the fun we had procuring school supplies, I decided that I had entirely too many ripe tomatoes and made a batch of hot sauce to can. Once again, despite following my grandma's directions *exactly* - I ended up with 5 pints instead of 8. I have no idea why, but it happens every time. I also decided to put on the big girl panties and cut up my own jalepenos instead of making the hubby do it, then spent the rest of the evening trying to stop the burning fires of hell that was underneath my finger nails, and not rub my eyes at any time. This even after coating my hands in olive oil before starting to cut them up. Hmph. Next time M can do that. Because that was not fun. At all.

Last weekend I attempted making dill pickles. They certainly *look* like they'll taste yummy, but I'm too chicken to open them up and taste them. I think I'll wait until our friends come out and get one of them to taste test them for me. Preferably P. As a former hockey player, I'm pretty sure he'll pretty much eat anything.

The cantaloupe finally ripened and we've been enjoying those for the last couple of weeks. Sadly, one of our vines just died and we don't know why, so I'm hoping the other two manage to stay alive until the fruits on their vines ripen up. We also have about eleventy billion watermelons to eat now. I'm thinking we'll be leaving some of those with the yellow squash in any unlocked cars we come across.

Drat - we went to church in Hicksville yesterday, and I forget to check the cars. No wonder I still have that squash!

I did manage to write out a menu plan, but I forgot to look at it this morning before coming to work, so I'll post that tomorrow. It's the first week of classes here at Big University as well, so I had better get some work done. I'm thinking this grad students are getting a little cranky waiting for their fee waivers to show up.

Y'all have a great week!