Well, here it is, Yes, I am in the midst of summer. How do I know? There are a few clues..........
1. I have to look at a calendar to find out what day of the week it is.
2. I can wake up at 3 am and not worry if I can't get back to sleep because I can sleep, whenever.
3. If a book catches my fancy, I can spend the whole day reading it and not feel guilty.
4. Lazy is not an acceptable way to describe spending the day sitting at the water park or beach. My eyes are always keeping an eye on the little one....
5. I have taken on a new hobby. This year it's making homemade pasta. Quite successfully, I might add. When they all eat my spinach ravioli and want seconds....HELLO!
Summer is bliss for me. It is a time of rejuvenation, and I happen to be fortunate to have a career that allows me to fully enjoy the season. Yes, I know there are many who believe "We, Educators" have it easy and shouldn't complain about our jobs because we have summers off or don't deserve them. But, until you walk in our shoes......Nah, this post is not addressing that issue! This is about the joys of summer!
Having the summer off always reminds me of the magic of the summers of my youth. You know how they say the youth is wasted on the young? I think that may be true for summer, as well. My summers were basic, boring and glorious in their own right. Most memorably.....
1. Swim lessons.... My parents felt that since they didn't learn to swim until their 40's their children should by being pushed off the pier into the frigid (as in melted iceberg, frigid. I am NOT kidding.) waters of Canandaigua Lake early in the summer mornings. Most of us complied, numbly, except my little brother who preferred playing in the sand.
2. Just hanging out and listening to music or reading a good book. This always involved lying out on the roof of the garage using baby oil in search of the perfect tan. I shudder thinking about all of that skin damage!
3. Sailing lessons through Parks and Rec.....What fun that was. Sailing to Squaw Island which isn't that great 'cause you can walk there on the sandbar. Getting stranded with a broken mast in the middle of the lake in a storm and the ever fun water balloon fights with the snooty Yacht Club sailors. That always reminds me of a John Hughes' movie for some reason.
4. The one week of family vacation. Used to be we'd all go to Beckers, a resort on 4th Lake in the Adirondacks similar to Kellerman's in Dirty dancing. But minus the dancing, and sadly minus the hot Patrick Swayze. Even if he was there, we stopped going by the time I was 12, so I wouldn't have appreciated it anyway. No, my thrill was to go to the Enchanted Forest which is a water park now, but then it was a lame walk through the woods visiting the nursery rhymes. In my teens, we would go to Toronto, or Niagara Falls, but the teen angst of 4 teenagers became too much for any of us to handle.
5. Camps, lots of camps. I attended many, and knowing my memory is not exactly perfect, I'm sure they were all not during one summer. Or maybe they were and that makes me wonder if my parents did that because they didn't want me around.....hmmm.
6. Working at Carvel Ice Cream , my first real job. An ice cream stand right across from the main beach. You'd think that there'd be many boy stories. There were..... only they mainly involved my best friend. I mostly remember memorizing the menu and tax table with my dad because it was expected to calculate an order in your head while you were preparing it. A nightmare for me as I have issues with mental math. I still recall a milkshake was $1.18 with tax and a Mexican sundae was $1.31.
Ahh good times.... used to be my father would say that when the 4th of July rolled around summer was almost over which wasn't really true up north, but it is closer to the truth down south. So it looks like I'll have to really pull out the stops and enjoy the rest of it because before I know it, school will be back in session.
How well do you fully embrace the joys of summer? Even if you have to work, do you change your schedule, your behavior, your lifestyle because of summer? Happy Summer, Y'all!
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