Hello darkness, my old friend.

Can you even believe it is August already? We were on vacation last week and since I’ve been back I’ve noticed the huge change in daylight. Before I left the sky was light when I left the house at 5:00 am; now I have to turn on the outside light to go to the garage. I don’t need to close the blinds tightly when I go to bed because it’s already dark.

I know in many, many places in the world, August is still considered “summer” but to me, it begins to feel like fall. The air feels cool and crisp, and even though we have had the warmest, most beautiful summer I can ever remember, I am not ready for it. One thing to note about this city: our summers are short and once the weather turns, it turns. There’s no going back.

Don’t go, summer! Don’t go.

One thing about August is that it’s time to prepare for school; one of my tasks today is to figure out what clothes still fit the boys and what needs to be purchased. Spoiler alert: nothing fits and the children currently have bare drawers where once there were jeans and long-sleeved shirts. It is also the time to think of winter gear – no, it’s not too early, technically we can have snow any time now.

Recently a friend finished a one-year non-shopping challenge, in which she bought no clothes for a whole year. A whole year! I wondered if I myself could – and perhaps, looking at my overflowing closet of much-loved clothes – should take that challenge. Readers may recall that I did a challenge like this last year after I Kondo-ed my closet; I vowed not to buy any clothes for approximately six months, and I did it. Could I do it for a whole year? I was thinking August 1 might be a good start date for that, keeping in mind that asking for clothes for Christmas and my birthday would still be acceptable. Technically speaking, that is. If there is one thing my husband loves to buy for me for such occasions, it is Lululemon wear. What’s not to love? He knows my size, my style preferences (Wunder Unders, Power Y tanks, and long flowy black sweaters) and he can order it online. I shall not take that joy away from him/ I need an out in case a really cute top comes on “We Made Too Much.”

Anyway, I’m considering it. A whole year, though! I wonder if I could do it. I certainly wouldn’t do it for the boys, since their pants are currently in the “capri” zone and their shirts are inadvertently “three-quarter length.”

Speaking of which, does anyone actually like three-quarter length shirts? As a long-limbed girl, they make me feel like an ape or an orangutan wearing human clothes for some kind of animal-based sitcom.

We were on vacation last week, visiting family and friends, and for the most part it was very lovely; lots of long walks, pool time, sunshine, and tasty drinks. This week has been all about getting back to routine, such as it is in the summer.

Someone mentioned to me that my life looks pretty sublime, at least according to Facebook, which is kind of a funny metric. I mean, my life IS pretty sublime, I certainly have no complaints; the vast majority of my time is spent teaching yoga, preparing food, or grocery shopping, all excellent endeavors that I enjoy very much. But of course we rarely talk about the dreary parts of life, like washing dishes several times a day, or cleaning the yard of previously-digested dog food, or pestilence.

Yes, pestilence. We arrived home from vacation to discover that some young people in this house had improperly disposed of Freezie wrappers in the downstairs garbage can, leading to sticky fruit liquid on the floor, and an infestation of ants. Ants! Fortunately one of those young people redeemed himself by googling DIY ant traps, and so we mixed a cup of sugar with half a cup of water and a tablespoon of Borax, and I highly recommend this route. We soon had a Gone With The Wind-like scene featuring ants in the place of wounded soldiers.

Later that same evening, my husband and I were watching Game of Thrones and I found myself staring off into the distance as a coping mechanism during a particularly grim scene. I saw…something. Something black and long and…it disappeared into the useless little cupboard over the staircase. I looked, and my alarmed husband asked what exactly I was looking for. I said that I thought – maybe – it could be a mouse. My husband looked at me and said, “OH NO” in the manner of someone who has to deal with the fallout of a major disaster. We looked but couldn’t see any signs of previously-digested mouse food, and so I said maybe it was just my imagination.

You know how you say something, but you really don’t believe it? That was me. I just knew there was a mouse in the house but had no proof. Sure enough, the next day I took out the kitchen compost bin and underneath it was a sure sign. I called my husband, who asked me, in a very worried voice, why I sounded so calm. He was remembering my near-breakdown after The Moustastrophe of 2013. That evening I went out to teach a class, and my husband and the boys set traps. Later, after I was in bed, apparently there was a snap and then there was much jockeying and arguing about which boy would get to dispose of the mouse carcass. Another trap had to be set on the off chance that the deprived child would be able to act as Mouse Undertaker, but happily, this has not yet come to fruition.