Summer

My Paradox

/ jenfletcher / Leave a comment

It is officially “nest” season over here again, this time with my six-year-old; the big kids have moved on.  I was watching her arrange blankets yesterday and it reminded me of this post.

Originally published June 12, 2012

I moved the living room furniture last week, pushing the sofa directly in front of our bay window.  (It’s air conditioner season here, so I don’t anticipate opening the window anytime soon.)  I was completely not expecting the enthusiastic response I got from both my kids, who appeared to be positively thrilled with the new arrangement.  My daughter was actually dancing around the room.  “Why?” I finally asked.  “Why do you like the furniture this way?”

“For our nest!!” my daughter announced.  And, yes, by the next afternoon there was a pile behind the sofa, and the spot was officially dubbed their “nest.”

There are no fewer than nine blankets and six pillows back there.  The amount of stuff in that nook, which is maybe eight feet at it’s very widest point (but it’s a bay, so it narrows to about 3 1/2′), looks ridiculous.  (Actually, to be honest, it looks quite comfy.)  All the blankets and pillows are tumbled and tossed together, in a jumble of chaos where the “dividing line” between my kids’ spaces is vaguely discernable by a color change:  one side is mostly blue, one side is mostly pink.  It’s the definition of “excess.”

But….

If one of the high points of my kids’ summer is the ability to make a “nest;” to snuggle in behind the sofa, in the dappled shade of the trees that grow just outside the window, and read a book; or to just hang out together (as they often do)…..then, isn’t that a definition of simplicity?

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Hello, Fall

/ jenfletcher / Leave a comment

We said good-bye to summer today.  Our temperamental weather took care of everything last night….no more mosquitoes, no more 90 degree days, no more air conditioning in October.  (October!  Gah!)

Thank goodness.

I will miss my flowers, though.  It was an exceptionally good year here for the garden…. so good I’m almost thinking I’m a gardener again.  (It helped that we didn’t have to take out any trees this year.)  I’m feeling the need to document what just ended.  It really was a beautiful summer.

As always, morning glories and moon flowers took over the deck railing.  My daughters have started helping me plant these every spring; the plants truly thrived this year.  It probably helped that I actually thinned them.  😉

The view out my kitchen door.  Even the houseplants were happy this year.

I took all three kids to pick out flowers this spring….every one of them chose petunias.  Oh, the petunias.  Those things I’d sworn I’d never grow again because they needed so much attention and upkeep….petunias do nothing to simplify your life lol.  But wow, were they lush over the summer.

And the Virginia Creeper I transplanted from my parents’ yard….the stuff I dug up and drove a half-hour away and dumped in the ground and promptly abandoned for a two- week-long trip….it took hold.  It’s happy.  Not huge yet, but it’s happy.

It was a good summer.  But I’m always ready for fall.

Goodbye, summer….

/ jenfletcher / 7 Comments

Admittedly, the first day of fall isn’t until September 21st, but school starts for us next week.  It’s been the hottest summer I can remember, so in a way, I’m quite ready to see it go.  There’s still that part of me, though, that dreads the up-and-out-the-door of the school year, no matter how nice the weather is.

Before school was out, clear back in May, I took a piece of paper and the kids and I brainstormed every single thing they wanted to do (or would do) this summer. (Interestingly enough, this was weeks before I read a post about filling your summer with summer things, which just confirmed my plans.)   Their page included a wide range of ideas, from “grocery shopping with mom” and “eye doctor” to “go to Six Flags” and “NOT set an alarm” (offered up by my constantly sleep-deprived daughter).  We covered the paper with every single idea they could come up with, from the basic to the ridiculous; once finished, the grand total was sixty-eight items.

There were a few “sorry, guys, there’s no way” ideas, especially as they listed every possible amusement park/water park etc. within a reasonable drive, and threw in a major league baseball game to boot.  (Seriously, if we’d done all they wanted to do, we’d be beyond broke by now.)  It also pains me that one of the things that didn’t get done was “work in the garden with mom;” no one wanted to be in the garden this year, it was so hot.  But in spite of all the things that didn’t get done, we actually did fifty-three out of the sixty-eight things they came up with.  Fifty-three!

That, my friends, is a summer…in spite of 105 degree temps.