Kwic Gifts

Here we are, in the dog days of summer. Have you relaxed yet? I don’t think I have. Even though school is out, our lives seem just as scheduled and crazy as they were during the school year. Last weekend was a softball tournament, one child has summer day camp that requires pick-up and drop-off, another needs to get to swimming lessons each day at 2:00. My husband has to work late so instead of getting my work done while he entertains the kids, I take them swimming. It’s been one week after another like that, and I’m beat.

To top it off, they are already advertising school supplies and back to school sales. Summer has hardly begun, and already my kids are begging to go shopping for school.

My kids are happy with this busy-ness. I’m not sure they would know what to do with down-time. However, we did have one evening with nothing to do, and they actually played with the toys they have, and they used their creativity to make a dollhouse out of cardboard. They had the time of their lives!

I think I’ll take their cue and spend a couple of minutes sitting in a deckchair and reading that book that’s been sitting in my to-do pile. I refuse to let summer pass me by, even if I have gotten a late and crazy start!

The calendar says it’s still spring, but in my neck of the woods it’s summer. School is out, the temperature is above 85 degrees (at least it is where I live), and the summer fun has begun.

We spent our first weekend of summer camping at a local campground. We fished, we cooked, we played in the tent, and then we left in the middle of the night due to a nasty storm. But it was fun! We went to my daughter’s softball tournament the next weekend. It was hot, her team lost, and we had to leave early due to a nasty storm. But it was fun! We have been to the local concert in the park, been to the snow cone shack several times, took a dip in the pool, and have taken in a semi-pro baseball game. And we had a great time. We are looking forward to cookouts, Father’s Day celebrations, and the 4th of July where we’ll have more fun.

Sometimes it feels like we are running as fast as we do the rest of the year. Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer don’t really happen for us. The crazy part does, but not the rest of it! But that’s OK. We’re having a ton of fun!

“Spring” means many things – Easter, planting flowers, weddings, graduations, softball and soccer games, spring break, Mother’s Day, and more. As I look at this list, one more word comes to mind – BUSY. Some days it seems as if everyone is trying to cram in one last thing before summer comes along. It would be terrible if our spring were lazy and relaxed – or would it?

Last Saturday, we were blessed with a very unusual day. We had absolutely nothing on the calendar, and it was a beautiful spring day. The sun was out, and we could enjoy it any way we wished. I will admit, we were so out of sorts by having “nothing to do” that we didn’t take advantage of it as much as we should have. We spent half the morning in our PJ’s catching up on e-mails, bills, and house projects. But that ended up being a gift in itself. Those nagging items were no longer weighing on our minds, and it gave the kids some time to play. We spent the late afternoon taking a drive in the country, went to the local art museum, and tried out a new restaurant for dinner.

The rest of our spring is jam packed with fun and exciting activities. But I have a feeling we will remember that lazy spring day for the gift it was.