Transitions

So now that I'm no longer eating gluten free Ellie and I have spent the last couple of weeks more or less free basing gluten and reveling in our newly re-found ability to eat what we want where we want.  The first week I was back on gluten our granddaughter came over for a sleepover and it was great to be able to take her out for dinner and only have to worry about her food allergies, instead of mine as well.  We've kind of been over-doing it, though, I guess because we felt like we should get back on the BOGO bandwagon.  We're going to have to tone it down pretty soon or we'll be back on a diet, but this time it will be a weight loss diet.

I think part of the reason we've been going out to eat a lot lately is that this is the summer doldrums in central Texas.  Our summer started earlier than usual this year.  We normally have about thirteen days of 100+ degree highs each year, but they don't usually start until mid to late summer.  This year the triple digits started about May so we are pretty sick of them by now.  We only do outside work in the early morning and then spend the rest of the day somewhere where the A/C is working well.

We've done a few indoor projects during the hot weather.  The latest one is making over what used to be the grandkids room.  When they were smaller the grandkids would often come over for sleepovers so we had dedicated a room to them, installing a convertible bunk and twin bed set and setting the room up to be shared by a couple of small kids.  Now that they are both teenagers we rarely have a sleepover and then only one grandkid at a time.  So we just don't need the bunk beds or the separate room anymore.  They just stay in the guest bedroom like any other overnight guest.  So a week ago we knocked down the bunk bed set and donated it, with all the bedding, to a home for abused girls. 

I have to admit that, even though the bunk beds were going to a good cause, I had a little trouble giving them up.  It sort of marked the end of an era for me.  Of course the grandkids didn't use them anymore, but I remember taking them on a hunt for the bunk beds about ten years ago when our youngest was so small that I had to carry her and lift her up so she could see the top bunk.  The grandkids were really excited about the new bunk beds and the prospect of sleeping waaay up on top.  They've outgrown all that now, though.  So even though our youngest did come over to spend the night a couple of weeks ago, it seems like sleepovers are pretty much a thing of the past.  I had to agree with my wife that it was time to donate the bunk beds and make the room over for some other purpose. Still, it made me feel kind of sad and about twenty years older to do it.  I guess it really is true what they say about kids keeping you young.

These days our oldest grandchild is taking driving lessons.  So of course, when I saw him last week, I had to tell him about how my dad gave me my first driving lesson.  While I was spinning that yarn I was thinking back to when his mother was the age he is now and I took her out to practice driving in the parking lot at my company on the weekend when no one was there.  I guess that's just one of those cycles that runs through the generations. 

So this summer we are facing the heat and drought that seems to come with every Texas summer but we are also going through some transitions.  Life is full of them but sometimes they can be a little tough to take.  Ah well, time marches on and the older you get the faster it seems to march.  I don't want it to march too quickly, but maybe this long, hot summer can move just a little faster.