Another Iced Tea Chat: 31 Days of Summer

Come in and have a cool drink with me.  What shall it be today?  Just anything at all as long as it's cold and full of ice?  I agree!

We've worked hard this summer. In addition to all the mowing and work about the homes we've been doing, I've kept up with housework, taken time out to go with the children to the library, baby sat when needed, worked at sundry little extra jobs, and written up a storm.  I'm ready to slow down and enjoy this season.

I've enjoyed this spate of hard work and creativity, but I know myself well.  If I continue without a break, I'll run dry.  Not only do I not want that to happen, especially creatively, but I have no way of knowing what each season of life might bring and right now there's a lull.  

I realized today that shortly we'll be headed into another month, the last month of summer.  The last month in which I stand a hope of getting a fresh locally grown peach if the season holds out through the first week. The last month to have freshly made peach ice cream.  The children are going back to school. Summer is flying past and I long to hold onto it with both hands and drag it back all over again so I can enjoy the parts I feel I've missed. 

I don't want to work hard this month.  I simply want to do what has to be done (mowing, cleaning, watering plants) and then I want to play and rest.  I want to literally stop and smell the roses, enjoy the current season, and take a little vacation albeit right here at home.

My goals for August are going to be different.  Oh, we'll still have to do some yard work and there will always be housework, but I'm dropping projects whether they are finished or not.  Work always waits. Writing will slow down for this month.  I'm going to scale back to just an abbreviated weekly diary until Labor Day, much as I've done the past few years for the month of July.  Mostly I want to enjoy what I can of the 'lazy hazy crazy days of summer' and feel a little less like a hamster on a wheel.

Knowing how deeply I've regretted summer's passing these last years, this year I've decided that for the 31 days of August, I will celebrate summer in some form every single day.  Perhaps it's a 10-minute sun bath, if I can last that long, or gathering a bouquet for indoors (if I have any flowers by then...If not I'll buy some!).  Perhaps I'll get a sprinkler and sit on the patio and enjoy that refreshing cold water.  Or I'll have a tomato sandwich for lunch using a fresh, in season, just pulled from the vine, tomato that is still warm from the sun. Maybe it will be to plant a fall garden.  Most crops will do well here and produce a second crop before frost.  It's not too late to have a harvest.  We haven't fired up the grill even once this year.  A hamburger or steak off the grill would be a lovely thing to do for a summer meal.

Vacation might not be a possibility at all this year.  Prices shocked us in Spring, and we bought chairs with the money we set aside instead.  I've been trying to squirrel away a little each month since then.  I'd decided mid-July to look at our usual place and perhaps we'd have a fall vacation.  I could work out summer and save like crazy.  But it seems they are entirely booked up for all of October.  I can take a hint...maybe this isn't the year to go back to St. Augustine. 

I've set a small amount of money aside for each week of this month and it's my plan to lure John away from home.  An overnight stay could happen.  Just one night away won't stretch the budget too hard.

And day trips are entirely possible. There are certain things we do only on vacation.  We visit museums and historic sites.  We picnic at a state park or lake.  Perhaps we might go visit a site or two that I've just been longing to see. I want it to feel like a vacation even if it is just for a day or one night. 

We usually have an adult beverage on the balcony overlooking the ocean before supper.  Why not have one while sitting on our own front porch, overlooking the yard?  We buy deli meats we'd normally forgo when on vacation and we buy a weird (aka fancy) cheese.  We have an appetizer with our adult beverages.  Those things can easily be done here at home.

Not everything we do has to cost any money.  There are 31 days ahead.  Surely, I can come up with 31 unique summertime treats that are free or very cost effective and just ENJOY summer!  I don't have a complete plan of all that we might do this month just yet, but I do have a few ideas.  Now to just DO those things.

Don't you wish sometimes, you could just turn back the clock and revisit a certain place and have it all as it was once again?  I don't very often but now and then I'd love to revisit certain moments in my life.

