summertime

i really do love summertime. i especially love today, the summer solstice. i have many memories from my childhood of getting slightly confused as to what "the longest day of the year" entailed. i thought it meant that it was literally longer than 24 hours, so i would spend weeks (ok, maybe days) preparing for this big event. many times, activities on my agenda would include: coloring, swimming in our backyard pool, watching a movie, wanting to go on a picnic (when i got slightly older i would actually pack a picnic lunch in one of my mom's many baskets and take it to the yard to eat while lounging on the grass), drawing for a good portion of the day, etc. my mom would laugh at me and my plans (not in a devilish way, mind you, but in a loving mother, you're-so-silly-i-don't-know-where-you-came-from sort of way). in fact, just this morning she called me to ask what i had planned for the first day of summer. i said "working". she seemed a bit surprised. she thought i had the day off. not because i take the summer solstice that seriously, but because it's friday and she thought i had fridays off during the summer. i wish. funny, though, that she knew me well enough to call and ask what my celebratory plans include. although we are not doing anything to celebrate summer today, i did tell jake we needed to come up with plans for saturday to "celebrate summer". so she wasn't too far off. the summer solstice is just a bittersweet day for me. i love the warm weather, and i love the sun being up for so many hours(especially now that i live somewhere that uses daylight savings; it was so much better in washington, though); however, it also means that tomorrow is a little closer to winter and short, dark days (much worse in washington). anyway, we have yet to solidify our solstice plans, but it may include one or more of the following: going to seven peaks (duh), an evening stroll, hand-picking strawberries (i've been dying to do this, i just don't know if it'll pan out), baking an inventive cake, sunbathing. hm, not much has changed since my childhood. the specifics mights have changed, but in general, swimming, food, and being creative is the top of my list. i'll be sure to update you on this topic.