Lazy, Busy days of Summer

Summer is a strange season. I have a love-hate relationship with it.

Okay, a love-dislike relationship with it.

I love that I don't have to wake up in the morning, ready with a plan for how we will accomplish schooling, errands, chores, and social outings. These months, I greet most new days during the week with more of a Take It As It Comes attitude. It's an adventure all its own, Summer is.

I dislike that the kids are a bit more stir-crazy and that I have to stay one step ahead of them in order to keep their hands and feet pleasantly occupied with chores, activities, and special events-- no matter how much I try to convince them to just Take It As It Comes with me.

I love that it's warm. No bundling feet, hands, faces, and heads up before bracing ourselves for the cold air and wind that inevitably takes our breath away the minute we open the door.

I dislike that I am lazier when it's hot. What little ambition I possess in the cooler months simply vanishes at about 3pm when our kitchen is reaching 85* or more. Needless to say, we eat a lot of sandwiches in the summer.

I love that there are fresh flowers in vases in my house. Flowers I don't pay for, except with a little weeding, mulching, and TLC. My perennial gardens are still in the Development stage and, therefore, their produce is still somewhat meager, but nonetheless they provide us with bouquets that are all the prettier to me because they're mine.

I dislike that we are surrounded by flies and mosquitoes. Blah.

I love that everything seems slower in the summer. We sit on the porch. I don't hurry home to get the kids in bed on time. We linger at the campfire, unhindered by routine. I pause after hanging the laundry on the line just to stare at the sky.

I dislike that summer is so busy! There are always so many things I want to do-- good things, fun things, unusual things, new things-- and somehow I always find myself at this point at about this time in July: realizing the days are slipping like sand through my fingers and that it won't be long before I am putting together and enacting a new Fall Routine.

Really and truly, I love more than I don't. I wouldn't trade one minute of these Lazy, Busy days of Summer, but I'm glad there are only so many each year!