Summer has officially begun for my family. My son is home from college. My daughter has graduated from high school and my husband finally has much deserved (and desperately needed) time off from his job as a football coach. If you know nothing else about the football coaching profession you should learn this--time off is rare and should be treasured. It is treasured at our home, but also upsets my proverbial apple cart. I am most comfortable and productive with order and normalcy, so this time off can be a bit unsettling for me. I refer to this time of year in our home as “Re-entry!”
Re-entry is that special time of year when I am relieved of my job as “Head of Household” by my husband. No disrespect intended to coaches everywhere, but let’s face it: As a football coach's wife, I am responsible for almost everything. I pay all the bills, attend all school meetings, manage all home responsibilities, schedule all doctor and vet appointments, attend all extra-curricula Activities- ALONE. Before you misunderstand, by alone I am referring to physically. Physically my husband is rarely home, always at the football office. He is either coaching, in meetings, studying film of opponents, recruiting players or scheming for future games. These endless responsibilities are how he manages to be our Soul (financial) Provider, just like Michael Bolton croons!
If I am being honest, I am not always alone- just during football season. Non-football people may think that ain’t so bad, since a football season is made up of just so many games per year. This leads me to the second thing you should learn about the football coaching profession: The season does not just entail the games, but months of preparation beforehand and months of reviewing and recruiting afterwards. In other words, he works all year long except for this short and therefore precious summer vacation!
This football life we live makes us a team of sorts, I run the offense and he takes care of the defense. We both do our jobs with the common goal of keeping our family as safe, united, healthy and as happy as we can. Of course we have hopes of going undefeated, but life has a way of happening. Sometimes we have to call an audible. Sometimes we go into overtime. Then there are the other times we have to toss the game plan, throw caution to the wind, throw out order and normalcy and run with it!
Which leads me to this last point. After much contemplation I have decided that this summer my blog will be more like bi-monthly. I plan to sit under the stars at our firepit and eat too many s’mores! I hope we watch movies late into the night and sleep in late in the mornings. I hope to eat through a bumper crop of tomatoes and peppers*. I hope the family trip we have spent months planning to celebrate our daughter’s high school graduation will be our best one yet. I am going to enjoy this family time- the last summer before I am officially an Empty Nester. The positive twist here is that I am certain this new life hurtling my way will offer me endless blog topics when this precious summer comes to an end.
Moral: La vie est faite de petites bonhers...life is made of the little moments
Enjoy YOUR summer moments my friends,
A little thing we did: Since we all love tomatoes we dug up some sad bushes just outside our kitchen window and planted our first Philadelphia garden. We started out small with four tomato and two pepper plants. I am happy to report that these plants are growing like weeds! Tonight we pick our first little cherry tomato- life is all about the little moments!
