the summer that wasn't

The weather has turned here.  It is misty and cold in the morning and then the mist burns off by afternoon.  It feels like fall.  I was still hoping to have summer.  Here are random notes from the summer that wasn't.

• 'twas a terrible year for gardening.  Either blazing hot or really chilly.  Most everything languished during the chilly episodes and bolted during the hot ones.  We did well with potatoes and it looks as if there will be zucchinis.
• I am slowly healing from the nasty whatever-it-was that put me in the hospital earlier this month.  I am able to eat without much pain -- which is nice -- and I am getting my energy back.
• I'm reading The Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and I am confused.  For some reason I thought it would be a good read, but it is really just a romance novel. I think the cover fooled me.  Doesn't it look respectable?  But truth be told, it should have a woman with a revealing bodice swooning in the arms of a hurky man.   Why am I even admitting to be reading it?  To warn you away. 
• I taught only one class this summer.
• Yet another summer has passed and I am more aware of all the fun things we didn't do, and not really full of fun memories of things we did do, because we really didn't do much.  I missed blueberry season somehow.  We never went to the ocean (and we live on the coast!).  We didn't go clamming.  I didn't eat a single bite of Copper River Salmon.  I really failed as a PNW mom this year.
• We did a few fun things though -- we visited our charming relations in Nebraska.  We helped host a fun graduation/bon voyage party for some other charming relations (we are blessed with many relations, most of them charming). We swam at the lake.  We raised five pullets. We star-gazed.
• And we are planning two vacations in the near future.  The children and I will spend some time up on Vancouver Island, and then later all four of us will go camping on Orcas Island (the largest of the San Juans).