Weekly Hodgepodge (On A Friday)

If all goes according to plan, Sam and I arrived home very early this morning (like 3:30am) and are still sleeping while you're reading this. Hopefully, our flight was smooth. *fingers crossed!* I'm linking up, a few days late, with Joyce at From This Side Of the Pond for the Weekly Hodgepodge. Find Joyce here.

1. What's something on your August calendar you're looking forward to? Or dreading if that's easier to answer. 

Even though it's later than usual this year, I always dread my first week back at work after summer break. Only the secretaries are required to return two weeks before school starts so I'm alone in the building (except for the custodians who work all summer). I'm able to ease into my work days but it's much better the second week when the principal and the librarian (and eventually the teachers) return. I really do appreciate that I get a significant break from work in the summers as I know so many people don't, but I wish all educational staff had the same breaks. 

2. August 5th is National Oyster Day...do you partake? How do you feel about pearls?

I've never had an oyster, and honestly, I'm not really inclined to try them. I have a set of pearls which I got when Dave's grandma died and they are really special to me. I should find more occasions to wear them as they're very sentimental.

3. Tell us about a time when you felt like 'the world was your oyster'.

I looked up the meaning of this phrase and it means, "a time when you felt anything was possible." I think for me, that time was pre-Covid. Our province was locked down for so long during Covid (almost a year and a half) and, once that ended, the kids were pre-teens and just needed different things from us. Plus, both Dave and I were working full-time and it just meant we had less time.

In January 2020, we went on a cruise with my parents and we were all so carefree. It was just so fun! Then we came home to school strikes, which led to disrupted school and work schedules, and then Covid hit.

4. Trip Advisor lists seven islands in the US that require no passport (for US citizens). If you're answering today from outside the US you'll still need to produce yours. An-y-way, have you been to any of the seven? Let's pretend you get an all expense paid trip to one this month...which one do you choose and why? 

Catalina Island California~Martha's Vineyard Massachusetts~Mackinac Island Michigan~Key West Florida~South Padre Island Texas~or Kauai Hawaii

We visited Key West on our first Disney Cruise and loved it, although our time there was short. We *almost* made it to Kauai with my parents, but then my mom had some health issues and we had to cancel our trip three weeks before it happened. While I'd still love to visit Hawaii, I think of all of these, I'm most intrigued by Mackinac Island. A place with no cars?!!?!? Sign me up! Since Mackinac is not all that far from us, this might even be a possible vacation some day. I'm also intrigued by Martha's Vineyard, which again, is not all that far from us.

5. Sylvia Plath is credited with the following- 

"August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time."

Agree or disagree? In other words, how do you feel about this month?

In the weekly newsletter from the synagogue, our rabbi included this quote from Dr. Kate Bowler:

Bless you who still have popsicles to drip, tomatoes to slice, books to leave facedown for just a minute longer, and evenings that don't yet know they are numbered.

May you resist the annual migration toward freshly sharpened pencils, color-coded calendars, and the familiar lie that next month deserves more of your attention than the one still sitting in front of you.

Bless you who linger over one more meal outside, one more chorus of cicadas, one more porch sit, trusting that ordinary rituals are already a life well lived.

May you savor what remains before you begin rehearsing what comes next, because August has always been generous with those willing to stay exactly where they are for just a little while longer.

I have a habit of rushing through August; it's one of my least favourite months. However, this quote reminds me that there is still a lot of good to soak up in August. So I'm going to try and do that this month. Instead of seeing it as "the Sunday of the year," as Sam once referred to it, I'm going to try and see it as still full of lots of good things yet to come; lots of things still to savor.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I'm finishing this post, sitting in the airport in Saskatoon. Our original flight was cancelled, due to maintenance issues, and now our rescheduled flight is delayed by an hour. As I mentioned above, if all goes according to plan, Sam and I will have made it home by 3:30am. Travel is such a privilege, but also irritating when things don't go according to plan...

So those are my hodgepodge thoughts... I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with our house today! I've been away from home for almost three weeks!