“Do you have the lunch boxes with the thermos inside?”

It may have been a joke- I mean, we were at Office Depot, not Target- and I wouldn’t have blamed the mom who said it since I was tempted to make up something ridiculous after asking the clerk for dayplanners and getting in response a funny, somewhat panicked look.

And of course, it was worth a try. I imagine she was hoping to cut out one more stop. Plus, she was probably kicking herself for not going to Target in the first place. Still… a lunchbox?

It is that time of year again. Back to School ads are everywhere. Stores have fall clothes on their racks (even though it is still in the 80s where I live). Kids are talking about locker decorations and fall sports. But I have tried to put off the craze as long as possible. This summer has flown by- filled with a little bit of vacation, some amazing camps (for my daughter, not me:>), and lots of hanging out together. And, while this last part hasn’t always been the romantic visions I carry with me as I go into summer vacation (“Moooooom, I’m bored.”) I have still have enjoyed my time getting to know the girl who rocks out in a band now and finds creative ways to convince me to set up a playdate for her (“It would give you more time to do your writing.”)

But all great things must come to an end… and so I am preparing myself for the fall. School supplies? Check. Back to school outfit? Check. Practicing multiplication and division. Double check (“Summer’s not even over yet, Mom.”)

And, while physically we might be ready, emotionally we are staving off what we call, the Sunday blues. We have one more trip planned (which I will tell you all about on Thursday…. So check back, it is going to be very cool, and related to my last book, Untangling the Knot.) And while we are excited to go away, underneath it is that niggling feeling that all of this will soon be over and a surprising desire to begin to hunker down and make apple spice cake and stew.

So, perhaps that mom was also trying to get her head around fall, focusing on the homey, comforting aspects of shorter days and crock-pot suppers, and picturing where she would put the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Are you ready for fall? What is your favorite part of back-to-school? I love, love, love my apple cake (too bad I am on a strict diet:>( Good news, though, Lucia, my character from Molto Mayhem, isn't and she has posted my recipe in her section of my website. Check it out and let me know what you think! I love to get your comments.

Cheers,
Deanne

“Um, Mommy… I just spilt my juice all over Daddy’s computer.”

Of course she was joking. That’s what we thought anyway. But no... there was the laptop, open for watching a movie, with red smoothie juice spread all over it. You could literally see the sticky fluid seeping into the keyboard, the disk drive, the on/off button.

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Safety be damned! I yanked off my seatbelt and crawled into the back seat, desperately trying to stop as much of the damage as I could while my husband pulled the car over to the side of the road and proceeded to almost have a heart attack.

It was an ironic moment actually, since just last week I posted a blog about how technology fails us. We have become reliant (overly so) on screen time to make the 10 hour drive go by more quickly for our daughter (and thus for us.) We force her off of it every now and then for at least an hour. “Look at that beautiful mountain,” we say. But she barely looks up from her screen (laptop or iPod) and we are left to enjoy the vistas on our own.

No on this trip, however. This juice spill happened 3 hours into our journey; which left about 8 to fill computerless. Granted the first two were spent in tears, apologies, and questions about whether daddy would ever forgive her. But after the tension in the car finally mellowed, we were left with wonderful stop-over in Crater Lake, some fun car games, some nice discussions, and a little bit of iPod time.

Strangely, it was one of our nicer car trips. The fact of the matter is that technology is not really to blame for over reliance; sometimes we let ourselves down with low expectations. Next time, whether we have a computer available or not there will be new rules for the amount of time she spends staring at a screen.