When we were children, we were restless all summer long.  We lived for those days we could spend here on this property with Granny.  She'd make us do chores in the morning and then turn us loose after lunch, shooing us outdoors once more. Since she lived without air conditioning it was no hardship for us to take off somewhere outdoors.  We'd wander down to the wooded area between pastures and play on the cool green mossy ground under the trees.  We'd build houses.  We'd pretend to be pioneers or cowboys and Indians.  

If that palled, we'd take advantage of the free-flowing creek that ran across the property.  We would usually get in the wide place in the creek where the cows would cross from the back pasture to those closer to the house and build a dam to try and create a swimming hole.  That spot never did get deep enough for swimming, but we often had water up to our knees, and that allowed us to get good and wet.  It was refreshing play and kept us busy enough.

I'm sure Granny never minded because she got some much-needed quiet time to herself while we all were occupied elsewhere.  She had a system to insure we were okay.  She'd step out in her back yard and "Yoo-hoo!" and we'd "Yoo-hoo!" right back.  If we didn't, she'd wander down the field road to look for us.  We did NOT want Granny to come for us because by the time she found us, she'd be good and mad and equipped with a switch. 

When we were tired of playing amongst the little trees and in the water, we'd come back home.  Usually about this time Granny would call us to eat a snack.  She always had a big pitcher of tea or Kool-Aid and some sort of cheap store-bought cookie or watermelon or cantaloupe, or peaches.  We'd sit under the trees in the back yard on the brick patio the boys had cobbled together from bricks and sand for her, and we'd rock in the chairs or glide gently back and forth on the glider and we'd all talk, Granny right there with us.  We generally stayed there until time to prepare supper.

Now and then Granny would make hamburgers on the grill outdoors but mostly we cooked dinner indoors.  Granny had a job for each of us at mealtime and a repertoire of easy simple meals that she seemed to only serve when we visited, never at any other time.  After supper, we all helped clean and then we headed right back outdoors to rock and glide and chatter away.  Several of us had books and read.  When it started to get dark and the mosquitoes were aggravating us, we'd all go indoors and begin the routine of getting ready for bed.  Granny had one spare room, a sleeper sofa, a folding bed that she parked behind the door during the day and so she managed a place for all of us to sleep.  After baths and getting into pajamas we'd play Gin Rummy or Go Fish.  Someone might read out loud, or those of us that enjoyed reading would read (usually me, Elaine and Granny).  I don't recall us ever watching television in summer. 

There were days we'd set up the old canvas tent and then we'd spend the night outdoors.  Yes, it was mighty warm, especially when all seven of us just fit by lying side by side, lol, but you know we never complained of being hot or the ground of being hard.  And it was always fun to wake up in the morning and wonder why we each had managed to change places but none of us had ever been aware of moving.

If the summer weeks, we spent here sound idyllic they were in so many ways.  We were happy here, all of us, and we were sure of Granny.  We all lived our own separate horrors at home but here we were truly allowed to be the children we were meant to be.  We all came here willingly even in our teens to spend time with Granny and each other and later all of us had the opportunity to have our own bit of this place.

Years later, when my Amie and Sam were little, we spent an entire summer at the swimming pool near our home.  That might sound ridiculous, but we lived in a house with poor air circulation and no air conditioning.  It was so hot and stuffy.  Every day after lunch we packed up and headed to a swimming pool that was fed by an artesian spring.  That water was cold, often registering around 58F and did it ever feel awesome on a 100F day!  We were there every day that it was open.  Membership cost was low and most definitely cheaper than buying an air conditioner and paying the electric bill once it was installed.   We'd pack a bag with snacks, and we stayed right there until the pool closed each day.  We weren't the only ones who utilized that pool.  There was a whole crowd of people and like us they showed up every single day.

I always made a point of slipping into the pool for at least an hour before we headed home.  It lowered my body temperature, and I would be cool as a cucumber all evening long at home, lol.  In those days my first husband was seldom home prior to 7pm.  Supper was often an easy meal.  It was, truthfully, a glorious way to spend summer and I never once regretted the time we spent enjoying the season.  But then I went to school and to work and that ended those sorts of summer days.  

Those were summer days of long ago.  Now I'm ready to create memories of summer in this season of life.  I'm going to enjoy summer.  What about you?

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