In honor of this being one of the best summers I can remember, I am saying goodbye to my favorite season with as much gusto as a firework finale.

PLANS! BAM! WE HAVE PLANS! KAPOW! GO HERE! POW! GO THERE! POW!

For a girl who normally doesn’t travel that much, my addled brain thought it would be a great idea to do a Tri-State tour in these last few weeks of summer.  Sadly, my car doesn’t give me frequent flier miles.
Last weekend it was Minneapolis, tomorrow it’s Chicago and next weekend, for Labor Day, it’s Northern Wisconsin.

Don’t get me wrong, these are all very fun activities but sweet mother of Judea, a Saturday without two hours in a car would be interesting.

It’s not just the traveling.  I have literally been going for two weeks straight.  Ben and I haven’t been home before 8:30 pm for, well, so long I can’t remember.   In fact, last night, I was supposed to get together with TBFDE and some friends who wanted to meet this human who actually wants to DATE ME.

That was until this very mature, 37 year old, mother of one, found herself not playing in the sandbox very nicely.  In fact, rumor has it, she was throwing sand!

You see, yesterday over my lunch hour, with what felt like a vice around my temples, I tried to pack in at least three hours of errands into one and came dangerously close to tears when Doris, my friendly Walgreen’s cashier, said I couldn’t combine my coupons.

When a Walgreen’s employee makes the tears start to well up in your eyes an intervention is needed.  You have hit rock bottom.

Once in the safety of my car I said out loud (which is what the mentally insane are wont to do) “This is ridiculous, Becky.  Something has to give…”

So that’s how I cancelled plans with TBFDE (who rocks even more because not only did he totally understand, he was SWEET about it) told my friends they could meet the Mythical Creature Known As Matt later, picked up the boy from Camp Grandma and Grandpa, raced home and proceeded to lock ourselves in the apartment by 5:15.

It was heaven and just what I needed to recharge my batteries for Chicago (GO CUBS!), the start of school, the start of baseball and soccer fall season and the first meeting of TBFDE’s friends.

Yes this self induced “Time Out!” was quite necessary.  I needed to make sure things were kept at a “throwing-sand” level rather than escalating to the ”using-one’s-shovel-as-a-weapon” level.  That one is harder to explain.