Summer is my drug of choice...

Oh dear, sweet, Summer - you have returned to me!! I love you so much...

Thank goodness for summer. It's quite amazing to me how much more energetic and motivated I become in summer. Winter puts me in such a state of hibernation, and coming out of it is a long, slow process - especially given the dark, wet springtime conditions that we experience in such generous proportions here on the West Coast. Summer is struggling to get established here this year. Last weekend was spent in Penticton, BC, which is a provincial hot spot. It was wonderful, especially since here at home, in Metro Vancouver, it was unseasonably wet and cold. I soaked up the sun in the Okanagan, and then returned home to find the sun here too - hallelujah!! Then, yesterday - rainstorm. Dark. Cold. Wet. I felt like I was going to explode!! Just as summer is arriving, it's snatched back again. Torture, I tell you!! Today - well, no rain yet, occasional bursts of sun through the clouds, and being the obsessive weather watcher I am, The Weather Network tells me that it's going to be a few days before more seasonally appropriate weather returns. Bollocks!! Barely. Hanging. On...

In other news...My dear, sweet, brown-eyed boy turned 8 on July 5th. We spent most of the day on the road, driving home from Penticton. Casey didn't mind at all. He's so easy and agreeable!! After getting home and having dinner, we sang 'Happy Birthday', enjoyed some chocolate birthday cake, and Casey opened his presents - a new DS game (Lego Pirates of the Caribbean' and a football). We're planning a 'kids party' for later in the month, and Steve is planning a BBQ here at home with family for Casey's birthday and for mine. The big 4-0! That's a whole other blog post.



So far, summer vacation is going very well. Having the kids home for 9 weeks in the summer can be the best of times or the worst of times. I've seen several friends on Facebook whose status updates say things like, "They're bored already!". We're almost two weeks in, and knock on wood, things are going swimmingly. I've got game plans galore, and contingency plans to boot. Summer 2011 is shaping up to be epic - now off to seize the day!

My Love Affair With Summer Continues...

Ah, summer...sweet, sweet summer! How I do love thee!

It is some kind of weird karma that made me a sun-worshipping, summer loving, redheaded and freckled pale person who couldn't get even the slightest tan to save her life and burns at the drop of a hat, even after applying the highest SPF known to humankind!

If summer was a man, I'd marry him!

If summer was a child, I'd adopt her.

If summer was an elixer, I'd drink it...

As it is, I declare summer to be my drug of choice and I am high on it! (*disclaimer: the writer of this blog is simply trying to drive home a point and does not, in any way, shape, or form, advocate the use of illegal, illicit, and/or ill-advised street drugs or prescription narcotics).

I trust that you get where I'm going with this?!

And yes, I am aware that technically, it won't even officially be summer for another couple of weeks, but I'm all about 'the early bird gets the worm', and 'Carpe Diem', etc. so I'm getting the jump on summer, it's happening now, and I am positively swooning!

The Joy of Gardening...

Well, we've got the first long weekend of the summer under our belt, and overall, I'd say it's been a pretty durn good one! The weather, for the most part, was fab!! So warm, so sunny...so much so that I didn't mind the rain today. It really felt like a 'warm summer rain' too...Ah, summer, how I've longed for your arrival! I did a significant amount of yard/garden work this weekend, and between the sun and heat, and then the rain today, it's incredible how much growing and blooming has occurred in just two days! Nature is truly amazing! I just love my yard and garden so much - I can't imagine what it would be like to own a house with a big yard in the front and in the back...oh the possibilities!! One can dream...

I've pretty much run out of room for any more perennials but I find it very difficult not to add something new each year...I think I'm going to have to invest in some large containers in order to fulfill my need to propagate.

