As Summer Draws Toward Its End
Although I’d vaguely understood the notion in my mind for a while now, today is the first day that it has come alive to me as an actual, conscious realization. This distinct awareness, no doubt, is due in a large part to the rather major events I have coming up for me this week.
Significant fact number one: I start my first day of work tomorrow.
Important occurrence number two: I move in to my dorm room this Friday.
Which brings me here to this living, indisputable conclusion: my leisurely summer days are coming to a close.
I feel like I am altogether ready and still very much unprepared. Part of me wants to protest, “I’m not yet done!” There are letters to write even now, friends to meet up with for one last get together. The sheer amount of cleaning I have yet to finish continues to loom over me ominously. I have books I still want to read and, oh, good grief, books; acquiring the necessary textbooks for my classes is still a (very slow) work in progress. But, at the same time, I think I may burst if I have to wait any longer. It’s been forever since I’ve worked at a job. I want to hurry up and meet everyone already — my new roomie, the SMC staff I’ll be apart of, my PA, all the girls that will be on our floor. My dear friends, ohhhh, how beyond excited I am to finally see them again.
The changing of seasons always seems to be like this, more or less. Ahhh, summertime. I’ll miss your days of ease and open-ended possibility.
[Image courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/margolove/3736974432]
It is always such a letdown when I am disappointed by a recipe. And I don’t mean mildly disappointed by those various hitches & setbacks that nearly always emerge during baking projects (I’ve actually developed a pledge I recite before each venture — “I, Elaine, accept that: snags are inevitable, it is unreasonable to expect perfection on first attempts, and I am my own worst critic. Therefore, I will: be flexible, treat every endeavor as a learning process, and remember — most of all! — to enjoy myself. Because that is why I do it; that is why I bake.”); I mean flat out, I-don’t-know-if-I-can-eat-this-anymore disappointed.
One of the things I find nearly always cheers me up is balloons. And I don’t mean those decorative ones which you blow up yourself and throw on the floor, but helium. Those make me smile. Not only because they make your voice high and squeaky (although that’s fun, too) but because, though restrained, they continue to reach far and away into the sky, grasping evermore toward the heavens. 
I had a brief moment of elation today when I thought I had (finally!) figured out how to properly temper chocolate for enrobing chocolate truffles. However, my elation quickly turned into dismay when the telltale signs of unsightly blooming started to appear. Curious as to whether or not all of them were out of temper, I resolved to let the rest of the chocolate truffles sit out for a bit so they could come to room temperature for me to check. But (of course) as luck would have it, the hours and shadows aligned themselves ever so perfectly in just the right way to cast a beautiful pool of (disastrously) warm sunshine on the very spot I had decided to leave my truffles. Now I will never, ever know.
We’re heading back to Washington in a few hours! I still have a few things to pack, but there’s time enough for me to resume that task later. 
I have a secret! It is a shameful secret, so, undoubtedly, the due course of action is to post it up on the internet for all the virtual world to see. Obviously.
