Those Idyllic Summer Days

It's been a fast and busy summer, hasn't it?! I still wonder what ever happened to the long, lazy summers of youth. We would go out to play after lunch (and to my Dad's horror, in our bare feet), and we'd reappear sometime around dinner time. And then, we'd head back out for a healthy dose of night games. The days seemed to stretch on and on. We did all those cliche things, like laying on the grass and looking up at the clouds to find animals and shapes, making whistles out of grass shoots, rubbing yellow dandelion flowers on our chins to "see if you liked mustard", held our own carnivals and theatrical productions (complete with hand-written fliers going out to houses, and posters being put up at the end of the street), roller skated, rode bikes, and walked down to the drug store to spend our allowance on real penny candy. Do they even have real penny candy any more? I think not. Anyway. Those were the days. The summers were perfect. Our mom made sure to take us on trips to the beach, "turtle" hunting (which was really rock hunting mixed with creek walking), berry picking, and as school neared, shopping for school clothes. Ah. The memories make my shoulders relax a little, and my blood pressure start it's journey downward. Sweet, sweet times.

I've got a couple of weeks left of summer. Maybe I can get a cloud-gazing day in yet. I'm going to give it my all.

On a completely different subject, I've arrived at a do-able way for me to get my chores done. I was getting way behind, and kept putting off different chores until it was obviously a "chore emergency", and then I would have to spend time then and there and get 'er done. I decided something needed to change to get me back on track. So, I'm back at designating Monday for my cleaning day. I have two different lists that I rotate through every other Monday, and that seems to be the ticket. I can't clean my house from top to bottom every week. Time-wise that is not ever going to happen. So, I do half of the cleaning every other week. And you surely know by now that I love lists. So, I've put my cleaning to-do's on a list inside of a plastic sleeve so that I can mark it off as I go with a dry-erase marker. Perfect! And then, if I get interrupted by something important (like a grand baby making a visit), then I leave that list out for the next day or two til I get everything done. So far it has worked like a charm. I have even gotten to chores that I have put off for a very long time. Oh, and I also have added things to the list like "cleaning the fireplace glass" which only has to be done about once a year, but I want to be sure I do it, and have a date by it, so I'll know next year when to get to it again. I know, I know. Maybe a little OCD, but it really does work for me. (Finding a good house cleaner would work for me, too, but alas...)

And getting back to the subject of summer-time relaxing, Bob and I got away to the cabin for a little overnight last Friday night. It was critical (that sounds dramatic, but it is oh, so accurate) that we find some time to unwind, and that was just the ticket. Once we got there, we went out for a ride in the evening, and were treated to some amazing sights...

We saw a few different sets of mama and baby moose.

And then we rounded the corner and saw these two bull moose just chomping away at some sort of greenery. We turned the Mule off and sat and watched. Simply magnificent.

And then they decided to cross the road.

This guy stopped and looked at us as if deciding whether it was worth his time and energy to stomp or maybe even gore us.

Luckily, it was not worth his time. Or energy.