A short, hot summer

I cannot believe September begins next week.

Already a kajillion students are back to swarm the campus, as classes began yesterday. Husband and I can no longer eat, drive, or walk anywhere with ease. I am currently whimpering beneath my desk, the only place I feel I won't be run over by a myopic co-ed who can see nothing but the phone in her hand.

While the afternoon has warmed to just under sweltering, the morning was so chilly that I thought about wearing a jacket. A jacket. Jacket weather.

While I enjoy the crisp fall days and the changing leaves and the fresh school supplies aisle, I feel a little cheated out of summer. Yes, we were fortunate enough to take about a week's vacation to New York, and while it was a memorable experience, it wasn't at all like the gentle, leisurely vacations to which Husband and I are accustomed. I admittedly run at a slower pace than NY, and I didn't feel like Husband and I got the chance to re-charge our batteries in preparation for the long, icy winter ahead.

I never wore a swimsuit once this summer. And I really, really like to swim.

Sistercousin and I had discussed plans to visit a water park, which I happen to adore (don't judge me). The plans almost became a reality, but time and work got in the way, and now the plans are postponed until next summer. Just like the plans have been postponed every summer in recent memory.

Husband isn't a list maker or a plan creater, so activities are generally left to me to figure out and organize. And I'm so tired of trying to plan.

Maybe next summer.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy

It isn't officially summertime yet (not for another 24 days), but with the hot, soul-sucking humidity that has once again reared it's sweaty head, it might as well be.

Now that we have come out of hibernation, we can start enjoying the outside of our home. For our anniversary last year, I bought husband a grill, and we are finally about to use it!


I bought him the apron too. Yes, it has Boba Fett on the front.


To work off all of those steaks and hamburgers, we're going to have to do a lot more of this. Of course, we only did this for about a week. Then we bought a rider. Do you know how much grass we have to mow?


Someday soon (soon being a relative term in my universe), I will finally plant these tulips...which are no longer beautiful, vibrant flowers so much as a dry-looking pot of dirt...but they will rise again!


A lovely, sweet young friend purchased a hummingbird feeder for me as a wedding gift, and this is the first summer I have been able to use it! Last night husband and I were standing right behind this when a little hummingbird came up to eat...about a foot from my face! I could not believe how close the little lady came; I could even see her minuscule tongue flicking in and out of her slender beak. I hope to lay in wait more in the weeks to come and try to get an extreme close-up! I inherited the other bird feeder from my mother. She had purchased it to hang outside my dad's room at the nursing home last summer/fall so he could look at the birds (and sneaky, gluttonous squirrels). I am glad to now be able to give it a slightly more cheerful place to live.

And finally, I BEAT MYSELF. I got my garden almost completely planted last night, beating my Memorial Day record from last year by three whole days! The only pending plans are tomatoes and watermelon, which I want to buy as starter seedlings as I think it's too late to start from scratch. This year so far I have planted: "kandy" corn, green beans, peas, spinach, sugar snap peas, carrots, pumpkins, and two kinds of melon. I'm looking forward to a bumper crop. If anything, we grow rocks pretty well in this little plot.


I think next year we need to go bigger!


Husband, contemplating his wacko wife.

Those Summer Nights

I don't mind the summer nights so much. It's the days that have me sweating me face off. And for those of you who know me, you know that I despise sweating. And, of course, summer also brings a profusion of bugs, an affront that I have bemoaned previously. I encountered both of these annoyances last night while push mowing (most of) our front lawn. It was my first-ever foray into push mowing, and we did not get along well. I'm used to helping mow my parents' yard (which consists of a front yard, orchard, and barn lot) that requires a minimum of two riding lawnmowers and takes about five hours. I always appreciated the adorable little townies with their push mowers and tiny, manicured plots of grass, and Husband and I toyed with the idea of purchasing an eco-friendly Reel Mower (no gas or electricity...just powered by pure human endurance and self-hatred). But now I'm having second thoughts. I will confess, we are not good homeowners. We have too much going on inside the house to worry about the outside right now. So, our yard gets neglected. Luckily, my in-laws own a fleet of lawnmowers and love putting them to use, usually tackling our long grass before we get the chance. I think they assume we're just not going to do it. And they're probably right. At least until I abandon the idea of a push mower and purchase some kind of tractor that can mow down my lawn in a single pass (trees included...because they're stupid). They make those, right?

In spite of the sweat and the humidity and the bugs and the grass, you still can't beat the Summer Lovin'.

Bugs

Bugs have been on my brain lately. Not literally, thank goodness.

It seems every time I step foot outdoors, bugs of all shapes and sizes accost me, sending me into a squealing and shimmying fit (very ladylike). It makes me long for the high drifts of winter when nothing flies but the snowflakes. I'll admit it, I'm an indoors gal and I'm gonna own it.

I've probably also been hypersensitive to the abundance of bugs lately because I am editing my first manuscript about, you guessed it, bugs. The author is the coordinator of Big, Fancy University's annual "Bug Bowl" in which children come to campus to eat chocolate covered crickets and the like.

Ew.

Still, the manuscript is interesting and I've learned more than I ever wanted to know about Japanese beetles, caterpillars, and silkworms. However, I'm not completely sure that editing this manuscript hasn't somehow made me extraordinarily attractive to the insect species. As I trimmed unnecessary words and inserted missing commas the other day, a June bug flew about my office, lazily bumping into the lights in my office's ceiling. I left the room in search of a flyswatter (I'm bloodthirsty), but returned to find it had wandered away to disturb some other poor soul. Later, a Japanese beetle took up shop on my windowsill and refused to leave despite my best efforts to drown it in Clorox bleach (I couldn't find a flyswatter after all). Finally, as I left the building for the day, a wasp sent me scurrying down the sidewalk at an unnaturally fast pace.

At least none have crawled in my ear and taken residence in my brain. Yet.