GREAT resolutions for September

OK, I’m going to go ahead and do this! Here are my resolutions for September:

• Goal: Sit down for a family dinner every weekday. The one (sort of) silver lining of Dex being away at college is that there is again a time when everyone living under this roof is actually available to have dinner together. We started this on Monday, and I am happy about it.
• Rule: Take a full day off every week. I don’t always work every day—but I usually do work at least a little work every day, and typically I’m “on call” most of the time. My intent with taking a day off is to be more productive with my work time, more aggressive about limiting my schedule, and more creative about finding fun, restful things to do. (I already started this, too, actually.)
• Exercise: Stick to the schedule. I don’t see anything coming up in September that should prevent me from keeping to the plan I’ve laid out for myself, which is this: Lift weights on Mondays and Fridays, do sprint workouts on Wednesdays, and do yoga on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. And walk every day.
• Affirmation: “I welcome the changing of the seasons.” Metaphorically, too, this time!
• Task: Clean Dex’s room. He left everything in pretty good shape, but someone needs to go in there to dust, vacuum, air it out, make up the beds, and have a good cry over the inevitability of the passage of time. 

This GREAT framework, while still amusing*, is pretty limiting. I’m completely over the affirmations (A). I feel like ideally I would just keep this same exercise (E) plan every month. There are months when my resolutions should probably be just a list of tasks (T). And obviously my goal (G) is just a rule (R) in disguise. This nonsense may have run its course in its current form. Hmmm.

* To me

Hike to Beauty Lake

The purpose of this post is to 1) brag about having actually planned and executed a hiking trip and 2) to record it for posterity because we might want to go back someday.

M.H. and I headed out yesterday morning for a hike to a place called Beauty Lake. It’s up over the Beartooth Pass on the Wyoming side (Beartooth Lakes trailhead, trail #621) and also passes another cool lake called Crane Lake.

The hike is not a long one—we probably did six or seven miles total, and only because we did so much wandering off the trail—but it has its moments of difficulty. It is steep in places, and the elevation makes climbing fairly brutal! The views are crazy, though; here are my favorite photos:

A mossy creek draining Crane Lake.

Exploring around Crane Lake

Crane Lake in all its glory

Sticks, scenery and Beauty Lake

OK, it’s not bragging if you call yourself “Beauty Lake.”

Oh, yeah, alarm clocks

Having a school-year schedule seems like a nice idea, but I have identified a flaw in the plan.

So this morning the alarm went off at 6—kind of early because Mik has an early class, but not nearly as early as it will be going off next week when morning swim practice starts. I stumbled out of bed, attempted unsuccessfully to be helpful with various tasks, and then plopped down at my computer and mindlessly read Facebook and Twitter for an hour.

The flaw, I’m saying, is that my sleepy brain isn’t really going to be equipped to handle anything that I might conceivably put on a morning schedule. Unless it is and I just need to adjust to having an alarm go off again?

Loose ends

The resolutions hiatus became a blogging hiatus, so I’ll just tie up all the loose ends I left hanging this summer:

• The eldest child did indeed leave for college before we knew it. (The worst.)
• I stopped messing around with other infused water combos and just drank a never-ending stream of lemint all summer.
• I made it to the mountains exactly once, which is pathetic, but early September is also a lovely time up there, so all hope for technically-still-summer fun is not yet lost.

…and I guess that’s it. I’m feeling the usual overwhelming desire to get myself on some sort of schedule as soon as school starts, but that’s tomorrow (a Friday) for some reason, so I think I’ll hold off on any such plans until Monday. I’m still pondering whether I want to do September resolutions at all, but I’m leaning toward making some easy, concrete ones. As nice as it was to have a break, it’s also nice to set some intentions, and it usually results in at least one thing being done that otherwise was never going to be done, so that’s a plus.

What passes for midsummer fun

I know the masses are surely crying out for reviews of amazing infused water concoctions, but to be honest I’m in a bit of a rut. I decided that the satisfaction of walking across the dewy grass in the morning to hack away at bits of my mint monstrosities outweighs any desire to go shopping for more creative ingredients—and, anyway, mint is really good. Here’s what I can tell you:

• Mint + apple slices: Tastes like apple juice to me, though admittedly I haven’t had actual apple juice in several decades. 8/10
• Mint + peeled orange slices: Just OK; oranges don’t seem to work that well in general. 6/10
• Mint + pitted cherries: Interesting! 7/10

(I think mint + peach could be a real winner; I’ll let you know next time I own a peach.)

I haven’t managed to get any non-domestic fun on the schedule yet: Several of my clients are either busy sending me work or busy jerking me around. Trying to set boundaries while remaining the helpful, available, willing, cooperative freelancer they know and love…

Updates on life and lemint

I think I maligned the lemon-and-mint-infused water before. It’s really refreshing, I’m starting to “get” the flavor, and I keep making more and more of it. Revised rating: 8/10

I also tried a couple of concoctions with orange slices, but I didn’t think they were good at all:

• Orange slices and a cinnamon stick: Cinnamon water is very weird, and it seemed like the flavor from the orange was all peel. 3/10
• Orange and lemon slices: Same deal with the orange peel, though less weird overall. 5/10

When I’m not infusing water—oh, who am I kidding. I’m perpetually infusing water now.

Along with all this water infusing, I have been crazy-busy all June with work and travel and major life events, starting with my eldest graduating from high school. (Say what??)

My people

On Thursday he heads off on a road trip with some friends, and the next thing we know he’ll be off at college. He won’t be that far away, and I know he’s going to love it, so we’re probably as emotionally prepared as we can be. I think my job right now is to not interfere too much as he has these last-splash events with his high school friends and deals with all the leaving-the-nest tasks.

After graduation, we attended a three-day college orientation with separate programs for the parents and students. It was pretty fun, but I’m not sure it was strictly necessary for the parents. Probably just the university’s sneaky way of forcing us to practice the big drop-off ahead of time.

After that we did two weekends in a row of swim meets, with me working frantically in the days in between to meet some deadlines.

Now I’m realizing that there’s one month of summer gone already, and if I want to make the most of what’s left, I’m going to need to do some serious fun-planning for July and August. Fun is GOING ON THE CALENDAR.

A minty diversion

I don’t know why this might be, with everything going on in the world and in my life, but today I’ve decided to drop in on the blog to talk about…

…infused water!

This is a sprig of spearmint, a sprig of peppermint, and two lemon slices. In water. It is so dang pretty and refreshing and basically solves all of my problems. Or, to be more precise, my two small problems of 1) having too much mint in my yard and 2) drinking too much tea and not enough water.

(Honestly, it doesn’t actually solve Problem #1 because, who am I kidding, that’s about one-millionth of my mint. And I don’t know if Problem #2 is a real problem, but if you knew how much tea I drink, you would probably advise me that it couldn’t hurt to cut back.)

Review: As much as the world keeps insisting that lemon and mint go together, I still don’t buy it. You taste the lemon and mint separately, not as some cohesive blend, which is too bad, because we could have called it “lemint.” Still, ridiculously cooling and refreshing. 6/10