College Applications

Cameron worked a good portion of the afternoon on filling out the Common App, starting the process of applying to colleges.  For right now he has decided to apply to IU, Purdue, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida with a preference leaning towards Indiana.  He was excited at first to begin the next step of his future life, but after a couple of hours of work he became completely disillusioned with the amount of work that it would ensure.  Just the information that he had to upload for the Common App was daunting.  Once he saw the question for the essay, "Name a time in your life that you had a setback," he stopped completely.  He had spent way too much time on the computer already this afternoon to then write about Richard.  We told him to take a break and we would regroup later in the week.

I talked to Meg this afternoon about this time period in her life.  She laughed as she said that she was sure that she had everything filled out by August 3rd.  I knew that couldn't have been the truth unless I nagged her constantly about it.  There's just way too much to get done to finish it all that quickly and without my help or the guidance counselor's.  The way I remembered it was that everyone had their application into IU by the 22nd of August with others to follow shortly afterward.  The only one that I remembered not having to help was Cal.  Once he found out where his friends and classmates were applying, he wanted to beat everybody to the punch.  He also kept adding colleges as the fall wore on as he wanted to prove that he could get in everywhere that they could.  He also wanted to see how much money each one would offer in scholarships.  

No matter who finished first or who applied the earliest to IU, I am just glad that this will be our last time filling out the Common App in the Heinisch home.  There has to be an easier way to do all of this, but no one has come up with it yet.  If each student had a resume on file with their high school and could send that with their transcripts, that would really help.  It would also be a lot easier if essays were the same for each college.  Those take forever to write.  I also wish that all colleges offered a fee waiver for applying to all students. Paying $60 for each application definitely starts to add up.  Thankfully, all of this will be over soon and Cameron can then take a break and enjoy his fall.

Enjoying Chicago

We heard from Cal and Meg multiple times this weekend.  They were both enjoying their free days in Chicago.  The weather was hot, but they were still able to spend the majority of it outside.  Meg's plans started on Thursday night when she went to a country music festival that featured Willie Nelson.  She sent pictures to Grandpa and texted me that Willie was fantastic.  I was glad to hear that as she only knew one song going in to the concert.

On Friday, Meg's friend Maddie arrived on the train to spend the night with her.  They ate dinner at Portillo's, tried a few bars and then went shopping on Michigan Avenue.  Meg had a lot of fun with Maddie and was looking forward to seeing her more in Bloomington when school started again.  Nick arrived Saturday night.  He and Meg went to the miniature golf bar.  They were impressed with how many people were there.  They planned to spend the rest of the weekend with their usual Chicago activities - Lincoln park, eating out and a lot of walking.

Cal had a great start to his weekend.  Friday night was spent with friends on the roof top deck of their apartment.  On Saturday Cal went out with his girlfriend, Rachel and her friends on one of their boats.  He thoroughly enjoyed Lake Michigan.  He told me that it felt like they were absolutely flying, but they were only going 30 mph.  He thought that he would take it easy on Sunday.  Overall,  I was thrilled to hear that both he and Meg had taken advantage of all that Chicago had to offer and had shared their fun with us.

Twenty-Three Straight Years of First Day of School Pictures

Last night we took Cameron to Ruhe 152 in Nappanee for dinner to commemorate the end of a great summer and the first day of school tomorrow.  We knew that he would really like the restaurant as they had delicious food.  Cameron liked all that he ate including their sushi and half of my chicken sandwich.  Doug enjoyed his dinner as well and I couldn't stop talking about how wonderful their Asian slaw was.  

As we were talking about the summer and Cameron's expectations for senior year, we pointed out to him that this would be our 23rd straight year of first day of school pictures.  He was surprised when we said it as he hadn't thought about the fact that we were taking first day of school pictures seven years before he was born.  To honor the milestone I looked through all of our photo albums to find the 22 previous pictures.  It took awhile to find the first six, but once I did I knew that I had to post them on Facebook.  That way I'd remember those 23 days every year when it showed up in my memories.  

This morning Cameron wasn't overly excited about the start of another school year, but he was ready to get back to a normal schedule.  He was also anxious to get senior year started.  The sooner it began, the quicker it would end and he'd move on to the next chapter in his life.  After our conversation last night, he was more than willing to have his picture taken before he headed to Bethany.  It was fun to see all of the pictures together and a great way to memorialize THE LAST FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL PICTURE ever in the Heinisch home.