Sidebar: When I first wrote that last sentence about 'propagation', I was going to be cheeky and follow with, "Stevie, honey, if you are reading this, don't worry! 'Propagate' and 'procreate' are not the same thing!", but then I looked 'propagate' up on www.dictionary.com and, lo and behold, it pretty much means the exact same thing! Oops! My bad! To me, propagate is a plant term whereas procreate is more of a human or animal term, but I was wrong! So just for final clarification, I used the phrase, "...in order to fulfill my need to propagate" in relation to my enjoyment of gardening and planting more plants! Nothing more! Okay. Sidebar over.

Finding more room for planting perennials is just one of the advantages of moving towards containers for gardening. The other advantage is that it makes it much easier to bring my beloved plants with me if we ever did end up buying a house. I hate the thought of having to leave any of my plants behind. I could probably transplant some of them, but others, like my Japanese maples and my magnolia are maturing and becoming quite settled. I don't know that they would survive any attempts made to transplant them. Oh well, for now it's a moot point.

One thing that I certainly fantasize about when it comes to owning our own home, is having my own vegetable garden, as well as a couple of fruit trees and some berry bushes. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of spending summers at my grandparents' house. They had a decent sized vegetable garden and I so loved going out in the afternoon with my grandma to pull up a couple of potato plants and some carrots, throwing the dirt-covered veggies onto the grass, hosing them off, and then bringing them into the kitchen to scrub, slice, and cook. My grandparents also had several fruit trees. My brother and sister and I would just pick up apples or pears or plums that had fallen to the ground and eat them where we were standing. I don't know that the raspberry bushes would have yielded enough raspberries to make a pie, but then again, we never gave them a chance to. We'd be out in the yard playing with the go-karts our Grandpa made us or building forts with lawnchairs and sheets and we'd frequently drop whatever it was that we were doing to run over to the bushes and stuff raspberries into our mouths - little bitty insects and all. We didn't care! We were children, it was our childhood, and ingesting small bugs was just part of the grandness of it all!

I want some of these experiences for my children. For now, though, as I said earlier, I really do love the yard and garden that I've got and I am looking forward to many happy days spent there this summer with my children!

Today has been...

A perfect day! Granted, it was my turn to get up with the kids...they didn't get up as painfully early as they usually do! And, thanks to my brilliant new water/sand table purchase, were happy and busy, and all without me! THEN - they both ended up napping on the couch with me from 9:30 am to 11:00 am, which meant that I too got to catch a bit of snooze time! :) Steve was still asleep so it was high time he was awoken, and then me 'n the boys headed out to the backyard so that they could play and I could get some yard/garden work done. Steve headed out for his own bunch of garden/landscaping supplies AND an iced coffee for me, and by the time he got home at 3 pm (yes, he was gone for three hours!!), I'd gotten a ton done in the back, I'd had some 'me' time on the computer, and had fed the kids lunch! SUCH a productive morning/early afternoon! :) And the fun wasn't over yet! Chanel was lurking about so I forced her to spend some quality time with her littlest brother while I got even more done in the yard! I now feel like the back yard is in good shape for summer and can be used and enjoyed fully from this point forward! :) And did I mention that the last two days have been PERFECTLY summery?! Super hot, super sunny...super good for my frame of mind! And the fun continues still with Steve prepping the BBQ (steak), me with two very cold, very refreshing Coors Light (1 point each on my Weight Watchers plan!) under me belt, and the boys (plus Julia) running amok through the house and happy! My plans for the rest of the evening include word games on Facebook, some scrappin' mags, laundry continued at a leisurely pace, Stevie bathing the boys and getting them to bed, a hot bath for me to scrub off all the dirt and grime from my earlier hard work, and then the couch, the TV, and the husband - it's the simple pleasures, ya know?! A perfectly spent Sunday on the May long weekend, with a day at the Point to look forward to tomorrow. Oh yeah, and it's MY turn to sleep in! Yeehaw! :) Also worth mentioning - Steve finished some more of the cobblestone patio in the front yard and finally got tomatoes planted...something he's been talking about doing for about three years! Good stuff!