I Love Summer

I love summer! I love the warm. I love sitting on my patio and smelling the delicious smells of the Mexican restaurant on the other side of our privacy fence. I love digging in my garden and seeing the results of all that work. I love sitting outside with all the kids into the wee hours singing songs, drinking and just having a great time.

I love driving around with the top down on my Mustang. I love early summer mornings. I love late summer nights, especially when there's a full moon.

I love summer fruit! I love watermelon and often eat only that for dinner. I LOVE mangoes! I only eat them when Im alone though because its a disgusting spectacle to see me slurping the flesh and dripping it down my chin onto my clothes. I love corn on the cob! I love grilling out and trying new foods on the grill.

I love waking up in the summer and knowing that a blue sky is right outside my window. I love the sound of crickets. I love butterflies and fireflies. I love candles in my garden at night. I love icy cold swimming pools and that unmistakable rush you get when you first jump in.

I love knowing that getting ready to leave the house means only shorts, shirt and sandals. No more coats, gloves, hats, scarves, boots. Ugh!

I love the sound of kids in the summer and remembering what it was like to be one myself. I love remembering staying out til dark, playing Blindman's Bluff and Hide and Seek and not having to worry about anything other than if it would rain tomorrow and keep us inside all day.

I love knowing that summer means seeing friends and family. Graduation parties and weddings and baby showers and wedding showers all over the place. I love the thought of the 4th of July coming up, knowing Ill get all teary eyed (as I always do) when I see the old Vets marching in our annual parade and when I hear that corny song God Bless the USA.

I remember when I was a little girl and we had no air conditioning and my mom would make a pallet for me on the front porch and let me sleep out there. How did we ever survive those humid Cincinnati nights?

I love the memories of sitting in my Daddy's lap, on hot summer nights, with family all around and him singing songs and teaching me to harmonize with him.

I love remembering my Mom's Paul Scarlett roses which spilled up and down our driveway wall and oh how I wish I could grow roses the way she could. Its on my Bucket List of things to do or to at least try.

Im not an ice cream fan (weird right?) but I love the memory of going to Graeters and buying an ice cream cone on Saturday afternoons and then hopping on my bike and trying to balance both the cone and the bike without spilling either!

Summer is when hot dogs and hamburgers and potato salad and iced tea are on everyone's menu. And you know its summer when the last thing you think of as you drift off to sleep is what pleasures tomorrow will bring.

Summer is a time for slowing down. Taking it easy. Remembering the past and looking forward to the future. Summer is about making memories with those we love, kissing sticky babies faces, going to baseball games and knowing that we are leaving a legacy behind in each and every summer we share.

Its about sand in your feet and wet bathing suits and getting in the car for a long journey and the excitement of knowing that you were on vacation.

In my neck of the woods, its all too short and reminds me of how quickly time passes.

I love the peace and quiet and sometimes the solitude of summer nights and those summer skies full of stars to wish upon.

For a few moments...life stops moving and I am reunited, once again, with all of those many summers, and the people in them, from long, long ago.