Flowers Closeup, images of flowers grouped together,
photo © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
The girls were at camp for a week, which is the first time since this time last year that we had the house to ourselves. It’s late August, almost September, and this particular camp — which is always held the week before school starts — is the last hurrah of summer.
My oldest starts high school next week. During a few days off recently I began a room redecoration project with her. We had intended to go to the cabin for two days with Jim and Em, but I forgot about an orthodontist appointment for Dee that couldn’t be changed. So off they went while Dee and I set about redoing her bedroom.
She decided on a black-and-white color scheme with lavender, light blue, light pink, and other accent colors. We bought a new bedding set, plus two white shag rugs (I know!), a white desk chair, and a zebra print lamp. But the best part was when she got to select artwork for the walls. She found seven photo prints of different flowers, black-and-white with hints of color, in double-white mats.
I then purchased ready-made frames from Michael’s (my boycott there didn’t last long) and did something I rarely do. Instead of procrastinating and letting the new prints and frames sit untouched for weeks, I actually put them all together and hung them in a group on Dee’s wall.
Wall of Flowers, to hang multiple pictures together on the wall, I used this excellent “how to,” photo © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
The end of summer and beginning of school is a welcome time for me. Much as I enjoy the excitement of vacations and a general lazy feeling that lasts for two-and-a-half months starting in May, summer reminds me how much I cherish the routines that back-to-school brings in our household.
One such routine is quiet time for my artwork. With the girls back in school, that means they’re not staying up late on weeknights. Weeknights, often after 9p, are when I can pull out my jewelry and lose myself in the tactical work of designing bracelets, gluing on designs, sanding edges, and mixing resin.
Just last night, I worked on several new bracelets. I am always amazed at the vibrancy of the work and delighted any time a new color scheme or design emerges. I turn my music on loud — usually k.d. lang belting out hymns of the 49th parallel, James Taylor, or Collective Soul — and don’t look up again for hours.
Bracelets in Process, pieces coming together, (calendar
stuck on June), photo © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
But summer ain’t over ’til it’s over. Besides a couple of New Student orientations, the first day of school isn’t until Thursday. There is much yet to fit in over this last weekend.
Em is starting a new transition, too, from elementary to middle school. She also got new accouterments for her bedroom, such as bedding in bright oranges, magentas, lime greens, and turquoise. Jim has to fix the cool and colorful lamp inherited from Dee’s room, plus we have a few items yet to purchase. And there is still more to do to finish up Dee’s redecoration — the full length mirror, more wall hangings, and putting up the curtains that are being hemmed by a local seamstress.
It’s only now that summer is almost over that I can see how important these particular new beginnings are for my daughters. I like to mark beginnings — transformation in one’s life, new seasons, milestone dates, new roles.
And as I celebrate, it’s with a bittersweet heart because as the saying goes, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
Mother and Child, antique framed Catholic print, hung to look over my art-making space, photo © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
I love your flower grouping. It looks like something out of a magazine. Would love to see the whole room. It sounds girly and sophisticated at the same time.
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Fun post, ybonesy! Looks like you had a productive night in your writing and art space. We are heading over to our studio today to do some art, listen to music, paint. Keeps me grounded.
I have to say, Summer isn’t over for me yet! Fall doesn’t start for me until September, usually some time after the MN State Fair or after Labor Day. So August is still very much Summer to me. But I know parents have to get into Fall routines early with their kids going back to school earlier and earlier each year. It seems like Summers were much longer when we were kids.
I love Dee’s bedroom color schemes and how you arranged the photographs on the wall. What a great way to start a new year of school. I think I remember that colorful lamp that is being passed down the chain. I noticed it when I visited you years ago after you just bought the house.
I LOVE Fall. Our humidity has finally broken here in Minnesota and it’s a beautiful day (after one of the hottest summers on record). I welcome the light and temperature changes as they come. Good time for photographs.
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Beautiful and fun post. Took me back to the days before school began when we went shopping for a new box of crayons, pencils, Big Chief tablet, watercolors, rounded-point scissors, and new pair of jeans which we could wear for two years if we didn’t grow too much. We wore the legs of the jeans cuffed until they were the right length. That allowed us to unroll them as we grew taller.
yb, you’re a great mom. The flower photos looked good.
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Anhinga, thanks. I can try to take pics of the whole room once it’s finished. Still quite a bit to do yet. Some wall hangings on order, and if Dee is interested in them, I might try to put some bold black decals on one of the walls. You called it: girly yet sophisticated. I was still thinking bright colors when we first started talking about it. In hindsight, I was stuck in girly and whimsical.
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QM, I always remembered thinking that summer went from Memorial Day to Labor Day. But then again, I also seem to remember that we had off from Thanksgiving to Christmas. 8)
Jim said something tonight that reminded me of your comment. He said, “Summer is over but there are still many hot days ahead.” And yeah, the season is still summer, yet the ritual of a childhood summer is marked by the end of school and the start of school. And for now, the cycles in my life are set more by my children’s lives than anything else.
