Yay! It’s Watercooler Wednesday, where the posts are loosely based around a top-ten theme, something to spark the imagination and get that community “water-cooler” feeling going. We all need help getting over hump-day, after all.
In between vacations, home repairs, and out-of-town guests, careful thought (sort of) has gone into what topic to feature today.
Here we go…
Top Ten Summer Things that Make Us Feel Good
10. Getting re-acquainted with the neighbors – it’s been a long winter in our burrows
9. Rediscovering that you do, indeed, have toes (time for that pedi)
8. The kids are home from school, so that’s more time together. For our family, that means lots of boardgames (Need ideas? Try my hubby’s site, PaulOwenGames). By the end of the summer, however, kids at home may no longer be a plus. Just sayin’.
7. Travel/Sightseeing/Beach/in-laws’ visit (ours refer to themselves as the “outlaws.” I wonder why?)
6. When you DO go to work, it’s a lot quieter!
5. Margaritas by the pool. (No pool? Pick a time when your neighbor’s out of town; he won’t mind :))
4. Folks who like to play with fire, aka grilling
3. And speaking of food, what’s better than food that’s fresh and actually tastes like food! that grows out of the ground! and was harvested recently!
2. Gardening – every year, we die-hard gardeners (whether you’ve got acres or containers) try once again to coax things out of the dirt. And we love every minute of it.
…and the number one summer feel-good thing:
doing absolutely nothing
(although, technically, we’re still breathing)
So what’s so great about doing nothing? Let me give you an example. When our family went whitewater rafting last week, we had a lunch break lull along a calm part of the river. We all pulled onto the beach, gratefully removed those pesky helmets and flotation vests, and waited eagerly for food (hey, paddling works up an appetite). Some found discreet shrubbery, or looked for butterflies.
But my hubby? After securing his duckie (inflatable kayak) onshore, he kept his vest on, went back into the water, and…floated. Yep, just floated, for a good 20 minutes. I know, because I looked over at him from time to time, to make sure his face was still out of the water and the lakeweed hadn’t gotten its evil tentacles wrapped around him and dragged him to a watery grave.
Eventually, he came ashore and joined the rest of us for lunch (I think I’d eaten two burgers by then, LOL). When asked later what his favorite part of the vacation had been, this was it. Floating.
It made me wonder if, for him, gravity had gotten bundled together with everything else that weighs upon all of us and pulls us in directions we don’t always want to go: work, school, care-giving, schedules, goals.
Perhaps for hubs the figurative weight had become the physical weight (gravity), and both had been lifted when he took time for himself, to simply float. Just a theory, but I like to think I know him pretty well by now.
What makes YOU feel good in the summer? What is special for you about this time of year?
Until next time,
Kathy
Yes, actually, you do know me pretty well.
I love looking at the stars and listening to the crickets while in the hammock with hubby.
Fun post!
If it wasn’t 500 degrees here in Texas, I’d spend more time going for a nightly stroll. But we’re hitting record numbers of consecutive days in triple digits and it doesn’t even drop below 85 at night. It’s soooo hot. One thing that I love to do during the summer months is to read a book by the pool. If it’s the beach, that’s even better, because then I can have a pina colada. 🙂
Sounds like Paul has his priorities straight. Let me know if you need instruction on doing nothing. I’m pretty good at it.
@David: he sure does!
@Tiffany: while heat is what summer is all about, that’s over the top! Wow.
@Loree: I remember looking at the starts in summer was my favorite thing to do as a kid. It was super cool if you could lay on a hill and see nothing but sky, even in your peripheral vision. Then it felt as if you were being sucked up into the sky.
@Paul: You’re the bestest hubs a gal can have 🙂
Oops – stars not “starts”!