Summertime...and the Livin' is Easy

Gahhhh this weather!! I'm so not an exclamation point kinda girl - unless infuriated, miserable or in total paradise...I feel like people think you're either yelling at them or on speed - but this weather deserves the exclamation points. It's amazing. Sunny, 85 degrees, and yes, I'm sitting on my porch, barefooted, wearing a sundress. Paradise.

I think I like it most of all because Southern summers are just plain fun. They're so not romantic like all the movies make them out to be. No way. They're filled with sweaty, fat people (hello fried chicken) and enough humidity to make anybody from above the Mason-Dixon line fear for the worst. But they're so. much. fun. At any day, any point, you can see a truckload of folks driving down 85 with a boat hitched to the back heading for Hartwell or Keowee or Joccassee. Everybody is sitting on their porch, drinking sweet tea or diet coke and watching the lightning bugs twinkle like the stars. Bands play outside while the (once again sweaty) onlookers dance the night away. Every beach on the East Coast is filled with kites, bocci ball and sunbathers. You...or maybe just I...can't think of anything better.

I guess, too, the summer reminds me of that excited anticipation of the coming fall. For the first 18 or more years of everyone's life, summer is a time to relax and think about the year to come. What will I wear the first day of school? What teacher will I have? Will I like college? Ohmygah this is my last summer before I have to become an actual adult. It's like that last breath before leaping into the unknown. Even though my summers now consist of work - just like my falls, winters and springs - I can't help but get excited about what's to come. I guess it's kind of ingrained in me now...