Hello Readers! I was going to start this with “where has the summer gone?” but I feel like we didn’t have a summer at all! With all the rain we’ve been having, and the landscape business being so busy, I feel as though our family has completely missed the summer altogether.

I’m writing this while on the deck of a cottage we have rented for a week. It’s our first attempt this summer at getting away, and it’s rained four out of the five days we have been here. Whenever all the chairs dry up and we are ready to sit outside again, it starts to pour! How frustrating!

If I do some deep soul searching though, I find it’s not the weather that’s got me down this week, it’s more the fact that my family of five has not been able to be together, all at once. With the kids getting older and having their own lives, we are finding this more and more challenging. This is the first time we have had the two older ones up at the cottage separately. Last year, we did everything together and I was well aware that it may have been the last summer for it; I soaked it all in and enjoyed every moment. This year has been different. I know it’s the “circle of life”, and I know it’s inevitable. So, I accept it. I don’t like it, but I accept it.

This fall I will sit with my calendar and will attempt to co-ordinate a family vacation for the winter. I will do this with an open mind, of course, and will accept that it may or may not be possible. Regardless, I promise to be grateful for whatever the outcome.