summer activities - grace grits and gardening

Three cheers for summer! This year, I say we take time to rediscover the lost art of summer. Slow down. Stop trying to orchestrate the picture perfect summer and instead enjoy some hot fun in the summertime “old school style”. Waaaaay back when I was a kid, summer meant hours of bicycle riding and exploring ditch banks and guzzling cherry Kool-aid in the shade of a mimosa tree. Now mimosas are drinks, the tree variety is considered trash by many, and summer is pre-planned to stave off kids’ idle brain drain. Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Work a few of these simple simon activities into each week from now until Labor Day, and you’ll have a more relaxing summer. Promise.

1. Play in the water hose. Drink from it too.

2. Go on a picnic. Grill hot dogs. Who cares about calories or the gritty sand that somehow made its way onto the bun?

3. Lay on a quilt and watch the clouds float by. A quilt hand-stitched by your grandmother.

4. Lose yourself in a trashy summer read. It’s allowed in summer.

5. Eat ice cream in the sun. Nothing fancy. Neapolitan scooped into a plain cone. Or, support your neighborhood ice cream truck. Or, both.

6. Go for lots of walks and always carry change. You never know when you’ll find a neighborhood lemonade stand. If you have little ones at home, man your own lemonade stand in the front yard and donate the proceeds to a good cause.

7. Catch lightning bugs in a mason jar or at least sit outside and watch them light up the yard. They are extra amazing this year! (Release them before bedtime, though.)

8. Swim in a swimming hole.

9. Eat watermelon. Plant the seeds even though they probably won’t come up.