A Taste of Summer

Had a taste of summer this weekend, and I must admit... it tasted amazing...

See, I love summer. I know, sick right? I live in Arizona. It's like a million degrees outside here in the summer. You live in air conditioning- and have to go from your air conditioned house to your air conditioned car into the air conditioned school or mall or whatever other public place you are headed to on that particular day. When you go outside, even if it is just for a minute, you sweat like a pig. On those hottest days, you often defeat the point of taking a shower within minutes of getting out of the water. But, despite all of those downsides... I still love summer.

As many of you know, I work for a school district. Now, contrary to popular belief, opinion or whatever, in my position I do work twelve months a year. So, you can all stop your commentary about 'of course she loves summer because she doesn't work in the summer...' I do work in the summer. But, I will admit the pace and nature of my work in the summer changes drastically. See- us folks who work at the district office are driven by the needs of the folks at the school sites. This means that our phones ring frequently, our e-mail boxes are full and we head all over the place to attend meetings, provide support, and just generally serve the schools in anyway that we can. (I know there are some principal folks out there who will debate this sentence- arguing instead that we are simply creating hoops for the schools to jump through- but REALLY- we do serve the folks at the schools.) Once the kids go home, and summer officially arrives, everything about our work changes (this happens if you are a 12 month employee at a school site as well). My e-mail inbox goes from getting 200-300 e-mails a day to about 25. And often 5 or 6 of those are just me trying to arrange where we are eating lunch on that day. Principals still e-mail me, but they don't need an answer TODAY, they need an answer sometime this week. Teachers e-mail me with a question and then often forget what the question was by the time they get back to reading their e-mail. Teachers stop coming to the district office. Principals (after about the middle of June) stop coming to the district office. It gets very quiet, very slow, verrrryyyy relaxed. And I love it! For about 7 weeks, I can think at work. I can get ALL my work done at work without bringing anything home. I can simply breathe. Amazing.

Combine this relaxing work environment with the other joys of summer... and you have my favorite season.

Think about all the FOOD that we have in the summertime that just isn't available at other times of the year. My family LIVES on fruit and vegetables during this time. It's nothing for our entire dinner table to be covered with melon and grapes and asparagus and corn on the cob and all those other wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables that are SO yummy and SO good for our bodies. We grill all the time during the summer- lots of chicken breasts and flat iron steaks and other delightful taste sensations. Cap all of that wonderful food with an ice cold Corona or a Mike's Hard Berry (which for some reason I drink more of in the summertime)... and mmmm....

And then there are my kids. Arizona kids. Seriously. They get in the pool as soon as it isn't freezing and stay in it until the last of the warmth has faded away. They will do ANYTHING to be allowed to swim, so it's so easy to get them to clean up their toys or finish eating lunch. And I love to swim too (although I like to wait until the water is at least warm!) They love having time off of school. Although I'm still working most of the summer, they get to do fun and unusual things- Zoo Camp, Kids Club, and they get to spend a good chunk of time at Nana and Papa's house- which is pretty much the best place to be in the summertime. Here they are in their new swimsuits (and yes, I let Julia pick out JUST what she wanted...)


So, put all of that together and what do you get? A momma who is really relaxed. A momma who is really happy. A momma who can breathe more during this season than at any other time of the year.

So yeah. I love summer. Despite the Arizona heat.

And we got our first taste of summer this weekend. Kids got new swimsuits and went to bed smelling sweetly of sunscreen and chlorine. Momma swam and enjoyed one of those lovely beverages. We didn't quite get to the table filled with fresh fruits and veggies, but it's coming. And no, school isn't over just yet. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And I can't wait......
C