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Is Summer over?

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I know that summer doesn't officially end until September 21st (and officially started on Jun 21 st ) but I think most of us would agree that the summer season really begins around Memorial Day and wraps up by Labor Day, if not earlier. Kids go back to school in August. My own son goes back for his senior year college this weekend. The idea of summer quickly coming to a close feels real. As a matter of fact I know of a child in town who has already started his school year! I have already started to see the school buses out and about. Certainly that is a sign of autumn even though the calendar tells us no.    It has been a strange summer. There have been a few really hot days, as would you come to expect with a summer months, but mostly it has been wet. While we all know that in the east of the United States it usually does get very humid over the summer months, this year the humidity was more than usual and this year the rain was…A LOT!   We are all used to pop up storm...
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Putting It Together...

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Bit by bit Putting it together Piece by piece Only way to make a work of art Every moment makes a contribution Every little detail plays a part Having just a vision's no solution Everything depends on execution Putting it together That's what counts" Yes, I'm quoting Sondheim on a rainy Sunday.  And it's not even from a favorite Sondheim musical.   (Sorry!  My favorite has always been "A Little Night Music.") But on this rainy Sunday my husband and I finally put it all together...well...sort of...kind of...  Let's go back through the mists of time... (That's a Paul McCartney reference; IYKYK.) Before I was married, before I knew my husband, I was a Beatles fan.  (If you know me you probably know that I was a McCartney fan BEFORE I was a Beatles fan which I realize is sacrilege, but...)  The pinnacle of fandom for me was in the 1990s when I started to go to fan gatherings and made some incredible friends (you know who you are) and I even met my hus...
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The Car Returns To The Shore

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 Dear Mom, Thank you for watching over your grandson the other day. (Okay, thank you for watching over him all the time, but especially yesterday.) He did something that I know would make you happy. He did something that made me nervous@ He got into the car, the one that you wanted him to have and that still has your personalized plates, with his girlfriend and drove to the Jersey shore.  He has said more than once over the summer that he misses the shore. I miss it too, but I can't go back to where we once were. I can't go back that specific barrier island because there are too many memories. There would be too much pain to see your house gone along with other numerous changes that I know have taken place since    July 2024. But your grandson has a friend whose parents have a house at the Jersey shore. Not in the area where we were, but slightly farther north. Not far from where your grandmother, your parents and you used vacation back in the day. (Or maybe...
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Finding Joy in A World That Lacks It.

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Remember the craze several years back when you were supposed to purge yourself of items that did not bring the joy? It was a way of cleaning house so to speak. If it didn't bring you joy, you got rid of it. If it did, you held on to it. I sort of believe in that, although sometimes I look back and realize that I got rid of things that I thought I no longer needed/wanted and later realized that I missed them. So I guess that method is far from perfect.    But then again we (the human race...ALL humans) are far from perfect. Our world is far from perfect. I mean, let's face it we are living in a time and a place where finding joy is difficult. How happy are we on a day by day basis?   How stressed are we every single day of our lives? We know continual stress is not healthy, but what can we do about it?    Well most of us might like to you give up our jobs, find the beach somewhere and just live being completely happy and relaxed. Realistically for most of us,...
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I was never...

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When I was a kid, we used to rent houses at the shore. This was way before era of Airbnb or Vrbo or other home sharing apps. In the beginning we stayed for a week. The next year I believe we stayed for 2 weeks. And after that we would stay for a month (4 weeks, sometimes 5 depending on how the month landed).  For homeowners in that particular area of the Jersey shore that would have made us what many people called Bennys. (B = Bayonne, new = Elizabeth, N =Newark, NY = New York City; farther south at the NJ Shore we would have been Shoobies, but let’s not get into that.)  It wasn’t that we were from any of those particular areas, but it reflected what the locals considered the type of people who only came down for a short period of time. More importantly what they were actually referring to were people who didn't care for/about the area.   For those 20 plus years that we didn't own on a home at the shore, where we were not considered locals, I would say we were never Ben...
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The Hard Part of Summer

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Summer has always been one of my favorite times of year. I think it is also one of my son's favorite part of the year and not just because he gets a break from school. However, for both of us summer is becoming more of a challenge.    This particular summer seems to be more so. Not just because of all the storms, the heat, and humidity! The humidity is probably the worst though…it makes everything damp in the house. The cost of using air conditioning not just to cool the house but to make it less “wet.” The constant dampness and daily rain. (Though last night's thunderstorm was amazing to watch). Although that has certainly contributed to making this a challenging summer, it’s not really what gets to me (and I suspect to him).   My son has said this summer that he really misses the shore. I get that. I miss the shore too. But that's not exactly what he means. Yes, he misses going to the beach. But if he was really so desperate, we could go down on his own on a da...
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22 Photos

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 For 22 years on August 4th, I have pretty much warn the exact same thing.  In the beginning it wasn't really planned or intentional.  But now it is.   On August 4, 2005, my husband took a photo of me holding our new born son.  It's not the best photo in the word, but it's definitely one that I treasure.  For his first birthday I wore the same thing.  And then I just keep doing it; or mostly doing it.  Trying to look the same year after year...sort of. The shirt is still the same.  It's showing it's wear and tear.  It should because I bought it a year or more before my son was born.  It's not quite as comfortable as it once was.  It's a bit stiff.  But it still fits.  It fit when I was heavier (which would have been 2011); it fit when I was at my thinnest (notice I didn't say thin because I'll never be thin...but that's a whole other story and my thinnest would have been around 20212 or 2013) and it still fits today w...
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