It makes me wonder how much my summers will change once the kids are out of college. Heck, once they graduate from high school, things will be so different.
Bob, thanks for your vote of confidence. We always had the hardest time finding me jeans that fit. I was a slim jim. Em’s the same way. She’s like in a size 8 still. If I bought her two sizes bigger, she’s swim in them. 8)
I loved those cigar boxes that we kept our crayons in. Love the smell of crayons, too.
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yb, great post. I loved some of the rituals of getting ready for school better than actually going back to school as a kid. Maybe when your kids are out of high school, you can come help me redecorate my house! Clearly, you have an eye for it.
I echo the sentiment that you are a great mom. I love that you are marking their passages into junior high and high school by redecorating their rooms, honoring the reality that your girls have grown and changed. Surely, of all their friends, you must be the coolest mom!
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I don’t think either of my girls would call me “cool.” 8) This reminds me, too, of a recent story. I had wanted to mark the passage of my oldest’s 15th birthday, which comes up in a couple of weeks, with a sort of “quincenera lite.” A quincenera is an elaborate rite of passage that Mexicans do when a girl turns 15. It includes a special mass, and a dress that resembles a wedding gown, and attendants like bridesmaids, and dancing, the works. But in my view of how we’d do this, I was thinking a band, inviting relatives and family friends, dancing, and forgo the wedding-like atmosphere. Just a big party, in other words.
Well, my daughter thought that was a pretty un-cool idea. 8) She’d much rather celebrate her 15th birthday with her friends and not mine. 8) So I had to let go of that one.
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I hear you, yb. I raised three sons, who pretty much never chose to hang out with my friends instead of theirs!
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Assuming that today was the first day of school for you and Jim and the girls, how did it go? How was Dee’s first day of high scool? And Em’s first day of middle school?
A friend wrote a piece about her last day of first days of school because her youngest daughter starts her last year of high school this year. It’s quit funny because she isn’t shedding a tear over it…at least not in her story.
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Love that saying: Every new beginning is some other beginning’s end. There is often that little whisper of sadness, if we listen for it, that’s in the background of new beginnings.
Your piece brought back so many sweet/sad memories. I used to love the getting-ready energy of the end of summer, taking my kids to buy their school supplies – the smell of those Crayola crayons, the fun of buying the biggest box for Jessie who so appreciated color – the new clothes and shoes, backpacks, lunchboxes. I think there might still be a Care Bear lunchbox upstairs in my attic somewhere.
Even now, five years into my emptied nest, I still feel a twinge of that sweetness as September nears. The sweetness, the excitement and the whisper of sadness. I wasn’t a parent who was thrilled to have school start. I liked having my kids around more, the ease of no-homework and no lunches to pack in summer.
Now that I think of it….sending Nic, Jessie and Rebecca off to school every fall was kind of a foreshadowing of the time I would send each of them off to college. The college send-offs were so much more – more excitement, more preparation, much more sadness. And the aching, enticing openness of all that freed-up time.
(and by the way, you won’t know if your kids think you’re cool until they’ve been away at least a year. My daughter told me I was the coolest mom during her sophomore year – this was the same kid who used to call me “such a dork,” in middle school)
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Holy Moses yb…one going into High School and one into Middle School. I see some some Valerian Root and Miss Clairol in your future ;O
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Bob, the schools were very smart in that they didn’t set First Day on a Monday. It’s Thursday of this week, so I’ll let you know how it goes. Dee did have a very early start this morning she has her 9th grade orientation — a high ropes course in the mountains. Yikes! She was tired but ate a good breakfast and was out the door by 6:30a.
Em is enjoying her last few days of summer. Today a few last errands, and her orientation is tomorrow.
Dee’s hoping to spend tomorrow with her big cousins (the ones who went with us to Vietnam) swimming and eating frozen yogurt. They went on a fro yo kick in Vietnam and that’s a special thing they enjoy together now. 8)
Oh, BTW, your friend’s story reminded me of how that last year can be so meaningful. I mean, in her case she’s probably rejoicing, and for some parents, that last year is really tough. No matter, it’s a pretty special year.
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Thanks for that wisdom, Jude. I like how you describe the feeling of having your kids with you more, and the easy no-lunch days. Nice.
I can see how the college send-offs are more exciting. I feel like I’ve lived through a few myself, just because they figure so prominently in movies. That age, the 20-something-year-olds who come back for home visits.
We just had a back-to-school barbecue at our house on Sunday. Two nieces and one nephew are back to college outside the state, two nieces at UNM, a sister and sister-in-law back to teaching elementary school, and then all the kiddos who are back to school in elementary, mid, and high school in the ABQ metro area. It was lots of fun.
Heather, you ain’t kidding. If I were a man, I’d have a dignified look, graying at the temples. But not so attractive on me. 😉
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Maya wants to paint her bedroom ice blue…which sounds groovy. She needs new bedding, but she is attached to the set she has, even though it’s falling apart.
School starts next Wednesday for her. Maybe we can paint her room this weekend? She’s starting high school as well. Seems like yesterday she was starting middle school…those three years sure went fast.
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