Summer Slow Down

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.

Sam Keen

The other day a friend of mine said, "Seems like summer is coming to an end."

No, I cried out. I'm thinking it just began. After the whirlwind of spring around my house, this past week felt like the first breath of summer's air.

I've spent the time reading, reading, and reading. Swept the floor, read a chapter. Watered the plants, read a chapter. Pulled all the pieces of my WIP novel out of its basket and organized it on the table, read a chapter.

Somewhere along the line, I've lost my camera and failed at a fresh squeezed vegetable/fruit diet with my youngest son. Hey, we made it through breakfast and lunch. But, last night, looking at the lovely green glass of goodness we'd prepared for dinner, we took little time deciding to pour it back in the pitcher. (Moms have to be supportive, you know.)


Anyway, here are some photos I took (before I lost my camera) of my bougainvilleas and some other moments from the summer.

Middle son trying out his new clothes for a new wildlife job in Wyoming.Prepping the crawdads.A summer feast.A crowd in the kitchen.
(Please note the placement of my granddog's head.)

New friends in our backyard.
Hope you're finding some lazy moments in your summer.

Then Followed that Beautiful Season

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Twenty-Eight More School Days...

...til summer.
Can't wait.

Lulled by the Rain

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

Langston Hughes

Rain has returned to Central Texas. After months of drought and knowing a lit match tossed carelessly to the ground might cause the entire region to succumb to flames, the haunting ruse of a landscape lost has expired.

Even though the flow of the hose or use of the sprinkler once a week kept my plants clinging to life, nothing compares to the fall of a few day's rain to bring them back to life.

Everywhere the flowers bloom. Lantana, Mexican heather, plumbago, zinnias, and more. My warm weather plants are putting out that last effort before winter's rise. Adds such beauty into the world compared to the dried up death of our rainless, hot summer.


As many of you enjoy the colors of fall, we wait. The green of summer reactivated before the bulk of our deciduous trees change in December. I don't mind the wait. My tomatoes, planted a couple of weeks ago, gained great height in the rainy, cooler weather. Tomorrow I hope for a blossom.

And a better post.

Even the cat had nothing to offer today. No lizards. No roll in the dust. Nothing.

My poor impatiens finally get to bloom and not just survive.

Mushrooms growing on one of my trees.

Go buy some pansies, Julie. Leave me alone.

On The Road

And that's the wonderful thing about family travel: it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind.

Dave Barry

I decided to road trip with my middle son on his route back to his senior year. One more long ride with mom while he is still under my tutelage. Seventeen hours in a car, all...the....way... to.... Arizona. What better way to bond? He is ecstatic that I've made this decision.

I can't think of a better way for me to end the summer and get back into a new year routine than by walking through the aisles of a university. Get that fresh back-to-school tingle of excitement and anticipation. I will come home to a fresh plate and new vigor for diet, exercise, writing, working, all those things. Right?

Besides, I haven't visited Jordan at school since his freshman year (several family members have taken turns the past two years) so I also want to make sure he truly has washed his sheets, comforter, and rugs since the fall of 2006. (He puts all his stuff in a storage unit during the summer breaks.)

I stopped by AAA to get new maps and guide books as I've decided we'll take a different route than the Lubbock, Muleshoe, Clovis, Albuquerque highways of previous trips. I'm opting for the long ride through Texas to El Paso onto Tucson and up to the mountains. Jordan is most happy about that, too. He can hardly wait for me to look up from my guidebook and say, "You know, if we go down this road 10 miles, we'll find the largest collection of..."

Oh, what would his life have been like without me?

I don't think you get internet service out there in those hills and deserts, so will catch up with everyone after I get back. Meanwhile, put your seatbelt on, Son. Mama is going on a trip.

The Long Hot Flash of Summer Tends to Twist the Mind

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.

Jane Austen

By the time August rolls around in Texas, survival is the name of the game. Sweat on my brow and under my pits in spite of my deodorant are simply facts of life. Now that I'm in hot flash hell, I've significantly added to the number of times I soak myself during the day. But no matter, this too shall pass. Right?

