Summertime Joys

 

I have fond memories of childhood summers reading the afternoon away in the shade. Games of tag on the lawn after dinner. Spending the entire day at the neighborhood swimming pool.

Even when it gets too hot to be outside too long, I love the sun shining in. Flowers blooming. Garden growing. Little ones splashing away including the biggest baby of them all, my black lab, Darby. 

Snapshots of summer. 

Salad growing in the garden. Pick some leaves, add meat or fish or cheese and feast. 

Lavender in full bloom. Fresh mixed with roses or dried in your closet, it’s such a lovely scent. And did you know, lavender also keeps moths away from your clothes. 

Patio pots and baskets adding more color for you and food for hummingbirds and bees. 

Sprinkles and splashing and water fun. At home, in the pool or sprinklers or away in one of many city parks. 

Beautiful sunsets. My favorite time of day, watching that sun slowly sink behind the trees in all its yellow, orange and red glory. 

Summer of love. 

Unlike the last, this is a summer to love. My home is whole. My family is healthy. And even though on some days, it’s too hot to fire up the kiln and my bisque pieces have to wait, I can still create. 

Taking better photos of my pieces. And putting them on Etsy. 

Reorganizing my new studio desk space. Designing new business cards. 

Taking the time everyday 

Seeing the purples, pinks and bright greens.

Smelling the roses and lavenders.

Picking fresh blueberries, tomatoes and lettuce.

Filling up on the true joys of summer.

Hot Day Memories

 

Living the last few days in my ‘cool cave’, my mind wanders back to my childhood. Those days where sitting in the sun was safe and fun. Splashing in the community pool without sunscreen was the norm. And there was NO air conditioning. 

Yes, I got really sunburned. And yes, as a descendent of Ireland, my skin is not just fair, easily sunburned but also high on the list of skin cancer risk groups. And yes, I’ve had melanoma and I’m luckily now, cancer free. 

How did we survive the heat?

Sitting in my air conditioned cave, I wonder how we all survived the summer heat and humidity in the Midwest. It was hot, yes. But it was also heavy with moisture that weighed you down like a heavy, hot blanket. I remember hating it. 

But I also remember going to the library, not air conditioned at all, but dark and cool and filled with rows and rows of books. I was a regular. Checking out stacks of books at a time. One summer I read through all books in the women in history section. Of course, I read through all the Nancy Drew I didn’t own and other classics like Little Women, House on the Prairie, Huckleberry Finn, Heidi and more. 

At home with a borrowed book, I headed next door where my two friends were already sitting on the covered patio quietly turning pages. One summer, a box arrived from my grandmother’s house filled with paperback gothic novels. I voraciously read them all. As we sat and sipped Kool-aide, feet propped on the brick walled patio reading the hot days away.

Forward into the past. 

I do miss swimming and splashing in the sunshine sometimes. I loved the water. But not the sunburns that came later. As a melanoma survivor, I don’t go out into the sun now unless I really have to and then only layered in sunscreen. I’m so grateful for the technology we now have that can protect us from the sun. 

With temperatures soaring into the hundreds, I’m regressing into my childhood comfort zone. I’m sitting with my feet propped, a cool drink and a stack of digital books. I’m in the house, out of the sun, heat and humidity. Safe from cancerous rays, reading the hot days away. 

And remembering those hot summer days quietly reading the day away fondly but now very glad for my air conditioned cool cave.