Summer - Day 3

Here I am again...after being out of school for a few days. I love it! I am not quite sure what I will be doing all summer, but I know that it will be as little as possible! HA! What I mean is...I will not be stressed out by 'having' to be anywhere or do anything that I do not want to do. This is the life, even though it only lasts a couple of months during the hottest part of the year! hahahaha
I may take a few trips to the beach and just sit in the sun, wearing some heavy sunscreen continually. I may just stay home (my favorite thing to do) and figure out how to make that castle cake that I promised to make for my niece's 4th birthday, that is in August. She wants Snow White, so I went to some toy stores yesterday and scoured the internet for a small Snow White figure to use on the cake. I finally found one at Toy R Us. There are not many Snow White things out there. You can find plenty of Cinderella things, though!
I would like to take a day trip to Charleston, SC to visit an old friend. My daughter and her husband left on a spur of the moment trip to Asheville yesterday. I know that I want to go back to Tampa to see my son later in July. He is in Greece right now, and I want to see all of the pictures of his travels. Today was supposed to be a trip to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned. I say 'supposed to', because I ended up not going. I am required to pre-medicate with Amoxicillin, due to a little heart thing, but I am afraid to take any antibiotics any more. I am afraid due to a horrible experience with a horrible allergic reaction that I had to a pill called Avelox that put me in the hospital TWICE in two weeks! So, the dentist office said that they could not treat me without my medication. That is really like a Godsend anyway, because I do not have the money for the visit anyway. Isn't it interesting how things turn out sometimes? The MAIN thing I have GOT to do is buckle down and write my dissertation. I am being really frivolous right now by writing on this blog instead of studying. Oh well, I will get to it when I am ready and can wrap my brain around thinking about it. So, my summer has started off to be really calm and peaceful. I am very lucky and blessed to have my children and the family that I have and for them to all be healthy.
The neat thing about facebook is that you can find people that you knew years ago and catch up with their lives. I have found many old high school friends that I knew when I lived in Germany. Christine and Gary married after high school, and they now live in Georgia. She wrote on facebook yesterday that they lost their 26 year old son during the night to cancer. He fought a brave 8 month battle, but he finally succumbed to that horrible disease. They say he went peacefully in his sleep, so that is a blessing. On the day that my son graduated from college, I wrote a letter to Christine and Gary, because it was their son and my son that I was thinking about that morning. While I was expressing my joy for my son's accomplishments, they were mourning the imminent arrival of their son's last day on earth. Yesterday, it rained here in most parts of Georgia. They have written that when they heard the thunder and the lightning, they knew it was Justin telling them that he had arrived in heaven and he was at peace. I think it is interesting that his mother wrote that, because while it was raining here, I was thinking that the rain was tears from heaven. They were joyful tears telling everyone that Justin is at peace and free of pain. So while I am having a great few days of summer, my friends are having to exerience the loss of their son. They will be spending the summer learning how to live without him, to fill their days with memories of him, and to be at peace with the fact that he is now with the Lord and will no longer be their little boy here on earth.
I didn't really mean to end on a sad note, but I am thinking of my friends and Justin today. My son is away having the time of his life traveling in Europe and Greece. I am so lucky and blessed that he is still with me on this earth, and that he is able to have this special time during his young years.
So, summer is here bringing all sorts of experiences and thoughts. I hope the next few months will continue to be peaceful and calm and that we all will experience wonderful times together with our families.