The Case for August Blues....

The best thing about August, the Starlight train ride in Sumpter, Oregon

Everybody knows that August is the Worst Month in the World. Or is it just me? I've always hated August! Why? Well, for starters, August is the last month of summer and when the greenery that was so welcome back in March finally loses hold of it's chlorophyll and succumbs to the dry and hot conditions of an Idaho summer. So the green fades to brown and everything looks depressingly parched. Basically, everything is dying, and looks it.

Soon, the halcyon days of summer will be a memory, and like the song from the 80's, "..the summer sun sets all alone". Now if that's not sad, I don't know WHAT is! Also, I was born in August, the very peak of the worse-ity, August 29th, and rather than look forward to the anniversary of my birth, I've always dreaded it. It probably is because I was a rather morbid child, but from an early age, I have always been hyper conscious of my mortality, and every August, it's another reminder that I'm closer to death. Now that I'm errr.....32 years in to my eventually death, the effect is rather heightened.

You'd think that having children would make me hate the end of summer less, right? Nope! First of all, I had the good sense to have my children in tidy batches, two in April, two in July, and poor little Callie, stranded with a November birthday. So there is no GOOD thing to celebrate in August, and I really, really hate sending my children back to school and the end of summer for their sake. I felt like I never really experiences summer until I experienced it through their eyes, and I always cry at the first day of school. Now I get to cry not just once or twice, but THRICE I have to cry for a lost summer.

Not that they're going anywhere, I'm actually homeschooling all but Andrew, but it's still sad. Why can't the school find something else to do rather than FORCE us to get up and dressed at a reasonable hour instead of lounging about in our jammies until noon and having movie afternoons? I guess I'm somewhat rebellious, for an adult and I HATE having a schedule.

So every August, I become more and more morose about the idea of August, while I go about every mom's business of procuring school clothes, Nike shoes in bulk, and pencils that I'm convinced the school system hides immediately upon surrender. Then school starts, and I cry, and then.....

September! My favorite month! More on that later.....