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Friday, July 31, 2009

Like Sands Through an Hour Glass, these are the Days of Our Summer

Today is the end of July and it’s the last working day of the month so it’s payday—yeah! Tomorrow is the first of August, the last holiday month of the summer—boo! I have a bittersweet relationship with August. While I love the fact that it is still nice weather and the first fruits of the harvest are being reaped, I feel the sands of summer trickling through the hour glass of my time away from school.

Now is the time for thoughtful parents to prepare for their children to return to school. Me, too. September can be an extremely expensive month with the purchase of supplies, clothes, shoes, backpacks, emergency packs, and pictures. When mine were going to school they also sold insurance in Fall. I don’t know if they still do that. I never availed myself of that which I purchased, but I guess it bought some peace of mind for me. I remember September as being a month where the money just flew out of my wallet. Nowadays if you’ve a child in high school you also have to pony up for a graphing calculator which in all likelihood your child will never use after fulfilling their math requirement and you will not know how to use for that garage sale because the thing is too complicated.

If you aren’t sending a child or grandchild back to school, remember those low-income children who do not want to arrive on the first day in last year’s things and no supplies. There are always donation bins at banks and grocery stores where you can put in a package of paper or box of pencils that will be greatly appreciated.

If interested in my thoughts on August, read more.

2 comments:

JosephMcG said...

I smiled as I read your reflection... thanks for putting up that heads up for families that can't handle the school costs

Stephanie Frieze said...

When I was at Fred Meyer I saw that they have their donation basket set up for Back-to-School supplies. I'm sure that Safeway is doing the same and Goodwill has some great buys on that sort of thing.