Summer's ending and I am currently in Vegas for my company's annual meeting. Hot, tacky, loud; I pretend I am Maria in Play It As It Lays. I wanted to smoke a cigarette because I am here. I wanted to play Black Jack and win big. I wanted to lay out by the pool and sleep the day away. Instead, I got Chinese food brought to my room and was in bed by 9:30.

The days here will drag. My annual meeting always signals that summer is over. I come face-to-face with my coworkers and make small talk. I work remote, so I am used to the conversations I have with the dogs--a series of "No's", "Good girl", and "Want some of this cake?". It's their peaceful, calm silent reply, their gentle taking of the food from my palm, the body language that passes between us for the 8 hours I am home alone with them that is a more meaningful dialogue than those I work alongside.

I'm a bit of a crazy dog lady, in truth.

But with this signal of the end of summer, I look back on all that I did not accomplish. I have not written my Vermont post; nor have I made the friends we made there their gifts. I did not clean out the garage like I wanted to, but we did catch the mouse that lived there for the last 2 months--so small and silent and so frustratingly uncatchable for so long. I did not listen to my mother all the times she told me her advice. I did not go to the gym like I had promised myself I would (again).

But I did make the best potato salad for a party we threw a few weeks ago. And when my sister asked me for the recipe, I would say this was probably the best thing I did this season. And I'm okay with that, because, finally, I am realizing the arbitrary timelines I put on myself are just that - arbitrary. And I'm learning to take it a little slower now.

Roasted Dill Potato Salad