Day 1 Success

All of my worries about the garage sale were gone by 10:30 a.m. this morning.  First, the forecast moved the rain until the evening, so Doug and I could move everything out into the driveway.  Second, we had more customers by mid-morning than I would have ever dreamed.  Lastly, everyone was buying much more than I would have thought possible.  In fact there was even a battle over who asked to buy the Fisher Price farm set first.  We settled it all amicably and got rid of the rest of the sets before lunchtime. 

We received a lot of praise from everyone on how organized our sale was and how inexpensively we had priced everything.  It was nice to hear that as I had spent quite a bit of time on the garage sale these past two weeks.  The best part of the day, however, was closing up at 5 p.m.  That was when we realized how much we had already sold.  We had even surpassed our total goal for the weekend of $300 with $398 earned today.  We're all hoping for a great day tomorrow as well, but even if it is a bust, we at least made a huge dent in all that we needed to get rid of in order to downsize today.  

Humidity

This week has been absolutely unbearable.  Temperatures have been in the 80s, but the humidity has made it feel at least ten degrees warmer.  The humidity hasn't just made it feel a lot hotter, but it has also greatly increased the chance of rain over the next few days.  As we had planned on moving a lot of items outside for the garage sale tomorrow, I had to come up with an alternate layout for our everything that we wanted to sell.  

I started on it this morning as it was going to be way too hot to work outside this afternoon.  Thankfully, Grandma was available to help.  We moved as much as we could on the front porch and then hung up plastic to protect it from the rain and still make it visible for the sale.  That was by far the hottest job as the plastic kept the wind off the porch.  It felt like a sauna.  Our hard work paid off, however, as the skies opened up once we finished and everything stayed dried.  I was very happy to see that.

Hopefully, we won't have to deal with rain tomorrow, but what I really wish is that the humidity would leave.  Cameron said that it has been brutal at tennis this week and Meg texted that it's horrible in Chicago as well.  Maybe all of this hot, sticky weather is preparing us for moving south next year.  This has definitely reminded me of the weather that we encountered in Ocala at the end of July.  My neighbor told me to stop wishing it away as all too soon it will be winter.  I know that he is right, but I sure wouldn't mind a day free from the heat.

Humility

Over the past few days several of us in the Heinisch family have had to deal with someone who either bragged about themselves or put us down in order to elevate their status.  Those situations weren't extremely pleasant, but I noticed that it affected us all differently.  When it happened to me, I kind of laughed, wished them well and forgot about it.  I realized that there must have been a reason why they felt that they needed "to put me in my place", but I didn't care.  It really didn't even change my opinion about the person.  I knew that some insecurity must have brought out the comment, and I would be more careful about the topics that I chose to talk about with them in the future.

When it happened to Cameron, however, it didn't quite go the same way.  He took the person's comments personally.  I couldn't blame him at all for that.  The person speaking cared only about how they felt and discredited everyone else.  As a seventeen year old, that can pretty tough to swallow.  Meg could definitely sympathize with Cameron.  She wasn't that far removed from high school to remember how shallow people could be.  I was glad that he called her to talk when he was frustrated.  He felt a lot better about it all.  As I thought about the events of the last few days, my mind kept focusing on the word "humility."  It's something that is hard to teach, but so important in life, especially if you want to maintain friendships.

Contacts

While we were driving home from Florida, Cameron told me that he would be interested in getting contacts.  Samuel and Avery both wore them and said that they strongly preferred them.  I agreed with Samuel that I actually saw better with contacts than glasses.  I called the eye doctor right away, but they didn't have any appointments available until the end of August.  Thankfully, they called last week and were able to move Cameron up a month.  Last Thursday he was fitted for contacts.

Today was Cameron's second contact appointment.  They scheduled an hour with a technician for him, so that he could learn how to wear them.  I decided to go with him for moral support and was happy to hear that he was able to put his contacts in, take them out and put them in again.  He said that he was nervous at first and they burned a little, but overall he was pleased with his new contacts.  He would now have them for the first day of school and all of tennis season.  Cameron said that the best part was that he would finally be able to wear sunglasses.  I was very happy for him.