still summer, still at it

I have 2 more weeks of my summer break, before I go back to work. Each year is different; I'm getting increasingly restless and tired of teaching ESOL at my school, but P and I ran the numbers last year, and we figured out I could retire in 2 more years, so I'm hanging in there. I may do that, or may work part time; I just know that 2 years from now is my drop-dead time for making major employment changes. This coming school year, I have some goals of factfinding about retirement; how much it will cost to buy back years from other states I've worked in, my social security estimates, what I could be getting from other investments, etc. I'm a bit scared, but I'ma try and do the hard things. So much of my energy gets caught up in avoidance behavior, and I feel stuck. I am trying to work through this.

So summer...bucket list o' fun: 

- get out in my kayak. I haven't done any paddling this summer, mostly due to travel and the extreme heat and humidity, which I haven't really tilted against as in the past. My paddling friends have all seemed busy, as well, and we have just kinda let it slide. But I recall that Det and I used to consciously fight the "August Malaise" every year. Only this year it's become the July Malaise, as school starts earlier in Georgia.

- make some salted lemonade popsicles. Yes. I bought one from King of Pops on Saturday, at the farmers market, and it was mind-blowing. I realize I could figure this recipe out, and I might make mine a lemon-lime 'sicle instead, because we're constantly buying limes and then forgetting to use them before they turn dry and brown.

- visit the Foxfire Museum in Rabun Gap. I was a Foxfire kid, in that I read all their books in high school, and I was thrilled to discover that right here in my home state is the epicenter of Foxfire-ness. Not 3 hours away. I need a factfinding mission.

- find a labyrinth to walk. When we first moved here, there was a stone labyrinth on the property adjacent to our woods, and I used to walk it at least once a week, at all hours of the day and evening. Well, that's changed - the Methodist church removed the stones and sold that part of their land to a developer who threw up 8 houses on way too few acres of land at the end of our cul-de-sac. Atlanta has a number of other labyrinths, in easyish driving distance from here, and I need to go explore one.

- Lake Lanier beach day. Organize a picnic, throw on my swimsuit, and head out to the lake to pretend I'm actually at the beach. Take a book, some mindless knitting, some sneaky wine or beer, and just BE. Go for a swim when it's too hot to lounge...

There's more, but these are the critical ones. Everything else starts to feel like a to-do list that highlights exactly how little household maintenance I have actually accomplished this summer, and I'm trying to address that with a minimum of stress.