I Can Take It Or Leave It

What is one thing you look forward to in the summer?

In a nutshell I guess I can take summer or leave it. As an adult it’s definitely not my favorite season. I’d love it to be spring the entire year! It’s way too hot in the summer. I live in South Carolina which has extremely high humidity. When you go outside it feels like a hot, wet blanket on your skin. I don’t like insects either. I can’t even walk the dogs without battling gnats and mosquitoes. I always spray a little bug spray on my socks so maybe chiggers won’t get me. Since it’s so hot most restaurants and other public places are cooled to the point that you need a snowsuit to survive the cold. Sometimes it’s so hot that even my dogs don’t want to go out. Just this week my Ginger refused to go walking with us. And forget about your hair. The humidity makes mine go limp, but I guess it could be worse. One of my friends with naturally curly hair said that she looks like a poodle in the summer. She really does, but I didn’t say so.

So, is anything good about summer in South Carolina? Oh yes. When I was a child summer meant freedom. School was out, and there were so many wonderful things to do. The neighborhood kids spent a lot of time playing softball. Sometimes we all went for a long bike ride. We frequently got together with my aunts, uncles, and cousin for impromptu barbecues. The kids would try to catch lightening bugs (fireflies), and when we tired of that we’d hang around the older folks listening to their stories and gossip. I used to love picking blackberries. My grandma made the best blackberry cobbler ever. Aunt Louise who lived in another place always came to visit for two weeks every summer. We loved her to pieces. She told great stories and played games with us. Summers were vacation times too. I have very fair skin, but I loved going to the beach in the summer. Besides Christmas that was the most fun ever. 

From the perspective of a teenager summer freedom was still appealing. There was plenty of time for movies, parties, and talking endlessly on the phone. I was always a reader so that’s another reason I liked summer. There was no schoolwork to eat up my reading time. 

As an adult I do have some issues with summer, but there are still things I like. My grandchildren stayed with me when school was out, and boy did we have a good time. I’d write in the morning, and by lunch time who’d call around to find someone to go to lunch with us. We had tea parties, baked cookies using an old cookie press, and went shopping to find some bargains for when school finally began. I also enjoyed working in my yard. I had some lovely flowers. 

So, what is one thing I’m looking forward to this summer? In August my husband and I are going to spend a week in the North Carolina Mountains. We absolutely love the highland areas around Boone and Grandfather Mountain. Maybe we’ll even see a bear. We have before. It was a mama and three cubs. They came to see us one night, and since there was no way for them to get to us we could look at them all we wanted.We had had some other plans, but they just haven’t worked out. Yet. The year isn’t over either.

What about you? What’s one thing you love about summer?