Monday, September 03, 2012

It's Labor day, so it's time for change of seasons. Or not, if you live in Georgia

It's Labor Day 2012, which means I cease from my labor for a day and lounge around in a tee shirt and shorts, lol. It also means I could sleep late (6:00am instead of 5:30, woo-hoo!) and I can take a nap later if I want to.

I bought some really good vegetables on Friday while grocery shopping and I want to make roasted veggies out them them. I got carrots, firm and fresh green peppers (68 cents each!) small red potatoes, and onions. Pans of roasted veggies with oil and salt and rosemary dance before my eyes. The Labor Day weekend awakens in me the decades-long timing that the weather is cooler and the need to nest and make heavier dishes arises. The problem is, I am not in Rhode Island nor Maine anymore and the weather is going to be in the 90s with real feel temps in the hundreds. Oy. What's a gal to do whose seasonal embeddedness hasn't caught up with the reality that the seasons are different here?

I should put the stuff in the oven early while the temps are still cool and my overworked air conditioner can keep up with an hour of the oven being turned to 350 degrees. But I probably won't.

Another rhythm I never got used to not being a part of is the yellow school buses rumbling along after Labor Day when school started. I taught for 12 years and then I was out of the school system for 12 years. During the second 12 years I always looked at the buses rolling into the school driveways in September with longing and yearning. My mind's annual clock was set to the school year, not the calendar year.

When I resumed being a part of the school system here in Georgia, this time as para-professional (fancy term for teacher's aide), I had to get used to the school year beginning on August 1st, not September 1st or thereabouts. Yikes, that is something I won't reconcile my mind to. Georgia people, it's just wrong to begin a school year in August!

Phew, glad I got that off my chest.

Now that it is "legitimately" time for school - and cooler weather - my mind and body are happy. Even though school has been going for a month and cooler weather won't arrive for weeks...Isn't it funny how long-term habits never really go away, or are so hard to change.

This weekend I have not done one thing different than I usually do on a regular weekend. I still rest, read, study, write, and stay alone. I still enjoy listening to Wayne Grudem's "Systematic Theology", watching re-runs of Big Bang Theory, starting books which regularly turn out awful and throwing them down in disgust, talking about cooking something but never getting around to it, and writing about it all. Aren't blogs great?

No comments: