The End of Summer

So much complete, yet so much left to do as this Labor Day weekend and the summer unofficially come to a close tonight. And, in a sense, tomorrow, as the Chicago Tribune wrote so profoundly a couple weeks ago, we start a new year ...

We celebrated with a movie night on Friday, an early-bird scavenger hunt for garage sale deals (I got a bike for $5!) and the sharing of good food, conversation and laughs with close friends on Saturday evening, and on Sunday through today -- my favorite pasttime -- I spent working in our yard ...

Now complete: A summer full of good times at Summerfest, going to more baseball games than I can remember, productive housework, a bittersweet reunion with 'The Four,' memorable weddings of close friends and family members and walks along Lake Michigan ...

Pretty much complete: The Cubs season. After sweeping the Pirates over the weekend there was a small glimmer of hope. And even today, in St. Louis, the Cubs seemed to catch just enough breaks to stay in the game. Even when an Albert Pujols homerun in the eighth appeared to wipe the Cubbies out, they nearly came back from four down in the ninth, only to have Derrek Lee end the game on a double play -- to Cubs exile Mark Grudzielanek of all people ... Here's to another verse of 'Wait til next year' ...

Can't wait until it's complete: Our illustrious yard and landscape. Boy, if I could face the prior residents of our house to ask them what they were thinking when they decided to line the foundation with layers and layers and layers of rocks. And then! top that with layers and layers and layers of mulch. They must've REALLY wanted a low maintenance yard -- and they've must've really had something against flowers and shrubbery. ...It's been a long summer of picking rocks one by one and dumping them on a pile in our back yard. I spent several more hours today cleaning out the rocks in hopes of having a yard next summer that is overflowing with blooming flowers.

And just beginning: Packers football, new seasons of 'Lost,' 'Desperate Housewives,' 'Grey's Anatomy,' 'Will & Grace,' and 'The Office,' on top of all the new shows TV has to offer, indoor house projects, changing leaves and the cool, Wisconsin fall air ...