Life Lately / 8.14.25

The girls started school yesterday, which means summer feels like it’s officially “over” — though the weather will certainly continue to scream summer for at least another month. I’m definitely appreciating the return to a more regular schedule, but will miss the later wake-up times and calmer mornings that summer brought. But on we roll! I’ve got an 8th grader and a 4th grader this year, and both were excited about the new year and their teachers/schedules.

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We spent the second half of July in North Carolina with my family — the 4th time we’ve done this big group trip to Lake Lure. There was some uncertainty about what things would be like this year, since the Lake Lure/Chimney Rock area was hit very hard by Hurricane Helene last fall. The main street in Chimney Rock and all of the stores and restaurants along the road were essentially destroyed by flash flooding, and the bridge into Chimney Rock State Park was destroyed. Lake Lure — created in the 1920s by damming the Broad River — was filled with tons of fallen trees and debris from damaged/destroyed buildings. Nearly a year later, the lake is still closed as crews continue to dredge the lake and remove debris and sediment, and the water level is currently being kept 30 feet lower than usual to allow that. (If you look closely at the left photo above, you may be able to see how low the water is compared to its usual level.)

Nonetheless, tourism is the biggest part of their local economy, so we forged ahead with the trip, and in the end had a great time! It was a bummer to not be able to swim in the lake or play on the beach, but we were more than happy swimming in the pool, playing pickleball, taking golf cart rides, and more.

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The 2.5 weeks between getting home from NC and school starting went by quick. We celebrated Emma’s 13th birthday last week, which means I am now officially the parent of a teenager! A good friend of mine took her oldest child to college this week, and it’s hard to imagine I’ll be doing that same thing in a mere 5 years — but Emma at 13 continues to be a great kid and great person. I love hearing her talk about her activities and her friends and her thoughts, and am grateful that we’ve had a very smooth entry into the teenage years thus far.

We hosted 5 of her friends for a slumber party last Saturday, and that was pretty fun as well. I feel like friends are so crucial at this age, and I’m happy that she has found some great friends who all seem to have similarly good heads on their shoulders. Middle school can be rough, but she’s been having a very positive experience so far.

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Another big activity was rearranging all 3 upstairs bedrooms in our house. Emma moved into the guest room, aka the biggest room and the one with its own private bathroom. Charlotte moved into Emma’s room, which is connected to the other bathroom (so she’ll have it to herself except for the handful of times per year that we have houseguests. And the guest room/Jose’s home office moved into Charlotte’s room. This arrangement should last for a good 5 years, at which point Emma will be heading to college and Charlotte can move into that “best” bedroom for her own high school years.

This took a full weekend of moving furniture and other stuff, and unsurprisingly, the “stuff” part still isn’t totally complete. I have long wanted to do some serious decluttering across our entire house but 1) that takes time that I don’t often have at this particular life stage and 2) frankly, it’s just very overwhelming. I have had limited success tackling small areas at a time, and I recognize that’s better than nothing, but it remains an uphill battle.

We are also finally embarking on my long-awaited master bathroom renovation after, oh, NINE YEARS of living in this house and saying I want to redo the bathroom. We’ve made a down payment and selected the big stuff like cabinets, tile, floors, and countertops, and work will likely start in mid-September. It’s an expensive undertaking, and living without a master bathroom for several weeks will be very inconvenient, but whew I cannot WAIT to be rid of our dingy cultured-marble-and-carpet bathroom.