Finale

Summer winds down for all of us this week. The theme is transition and novelty. The kids' school voted to be a school uniform school, so the kids purchased matching polo shirts and kakis. A fourth grader. Maxim is nervous, anticipatory. The buzz among her peers is that the rubber really hits the road in the fourth grade. No more cruise control. No more easy homework. Everything up to now has been a dry run, going through the motions. The learning start now. So she's understandably nervous. But we're sure she'll do fine. Noah, the second child, the seven year old boy, has some idea that school starts on Tuesday, and will more than likely do just as fine as he did last year. But today there is no school and so he's not going to put his mind on such distant future matters. Marcela begins school this week as well. The textbooks are purchased and her nerves as well are turned up a little more as she breezes her way through the restoration of a blue print for a Lakeland client and then offers the last touches to our back yard restoration project, stringing cross rope for the climbers on the trellis and raking eucalyptus leaves into the trenches left by our former driveway. Depending on a few contingencies, we may get the planters filled and under way today (planting season begins now in this climate region) and may also finally paint the fascia along the roof. I learned this week that I won the 2010 Oscar Winther Award for my first published essay, which lifted everyone's spirits and provided the needed elixir for the final push on the book.

As much as we complain, sometimes, about this maddening heap of sand they call the Sunshine State, there are perks and benefits that cannot be denied. Many summer evenings, one need only step out the front door and look west.