Turning over leaves

It's only the first week of September, but already the maples are turning and the mornings feel more crisp than sultry. The time of year when I seem to be carrying around a sweater everywhere, burdensome most of the time but so handy when its needed.

Ian goes back to school tomorrow. Took him for his non-medicated blood test today so that in a few weeks he can have another test after he's been back on the Ritalin and compare the two to make sure the meds aren't doing nasty things to his liver etc.

Ed and Sandy don't start school until Thursday. Ed is excited for his senior year to begin and Sandy is pretending not to be nervous about starting high school. I hope she turns over a new leaf like the maples are doing. She seemed to have outgrown some of her attitude over the summer and I'm hoping it sticks.

Richard is looking around for a different job. Ireland is possible, although not probable. I'm not sure I want to more to a foreign country just yet, but if he gets the perfect job and it happens to be there, I guess I'll take another look at that bridge.

I'm turning over a few new leaves myself; working on some stuff I should have worked on a long time ago before I screw things up again. I have been assured that it is never too late to make a change or two. I relapsed a little on the smoking thing and I've moved back up to Step 2 again for awhile.

I dislike Autumn. I'm never ready for summer to be over. We took the kids to the lake on Saturday and rented canoes for a couple hours then bbq'd by the water. Everyone really had a nice afternoon. It wasn't even terribly crowded. Richard, Ian and I went back on Monday hoping to rent a rowboat (Ian and I) to fish from and Richard wanted to try a kayak. Unfortunately, the currents and winds were too strong and the rental place wouldn't rent us the boats. It wasn't actually very windy at all, but they own the boats so I guess they have the last word. I blame it on our litigous society, but that's an entirely different blog. Anyway, Richard sat on the grass and read his book while Ian and I fished from the shore. (just fishing, no catching) It made me think of mom - Richard happy to sit on the grass with a book while I fished.