Summer is almost over. Ready and not ready.

The fun thing about short term memory loss and all of my other cognitive issues is that I have no sense of time. I know, lots of you are gearing up to say, "Oh I have that problem too!" and stop. Just stop. I also had that issue pre-AFE but I'm telling you as someone on both sides of it that this is vastly different. For me the months and seasons go by and I'm constantly surprised by it, but then I can't remember anything. And again, it isn't anything like the memory loss you're thinking about, huge chunks of my life are gone completely. I can't even explain it enough to do it justice but I am certain I took for granted my ability to remember stupid things and I couldn't appreciate it.

So I find myself here, in mid-August and I don't remember what I've done this summer. I did decide I need to take more pictures of every day things because if I can't remember it, maybe photos would help me? I'm not sure.

Both kids have a square foot garden this summer and they are loving it. If you are interested in gardening, but in small doses I highly suggest you try this. My in-laws purchased this book for Jackson and it's a very basic how-to. Last summer his little square foot garden produced a LOT of stuff. His garden is divided into a grid for 12 different items so it's a fun experience to get your kids into gardening. His problem is he is so anxious to harvest his items and you can see by this picture he pulled his first carrot up a little prematurely. I swear, if you look REAL close you can see a tiny carrot. He thinks his tomatoes (two kinds!) and green beans are going to be ready soon. We'll see. I think dad needs to supervise.

Very slowly we have been re-doing our kitchen. We moved into this house in 2013 and didn't do anything. The walls only had a primer coat on them, the floor is gross, we had the pilgrim tiles on the wall, old lady curtains up, it was just super ugly. I will do a reveal post showing you the before and after as soon as we change the flooring. Right now we are kind of debating on what we're going to do. The floor needs to be the same in the kitchen, to the back hallway, and the downstairs bathroom, but I also want to do that flooring in the front porch so it's just not so mis-matchy every where. It's going to come down to cost and what Matt wants to install over what I think is pretty.

But before we do that, we have to start some kind of fencing in our yard. Our neighbor wants a fence too so I feel better about doing it. I didn't want to offend them or make them think I'm trying to ignore them, but he came over and mentioned it and I told him how relieved I am. I explained we need a fence to keep Penelope in the yard, I just can't run after her and it's too hard to be outside when she can run into the street. He totally understands and so him and Matt are going to figure out fencing and install it together, at least the fence that will go between our houses. It doesn't help me for this summer, but that means NEXT summer we can be outside more. And I'll feel not so on edge.

I do know most of my free time, not just this summer but always, has gone to doing laundry. My family, bless their hearts, have a terrible habit of throwing things into the hamper they just don't want to put away. Matt's guilty, the kids' are guilty, it's awful. Nothing send me over the edge like finding still folded items in my damn hamper. If you see me on an episode of Snapped, that will be why.

As summer comes to an end, it feels as busy as the school year. Olivia has a dance recital in a couple of weeks, and she has started cheerleading already. Jackson is finished with tennis camps this week but brought me a flyer for October-December lessons, which are going to be $100. That's actually not bad but it's only one time a week so I feel like that's kind of spendy? I don't know. I know I don't have $100 but he really likes it and I'm so grateful for him to have found "a thing" that I'm going to try really hard to pay for this and get him there.

I go to the Mayo Clinic at the end of this month and I'm not looking forward to it. I feel like a human pincushion. Olivia and I are going to the technology meeting at the middle school and things are starting to get rolling for that and I think the nerves are setting in for her. I'm SO nervous for her. I think I am more nervous about sending her to middle school than I was to send her to kindergarten. She turns 12 on the first day of school so I have to figure out what I'm going to do for her birthday. I basically feel like life is rolling along and I'm slowly losing the ability to keep up.