As I wander around this blog,

I see that it has been a year, very nearly to the day, since I have published any musings.  I certainly have had quite a lot over the last year to muse about!  One thing I would like to share with you, my faithful readers, is a new blog I started in June of 2011:  A Girl and Her Grill.  I love grilled food and decided to share recipes, etc. with the world at large.  It turns out, I really am sharing with the world.  Browsing my stats, I have viewers from over 40 countries! 

I celebrated my 40th birthday in 2011.  Life begins at 40-who was the first person to say that?  I don't necessarily agree with that statement, but I will say life changes at 40!  The changes that have occurred in my life in the last year would have been inconceiveable to me just 2 or 3 years ago.  Some of the changes are very welcome, some have taken me by surprise and some I would rather forget about.  Here are a couple of pictures sampling one change:

1st day of school in 2003, 3rd grade and Kindergarten.

1st day of school 2012, Freshman and Senior.

I'm not sure where the time went, but I want it back!!!  Above is the very first 1st day of school picture of my daughters together and the very last 1st day of school picture of them.  I swear I turned my back for only a moment!  Next year, the photos will be dropping one off at college (14 hours away!) and a lone pose in front of the door of my high school sophomore.  Wow!

Summer Vacation is Over...

with the end of the Labor Day weekend. Boo hoo! 8 days of school down, only 172 more to go!

Now, I know school began before Labor Day, BUT, those first four days hardly count as real school. Those are the "getting to know each other" days where not a whole lot of "school" happens. Textbook distribution, locker assignments, reading of the rules, etcetera, etcetera-those are the things that happen in those first few days. Unless you are in high school. Like my older daughter. She had homework after the first day. Those math and science teachers are tough! I suppose when you are on a block schedule, ya gotta cram in all that teaching and learning in just one semester (I'm not particularly fond of block scheduling. However, it does have advantages. I'll leave that musing for another time).

Labor Day weekend ended our Summer of History. Our trips this year were all historical in nature. And all of them took us back to the settling and founding of our great nation, before, during and after we became the United States of America. And we shared time with many incredible people along the way. Check back and I'll have pictures, stories and links to share with you.