Summer's Lease Hath All Too Short a Date

Summer has flown by. Just yesterday I was building my tiny potager, and now it's grown and weedy and actually producing vegetables faster than I can harvest them. The zucchini in the picture were too tiny to pick a week ago and grew into these mega-zuchs while we were out of town. I'm not sure whether they are fit to eat, but I think I'll try to do something with them.

The best part of the vegetable garden is how much L loves it. She wants to go out to inspect it at least twice a day and heartily eats what we harvest. Last night she ate an entire (normal size) zucchini by herself. Her joy in discovering new growth among the corn, squashes, and tomatoes, and measuring the daily growth of the "icebox watermelons" matches my own.

I had big plans for this summer and am happy to say that I have largely succeeded in them. I spent quality time with family and friends; I indulged in hobbies; I focused on home and garden. It was the first time since my Junior year of high school that I had an entire summer off, and I didn't waste a minute of it.

School starts this week, which means summer is officially over. This weekend we bought back-to-school clothes and shoes. Next weekend I will be filling out piles of forms the kids bring home and writing checks for field trips, class tee-shirts, lunch cards, classroom parties, and more. I will be checking Friday folders and scheduling preemptive parent/teacher conferences (to get a jump on things) and logging in to Edline each evening to check grades and make sure homework is getting done. I didn't realize until my oldest child started school how much of my time would be required.

End of summer also marks a career transition for me. First I have to figure out what that is going to be. The idea was daunting until it occurred to me what a great opportunity this is. I have a portfolio of experience, a network of people who have faith in me, and the world at my feet. What a gift!

This entry title, Summer's Lease Hath All Too Short a Date, came easily to mind as I thought about how quickly time has passed since my last entry just after Memorial Day. It is from Shakespeare's Sonnet 18:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:


So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
–William Shakespeare