summer fade.

Crap. It's the end of July, you guys. I'll be back to the grind again very soon. Crap.

This was a good summer. I cried a little, laughed a lot, danced and sang and swam, read a lot, wrote quite a bit, cleaned up randomly placed groups of toys in odd locations I like to call Lifestyle Art by M. I drank wine on my back porch while (wo)manning the grill, scooped out tiny tree frogs from that grill and certain death. I got 30 mosquito bites all over me that will leave scars, I just know it. I had a run in with a hot hair brush that will certainly scar right up. I have some heart scars that are less visible, too. I probably caused some as well. Which I am sad about.

But If I had to pick one favorite memory from the whole thing, I'd pick the Friday back in June I got to see my sweet girl kick Fear's ass to the curb and put her head underwater for the first time ever. And then do it again and again, and basically become obsessed with swimming underwater. My favorite part of the whole summer was getting to hang out and watch my land-locked Ariel transform herself back into a mermaid. With a spangly tail and a healthy fear of the deep end in case sharks are lurking at the bottom (which is just smart--because helloooo: SHARKNADO).

All in all, I'd say this summer had its hills and valleys, good times and sad. It had its laughs and sighs and road mishaps and memories. I'm sure this school year will be similar--Life's kind of just like that: yin complements yang. Live and learn. Growth from the bad and good. Letting go when necessary, making sad and hard decisions when faced with truth. But also some really ridiculous real moments of love and dear friends.

So I made a slideshow of some of my favorites from these moments of memories. I did try to upload better music--I mean, I had all kinds of cool songs ready to go for this (so! hard! to decide!): Leonard Cohen (whose mournful and gravelly voice I feel to my heart's depths), Damien Rice (who I'd throw everything away for and travel the world with...if he'd just ask), some haunting theme songs from favorite movies I'm dying to share with anyone and everyone...and finally, after hours of searching and indecision, I settled on Demi Lovato's version of Let It Go from FROZEN, since that was pretty much the theme for Summer 2014 at my house.

....only to find out kizoa.com makes you pay if you want to use your own music in your slideshows. And dammit, I'm tapped out, Internet. I can't even tell you how much I dropped on school supplies last week. Plus, now that I have a school age child? Holy pencils, it's just expensive.

So here's the poor person's version of a summer movie that should have, could have, had a far more sweeping musical score:  Summer Fade.

If I had to pick a theme song for this summer (that was NOT from FROZEN), I would pick THIS SONG:

Because I love this movie, Al Pacino, dancing, Leonard Cohen, and songs in minor keys. But not the end of summer. I do NOT love the end of summer. Thus: a song in minor key. But with happy dancing. (Yin, yang. Remember?)