" ... a ribbon at a time"
       -- Emily Dickinson

O, summer.  This time you're slipping away much, much too quickly.  You laugh too boisterously.  You charge ahead too quickly.  You shock me with your zeal. I can barely keep up.

But I do.

This is the last true summer vacation for the rest of my life.

In the midst of the "yays" and "congratulations" and the "have you set the dates" and my mysterious foray into becoming left handed, things still surge forward.

I've started a second job at the Very Large Hospital as a clinical interviewer with a Very Large, multivariate, longitudinal ADHD study.  It's amazing.  I'm challenged.  And I get to conduct psychosocial assessments with parents as well as assess for DSM symptomology.  It couldn't be any more up my little social worker alley and I adore working with the parents and their children.  In the afternoons I work at Research Administration (as I have been for almost 2 years) and then in the evenings I head over to Psychiatry.  And because I'm new and slow and still figuring out how to score assessments and keep parents on track and focused, I haven't been getting OUT of the hospital until 10:30 at night.  And then taking a bus downtown.  And then waiting for another bus downtown to get home.  Right.  Still thinking about the best, safest way to do that.

Long hours.  I'm pretty exhausted.  But fascinated.  This is a good move.  In the fall, I'll juggle classes, internship, research / reading / writing, and this new job (and will not work in Research Administration).  And I will plan me and Shoes' epic coupledom ceremony.

Or, actually, maybe his mom will do that.  I've a GPA to uphold and a Shoes to love on.  

But, in the midst of this craziness and full speed ahead-ness, we've done some Summer stuff.  And I'm pretty proud of myself for taking some time to have fun.  See?  The proof is in the pudding ....


Like taking summer drives through the Gorge, wishing we had the time to learn how to this ...


And spending time in Old Town with the friendly neighbors ...


We went on a houseboat party!  Notice everything Shoes wears has a Washington State University logo on it.


Shoes loved the house boat party so much he back flipped off the roof.


And we watched the Mariners lose while freezing our tookuses (tookusi?) off in Seattle.  (There sure are a lot of people smiling for the camera in this photo ... people we don't know at all.)  But we were also there with people we love dearly, so it all balances out.

And we have more!  Weddings and parties and shindigs, oh my.

I can already feel fall in the air ... and while I'm excited to see it (and my last year of school!) come, I'm going to miss this little bit of summer joy that's happened.

Who am I kidding?  This is an avalanche of summer joy.

2 comments

  1. Ronna on September 6, 2011 at 8:43 PM

    Why are you wearing a scarf in your summer pictures???? WHY HAVEN'T WE SEEN EACH OTHER YET? HOW IS IS OUR LAST SUMMER???

    So many questions...so little time.

    I love you.

     
  2. Anonymous on September 29, 2011 at 3:23 PM

    How do you get those cool little mystery boxes over faces? I could use that tip!

     


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