You can feel the end of summer in the air.  It was 46 degrees out this morning at 5:30 when Katie the dog decided she MUST have a walk outside.  Bits of leaves are beginning to turn.  Tomatoes are green and aching for that last bit of summer heat to turn red, I hope they (and we) get some.

As I rode the bus into work yesterday I noted that students are beginning to move back into Ann Arbor.  Roads are busier, sidewalks more full, bus drivers impatient.  I see young people sitting at the sidewalk cafes with others that can only be parents, enjoying the sunshine and their first few days at school, their last few days as a kid with mom or dad.  I don’t remember those days.  I think my folks just dropped my stuff outside the dorm and said a hasty goodbye before they rushed back to the other three kids waiting at home.  I think the transition for me was much more abrupt.

I spent a week this month with my sister wading in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron at the tip of the lower peninsula under the Big Mac bridge where we camped as a family back in the 70’s.  She and I also explored Petosky and Charlevoix and Traverse City.  We shopped till we dropped on this trip and have our Christmas shopping pretty well done. 

So now vacation time is done, school is starting.  I feel like a kid again, waiting anxiously for that first day of school.  This summer has felt like those summers so long ago.  An endless summer with enough activities to keep me happy and interested but enough free time to lounge around and realize how lucky I am as well.  An endless summer I won’t soon forget

Now…do I get to go shopping for school clothes?