Kissing August Goodbye....

August begins the year in this household. Our school year still runs mid-August to late May, although many school districts across the country now follow a variety of schedules. Honestly, I have no idea how people function without summer, and I have no intention of finding out. Year-round school would be the catalyst into home schooling for me, most likely. I'm not too big on change.

That change issue is most certainly why I dislike August more than any other month. We've just settled into a summer schedule that gets shot to hades. We get to deal with a new batch of teachers, even though I know most of them. I get to wonder if my schedule will change yet again at work. I am a speech-language pathologist in the public schools, and have between six and eight buildings on my caseload, so I'm constantly in motion. It is a plus, in my opinion, but still, I'm constantly tweaking a schedule that in no universe will make every teacher or administrator happy.

Tomorrow is September first. Not any noticeable change in weather, yet I love the sound of the word, because after September comes October. I adore October, and I know I'm not alone. The weather is a delight. My birthday is in October, as is my anniversary. It's a very, very good month.

August was a month of changes in my family as well. Hubby is back at home after a three months of business travels. We bought a new puppy, something any sane family chooses to do two weeks before school starts, and decided to keep three of the five kittens we bottle fed this summer. No one else would tolerate the little monsters, anyway; they jump through the air and latch onto your back, pants leg, or sleeves if you ignore them.

The worst of my "back to school and work" mania is over for now. Children are settled in, study schedules are lined out, football games are in full swing, and the puppy knows three whines lands him in bed with my husband (the big softie). I have made a little time for writing, family and work have consumed the rest, and now I'm ready to catch up on everyone else's blogs and news.

Autumn, here we come.

Something to Crow About

This Sunday my rooster is waking up a four state area . . .

We have a Ticket to Write finalist in Passion Slaves--- Erin McClune.

And

Two MOLLY finalists:
Marianne Harden (Scarlett to you fanlitters) and
Pamela Bolton-Holifield (aka doglady).

It couldn't happen to three nicer or more talented ladies!

Where You Hang Your Hat

It's a scorcher. Now in my beloved Kansas, we don't have a great deal of variety in August. This month promises grasses yellowed with heat and little water, inconsistent winds, and kids either wet from the pool or on their way there. Sometimes we have enough humidity to melt your socks (it's at 75% right now). The sun is blinding, the rain is short lived (we've flooded badly this year, so that's a mixed blessing.) Folks get up early in order to tend their gardens and run their errands, because by one o'clock no one wants to be out.

August is also the promise of a new year to most of the people I know. I work in the schools, and my kids attend school, so August is the beginning of the year for us. It's also a time when haying is well under way or wrapping up, and although the floods were rough on our wheat, the corn looks absolutely stunning.

My vision of summer was defined by a lifetime of Kansas, until last year, when we spent all of Jume and July in Vermont. For the first time, I understood the concept of a "summer sweater." I put on a sweatshirt to greet each morning. I wore long pants on the fourth of July! We adored every second of our time in that new and gorgeous landscape.

However, I was pretty darn grumpy by my third week back East, and I couldn't understand why, until a very nice co-worker of my husband's who was originally from Iowa said, "It's claustrophobic here, isn't it?"

OMG--that's it! Those endless hills, as beautiful as they are, block everything around you unless you're sitting on top of them. I'm used to flat. We have trees as well, but they are spread out, and you can see for miles, most of the time. I felt better when we spent time in Maine, and I could sit and look at the ocean.

My heart belongs to the plains of the Midwest. I could sit and soak up the rolling Flint Hills forever. I love the cicadas trilling outside my windows, and the fact that a full basement makes me the most popular neighbor on the block every April and May.

The world is a big place. What corner of it holds your heart, if not your hat?

The Normal Sex Life

As I stated in the last blog, these volumes provide a plethora of information, all of which provides excellent fodder for discussion and insight into another period's mindset. However, I picked this small chapter from Volume 7 of 10, Sexual Diseases and Abnormalities of Adult Life.

Chapter Thirteen is titled The Normal Sex Life. After much of what the doctor said, I was looking forward to his definition, and a little surprised by his conclusions. I had really assumed he would say something to the effect of "When the man decided he needs another baby and to satisfy is natural instincts," etc. I was wrong.

The good doctor went back to "primitive forms of life, and this includes early man" and found there was one rule of consistent sexual behavior: "the leadership of the female in the sexual relationship." He goes on to lay this necessity at the feet of animals in heat, and a woman's instincts concerning the right time to reproduce. He felt really strongly about this, as he put the Entire last paragraph in CAPS: (I'll spare you)

"The rule briefly stated is simply this: The husband is always to be receptive to the sexual desires of the wife and always ready to gratify her requests for love. The time, frequency, and variety of the sex life is to depend entirely upon the instinctive feelings of the wife. In other words, she is to take the initiative in all the love life, leaving only the one responsibility to the husband, and that is, satisfying her desires. It is realized that this is a rather revolutionary programme, but it is based on sound biological principles and should produce a happy life."

A happy life, indeed. :)

Have a great weekend, everyone. I'm off to a family reunion, and because my mom has eleven brothers and sisters, it will be a dozy. People are flying in from as far as Japan and Dubai, and are as close as the next town. It will be fun, I think (hope).