Thursday, June 28, 2012

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 :wink:. 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 :lol:>. 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!

7 comments:

Samantha said...

We used to do a week long camping trip every summer with hubby's family but since his mom passed and his dad has taken up with a new woman (is it bad that I say it that way?) we don't really do that anymore. This year his brother and he are trying to plan it and get everyone together to camp in August sometime. I hope we do, I miss it.

We staycation at least one week and do house maintenance for that week (hubby hates wasting a week of his paid vacation on it, and he tries to get out of it and go camping or fishing but I this year I need new windows!) and we try to take 3 or 4 day weekends for short hops camping to the coast or the mountains, whatever he's in the mood for.

I like to garden, but since we moved into this place I have been lazily ignoring the fact that this is the first time since we've been married that I haven't had a veggie garden. Next year I'll get someone to come in an rototill for me so I can do it. These couple of years without one has been sort of nice though. I get to sew instead of pulling weeds all summer! LOL!

My favorite sport is Gymnastics, but I'm biased, I was a gymnast in middle and high school. :D

Impera Magna said...

In the summer, I try to stay cool... as in "stay inside in the a/c"...

The temp here at 11am today was 99...

*fanning self*

Paulette said...

I have fond memories of watching Price is Right in the summer, and Let's Make a Deal (which might be before your time...Monte Hall?). Summer vacation as a kid seemed endless, right up until my birthday in August when we would start shopping for back to school stuff. In the meantime, I babysat, painted my nails in various colors, and read Seventeen and Glamour magazine, LOL. Well, that was before the internet and cell phones, so it's what we did, among other things. Picnics and family gatherings are my favorite part of summers now...and being able to go anywhere by car without worrying about a snowstorm!

Jennifer Lovell said...

I decided to mark what I like to do verses what I do. My point being that my family always wants to swim a lot in the summertime, and I have developed a dislike for swimming over the last few years, which I actually think is unfortunate! I wish I enjoyed it as much as my family does, but I just don't...I don't like the discomfort that comes with "getting used to" the temperature of the water. I'd rather be in the position of the kids, where I can see that even three hours of romping and splashing and laughing their heads off isn't enough ; ). Oh well.

What do I love doing most in the summertime? Playing racquetball. Oh wait, that goes for any time of year!

My favorite summer-only activity has to be watching the fireflies every evening in our yard!! And, going for Sunday walks with my family after dinner : ). I like the occasional morning run : ). And, I love the blue and white cloudy skies that we don't see other times of the year--they're so beautiful.

Michelle said...

Summer is different depending...

When I lived in Nevada, I used to love a cool walk in the morning, followed by coffee on the patio, before it would get so blazing hot.

Summers in Kansas with the humidity is worse, and now I'm working. Summer here means hoping one of the day or other will be cool enough to walk and not melt. :-)

Funny, I remember the Price is Right too!

Anonymous said...

You did not list Motorsports. There are a lot of people/Families that go to all sorts of Race venues. Darag Racing, Oval , Nascar, Indy and Formula. Not to mention Off road Jeep and ATV adventures.
nothing like the sound and feel of Horse power , the smell of Nitro Methane , burning rubber and a Chilly Dog to make a fun day in 100 degree heat. :)


Last Nights Nitro Jam at Rocky Mountain Raceways was Spectacular.

Angie said...

Reading this has made me feel pathetic. :( Things aren't much different around here during summer than the rest of the year. I just try to get all my work done with the kids at home instead of at school. So besides sleeping past 6:00 every morning not much changes. I'm am thinking I need to change that...