There was a time in my life when sweat wasn't the norm. In my days of living in the North, East and West, I believed sweating occurred when my face turned beet red and I thought it might blow up. I had no clue that little beads of perspiration could turn into flowing rapids down my back or that wiping my eyes with the back of an equally moistened hand to clear the flood from my brow might become a rote act. I prided myself on perspiration etiquette.

No longer.

I recall an afternoon, soon after moving to Texas. While digging holes to plant my newly purchased shrubs, my face began its usual red blowup, then something popped. The sweat paraded down my back, legs and face. I joined the ranks of the dripping sweat mongers.

Of course, my ability to sweat like a pig allows me to cop an elitist attitude with my mom and two of my three brothers - who still believe if you crack a sweat it means you're overheating and need to sit down. I'm so glad I've evolved.

As we embark on our 40th or 50th or 500th day in a row of 100+ degree heat, and my 22nd summer in Texas, no longer do I have to dig shrub holes to work up a sweat. In a few minutes, I'll leave the confines of my home to walk to the mailbox. Perhaps I'll stop to grant the pathetic looking plants in my front garden a few sprinkles of precious water - just a sip, however. A long swallow would only soften their reserve and restrain them from their ability to survive in the sweltering sun. The tomatoes in pots, I'll bypass. They have led the battle well, but lost.

Truly pathetic, isn't it? Droughts are so not fun.

When I finish, my bra will be sweat laden so I'll run the warm ground water from the hose on my feet and return to the let the air conditioning cool me, before I venture out for the next sweat trip.

Oh wait, I'm getting one just sitting here. Ain't midlife great?

But I must admit, come August, the heat tends to twist me. Puts me in rather a funk, I'd say. Makes me think of sledding down hills while my snot freezes in my nose. Makes me eager for motion beyond the elliptical at the Y. Perhaps the reverse of cabin fever in the dead winters of the north only similar in that I want to do something fun, something wild. Something with rapid, wake-me-up movement. I am bored with the boundaries of the heat. Stir crazy, as they say.

Tomorrow's my birthday. I want to ride on roller coasters. The kind that end up in a swimming pool. I hear Schlitterbahn calling. Just what every tomorrow-to-be-53 year old body needs. Falling down a slide and hitting the water at full force. Something exhilarating to get the heart pumping again. That'll work.

Don't forget to look for the Perseid meteor shower tonight. 2am is the best viewing. Lie spread eagle on your front lawn.

Musing the Morning Away

In summer, the song sings itself.
William Carlos Williams

Saturday morning. Alone at the lake. I'm sitting on the porch facing the water. In the morning, we have the shade and despite the heat that may lurk out there, I am cool. Still in my pajamas, I survey the theater before me. A cicada whines. A lone lawnmower completes its circuit. Boats, that have been out for hours trying to find the gentle waters before the influx of many pleasure seekers, intermittently parade by the cabin. I've brought my bird out to sit beside me in his cage. Birdie likes it out here, productively tweeting with those who harbor in the nearby branches.

In a few hours, my husband will arrive. Then a couple of friends. My boys are dispersed throughout the country. The youngest in New Orleans for a National Youth Gathering, the middle one at work with the baby deer in south Texas, the oldest in Colorado with his fiance's family. Soon I will move from my perch to the dock. To my hammock, to get in the last few moments of alone time I seem to crave, perhaps too much.

The beauty of this morning is not lost on me. The sky is clear, not a cloud in sight. The waves of the boats are lapping against the break wall and even though the roar of a passing boat dares to disturb my peace, I excuse the noise that will pass with the moving motor.

I love the month of July. As a kid, it meant vacation and a complete month where no school bells interfered with the day. Now, a complete month where I disregard the norm of the year and make new rules for how my time is spent. Often not very productively, but that assessment may live in the mind of the one creating their own rules of productivity. I try not to let it linger in mine.

A Saturday in July - summer at its best. A deep breath. I set aside the things happening in my personal world, and the country and world at large, that upset me. For the day.

I've added some chairs to the porch. Come sit for a spell. Enjoy the view.