Hello, August. Hopefully, your arrival means that Summer will slowly fade away into Fall. I am soooo ready. Also in August, LG and I will celebrate 43 years together. Amazingly. Also, his birthday toward the end of the month.

So… This past weekend. It happened. I have mixed emotions, even now. I’ll try not to draw out the story.

Saturday, Only, Stormy, Jake and I drove down to my hometown. Well, Only drove. My eyesight is such now that I’m not comfortable driving much beyond my “known routes of march,” ie. the nearby places I go to regularly. I haven’t been back in…10 years? I was there at the public library for a book signing. Before that, it was for my mother’s funeral. That’s why we went back Saturday–for my sister-in-law’s memorial. She and I had a…complicated relationship. I never really knew why. It escalated after my brother died and once my mother passed, I was basically excised from the family, though at that point, I was the only one left, plus her, her daughter (and her family) and her son. She also excised her son–or he excised himself. Anyway, my niece contacted Only through FB, reaching out to say her mother was gone and to ask if we’d mind being included in the obit. Only tagged me and I mmediately agreed. The memorial service was to be held at the church I grew up in, with “internment” in the columarium within the church where my parent’s and brother’s ashes are interned. LG had a prior appointment that he had to keep, Baseball Boy doesn’t do memorials for very good reasons, but Only and I felt like we needed to be there. So we went. It was odd. My hometown is one of those places that changes without really changing. We sat in the back row of the family section. My niece her daughter and son and their significant others filed in and sat in the front row. My SiL’s sister and husband, and my niece’s two BBFs sat in the second. They didn’t realize it was us sitting behind them until after the memorial. Only family was including in the actual “internment”–which consisted of taking the cover off the slot and placing the urn inside, then replacing the cover. We followed the group in. It’s a small space and because of Jake, I was hanging back. That’s when my niece realized it was me. She immediately flew over and hugged me. We hung on to each other for long minutes, murmurring messages to each other. I wanted her to know she and hers were loved and still a part of my family. She murmurred to me that she was free now to reconnect. Her kids are wonderful. She’s the same effervescent kiddo she always was, and she’s free now. It’s all good.

It had been awhile since Only and I roadtripped. We used to do it a lot. We gabbed. Stormy played video games. Jake snoozed. At least he had an air conditioning vent to lay on in the church. They dropped me off, switched back to Only’s SUV (we took my Highlander down). They took off to get ready for a soccer deal. I decompressed briefly with LG, put my pjs back on, turned on the USA Women’s National Team game against China, and promptly fell asleep. Four hours later, it was dark outside and nobody had eaten. Oops.

Sunday turned out to be productive. I caught up on email and social media (both of which I ignored on Saturday) and then I opened ARIEL’S DAMN BOOK. I really do need to figure out a title–even if it’s just a working title. Still, at th emoment ADB still pretty much describes it. LOL That said, I spent several hours doing some restructing, adding new words, rearranging a little and yay! Progresss! I’m thissss close to getting the dang thing figured out. Labor Day. That’s my goal–which I’ve avoided setting–or resetting as the case may be–after the first few deadlines zoomed right on by. I am currently just under 51K words. My guesstimate has been 65K total but that may go higher.

There you have it, my slightly angsty weekend but it all ended on high notes so I’m good. Also, there was softball! That’s always a win in my book. Oh! And the weather broke just a bit. We only hit 90 on Saturday and Sunday morning, there was a hint of coolness in the air and I took my first cup of coffee outside to enjoy the breeze before the heat and humidity came back–which is happening starting today. Yuck. So how are things in your world?