28-Day Pit Stop (August)

One day late, but we all know how that goes.

On the 28th day of each month (in honor of PMS and that whole menstrual cycle thing), we make a Pit-Stop to rally support for each other during a particular moment of PSM.

Submit a comment with your experience. Yours may be just the inspiration or the support or the laugh a PSM sister needs!!

This month's little adventure is entitled "Empty House", because that's what so many of us are left with as our Spawns leave for school. If it's for the first time, their freshman year, the sight of their near-empty room and the silence of the house can be unnerving. There are signs that they will be back - furniture, maybe their car - but you won't hear their key in the door each night or the perpetual slamming door as they come in and out of the house all day come Saturday.

And you suddenly have hours and hours and days and days to fill. You should call a friend. You should join a group. You should sign up for a class. You should, you should, you should. But first, you'll grieve. You may not even recognize it (mine came in an inexplicable hankerin' to watch the first season of the Brady Bunch over and over and over), but, if you can, just give into whatever your mind and heart and body want. If it's the Brady Bunch and Chunky Monkey ice cream, so be it. The world can wait for you and it will.

And, on the bright side, the next year's Fall semester break-up will be much easier. In fact, you may be surprised when you don't cry as they drive away!

Read next to the not so BE-YOU-tiful visual for suggestions to distract you while we check the lug nuts and put air in your tires for the next 28 days. And don’t forget to send in a comment if you have any suggestions for fellow PSMers!!

Augusts's Pit Stop Suggestions:

Get a pillow and blanket and stay on the couch as much as you want to. You deserve a little downtime anyway!! I recommend watching mindless TV Shows about busy houses full of love and humor and little kids like Roseanne, Full House, Brady Bunch, Andy Griffith, Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver. They will make the house less quiet.

The Time Has Come

I thought I was home free. Only two weeks to go, and I really haven’t felt all that emotional. Until yesterday, that is, when he cleaned his room.

He has had a summer project to organize and purge, which he did and ended up with a pick-up truck full of stuff to donate and three lawn and leaf size bags of stuff to throw away. I saw little soccer and t-ball trophies poking out of one bag, but when I went to comment on not throwing his entire past away, he jumped down my throat for backpedaling.

The purging didn’t even hit me, because his room still looked like it belonged to the kid I’ve known for years.

Then, he had to go and clean it. Bed made. Clothes on hangers. Posters off walls. No junk on the computer desk or the nightstands or the armoire. No dishes or wrappers on the floor. Carpet! Hell, there were vacuum tracks.

There’s a song out there somewhere about a father who just sits in his daughter's room after she leaves. But I can’t go in there. There’s a floodgate that I’m pretty sure would take all of freshman year to plug. And I need to work.

I think I’ll make him start closing the door, though, because I know it’s just going to get worse from here, and I have a feeling I already may be taking it pretty hard.