I have to admit I cringed a little bit when I changed the dates of the newspaper this week. I even had to check my calendar to make sure I didn’t accidentally miss the month of July. Now that Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson conquered space, maybe their next project can be creating a time machine. 

August, I thought to myself on Wednesday morning. Like it’s seriously August.

It seems like summer just started and now we are preparing our kids for going back to school. 

Maybe I am the only one, but summer has really flown by this year. Perhaps it’s because we really didn’t do a whole lot last year. I mean think about it, how many summer celebrations did you go to? Did you go on a trip? Did you bring your kid into practice for baseball four days a week? 

I’m not sure if this summer was necessarily more busy than in years past, or if we just got used to taking a more relaxed approach to our craziness in Minnesota—you know cramming a years worth of stuff into 10 weeks (the last two weeks of August don’t count if you have children in school). That being said, I don’t know if I ever really had a chance to get used to the idea of there being a summer in the first place. Between all of the activities with our kids, we had softball 1-2 nights a week between the different leagues, swimming lessons, summer rec, town festivals just about every weekend and who knows what else, it seems like summer just began.

On the positive side, as I pointed out to someone last week, August is a five week month. Hopefully that will make the month drag on a bit longer and give us a chance to enjoy a bit of the summer months without the hectic nature of July. 

Smoke cologne

When I was in college I spent several years working at Herbergers at the Fargo, N.D. mall (trust me it wasn’t as glamorous as it sounds). I find it a bit ironic as I am sitting in my flip flops, baggy shorts and a t-shirt at work, that I once had to wear a tie and dress clothes to work each day.

When I worked at Herbergers I would oftentimes wander into the fragrance department, which was right next to mine. I kid you not when I say they literally had a perfume or cologne for everything. Peaches, berries, your favorite athlete, just about anything you can imagine—with the exception of campfire. 

After spending the past few days inside due to the smoke from the Canadian fires I can see why. 

If you think about it, very few people walk away from a campfire when one is going by the lake, but I think we care more about the shenanigans that is going on around the fire than the actual fire itself. Doubt me? Go stand outside for a few minutes and tell me how much you like smelling like a bon fire.

So while you might not be purchasing a campfire cologne or perfume, I did find these unusual fragrances on Business Insider that might trip your trigger: lobster cologne, mustang cologne (new car smell), Flame by BK (smell like a whopper/flame-broiled meat), scent of a Macbook Pro (you know the computer) and Benedict (yes apparently the Vatican has commissioned a celebrity perfume-maker to create a fragrance for Pope Benedict). 

Back to the smoke though, I wonder if anyone has an old strobe light they aren’t using anymore. It might be kind of fun to take it outside and see if we can have a dance party out back. You wouldn’t even need a smoke machine, it has already been already provided.