I Must Ask . . . What Do You Do In the Summertime?

Oh, what do you do in the summertime,

When all the world is green?

Do you fish in a stream, or lazily dream

On the banks as the clouds go by?

Is that what you do? So do I!

Oh, what do you do in the summertime,

When all the world is green?

Do you swim in a pool, to keep yourself cool,

Or swing in a tree up high?

Is that what you do? So do I!

Oh, what do you do in the summertime,

When all the world is green?

Do you march in parades, or drink lemonades,

Or count all the stars in the sky?

Is that what you do? So do I!

–Dorothy S. Andersen,
Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?

It's been three weeks since I asked you all about grocery shopping. My how time flies. It must be summer . Grocery shopping, in my opinion is a necessary evil. The noise, especially crying children, is very distracting for me while I'm trying to figure out how to get the most for my money. It is important to me to make sure that I'm spending wisely. I'm not brand-loyal; my loyalty lies in the best price and if that means buying the “generic” I'm happy with that. But it takes concentration to make sure you're really getting the best deal.

Sidebar: A friend of mine priced out groceries in 2005 {or maybe it was 2008; I can't remember for sure}. She went back to the same grocery store and priced everything again this week. She told me that prices have doubled and tripled. I almost choked. I'm certain that our income has not matched that.

In any case, making the best of it seems to be the thing to do in the case of grocery shopping vs. the budget. From the comments, I get the impression that planning a menu makes grocery shopping easier. Or maybe that's just me. I've been a menu planner for most of my married life. When Mr. Bug and I were first married and poorer than church mice, I remember one time that I had $33 to buy groceries for the week. It took creativity and some serious planning, but I came away having spent $32-and-change and from what I remember, we ate pretty well that week. A few years back, I kind of quit planning menus and would only go grocery shopping when we ran out of cold cereal and milk. Looking back, I can see how stressful that was for me. I much prefer having a plan for meals and the groceries to go with it, even if it means going grocery shopping every week. As far as the voting, it looks like shopping weekly is the most popular choice.

In other news, the Olympic trials have been going on recently, which got me thinking of the Summer Games. I was going to ask what your favorite sport is to watch, but that gets complicated trying to keep the list to a manageable size without leaving anything out. Of course, I always to leave something out, so that's not new. Then I got to thinking that only the most elite participate in the Games and the 99.99% of the rest of regular folks probably do things we think are just as much fun as competing in the Olympics and we don't have to wait four years to do them.

Summer is officially here {unless you live in the southern hemisphere, in which case I'm glad it's you and not me sorry if you're cold}. One of my favorite things about summer is the longer hours of daylight. I love it when it is light outside until 9:30pm! I love staying up a little bit later in the summer and sleeping in. But I also love the cool, calm of an early summer's morning. Summer has so much potential.

Growing up something I loved to do in the summer was to watch The Price Is Right. It was so cool to imagine winning all those fabulous prizes. That's just a silly memory and not really something I look forward to doing every year. I haven't watched since Bob Barker had dark hair >. One of my favorite things about summer now is gardening. I love the smell of the earth, the sweat and hard work of it, and the meditative quality it has for me. I mostly do flowers. There's something about knowing where my produce came from that grosses me out a little. Don't get me wrong. I love it when my neighbors share zucchini and tomatoes picked ripe from their gardens. I'm just not a big fan of seeing my food sitting in a heap of composted soil where any number of creepy crawlies, not limited to but including worms, spiders, ants, snails and slugs, could potentially have been partying, if you know what I mean.

Sidebar: This morning, I was out doing battle with the rose bushes {I won, by they way} when I heard hooves against the pavement up the road. I looked and could see four horses coming at quite a pace. It is not uncommon for people to ride horses through town. But it is common for them to go that quickly. Then I realized that they horses were without riders! There's a paddock up the road a ways and they must have gotten loose. There were four of them and they turned the corner before they reached my house and headed on down the road. After a while, I heard hooves again, and there were those same four horses coming back the from way they'd gone. They headed back up the road and I hope they made it back to their pasture. I had to wonder what they were up to. See what I mean about summer having potential?

Our family doesn't do a traditional summer vacation, with a trip to somewhere exotic. We try to make the most of it with fun activities throughout the summer. My mom hosts Grandma Week every year, though for her 10 grandkids and either or both of their parents. It is a fun little stay-cation and we always have a good time. There's also a fun family reunion with Mr. Bug's family; his parents, seven siblings, their spouses and a collective 30 children. Planning rotates through the eight siblings {only five years until we have to plan it again}, so we do something different each year, and we always have fun. The Little Bugs love to go swimming, so we try to fit that in as much as possible. And sometimes we do a foreign exchange. That is to say, we have cousins come to stay with us or the Little Bugs get to go and stay with their cousins. The Little Bugs are on foreign exchange at my sister's house this week and from what I gather they are having a really fun time. {Sidebar: Is it horrible to say that I'm kind of enjoying myself too? I worked an 8-hour day yesterday without any guilt. I was nice not to have to mediate arguments by phone or worry about what the Little Bugs are up to, about not being there for them or about getting home in time to feed them before they starved to death.}

Ah, summer. So many fun things to pack into such a short time. Today, I must ask . . . what do you do in the summertime? What's your favorite activity? Or non-activity? I've listed a few things that came to mind, so vote in the poll and if you don't see your favorite, leave me a comment!