On the beach in Pensacola in 1991, before I was concerned about skin cancer, obviously.
1993, first family vacation to Disney World!
In the mountains of Colorado with Hollie and the Biersmiths, 1996.
Mission trip to Mexico with First Presbyterian Church, 1999
Family trip to Washington, D.C., 2002Since I officially entered “the real world” about six years ago, the summer months have not delivered the excitement and relaxation they did during my days as a student.
Back then, summer was a seemingly endless stretch of laziness and freedom, sprinkled with a few out-of-town trips. Even once I turned 16 and started working, showing up at a part-time job in a ponytail and flip-flops wasn’t exactly hard work. The best part was I worked with my friends and had plenty of spending money to waste on things like Route 44 cherry limeades from Sonic and really bad movies at the Tinseltown in West Monroe.
I traveled to Mexico for a few mission trips, went to the mountains in Colorado (where it snowed one day in June), toured the historical landmarks in Washington, D.C., partied in New Orleans and did a lot of lying around on the beach in Florida.
Even taking classes at Louisiana Tech during the summer was a breeze because everyone was more laid back, the classes whizzed by on an accelerated schedule and I still found myself with plenty of free time to leisurely sip my Route 44 cherry limeades.
But ever since that graduation day in May 2003, when I faced the wide open future of working as a professional for the first time in my life, summer has lost much of its charm.
Those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to enjoy a school schedule that allows for a three-month break know that work is the same no matter what month the calendar is on. Sure, we all have our crazy times of the year, but we’ve still got to show up at the same time every day and perform our daily grind. If we’re lucky, we get a week or two of vacation. But, I’ve always found that it takes about half the week of vacation to actually unwind and before you know it, Monday rolls around again and you’ve got to face an overflowing e-mail inbox and countless voicemail messages back at the office. What a drag.
Despite the harsh reality of summer as a full-time worker, I’ve resolved to change my attitude this year. I will try to savor the summer, rather that write it off as a time only students and teachers can enjoy. I want to take back the summer!
Nevermind that I used my precious week of vacation back in January to recover from the holiday madness. I don’t need time off to make the summer fun; I can squeeze in fun things at night and on weekends. Here are a few ideas I came up with to help myself take advantage of the hot and humid time of year that soon will be upon us.
• Get outside more often. I hate the heat as much as the next person, but the weather isn’t so bad in the evenings once the sun starts to set. Working in an office with no windows and darting from the air-conditioned car into the air-conditioned house is standard procedure for me during the summer, but I’m feeling the need for some fresh air. When I was younger, I’d spend summer days on the softball field, at the park and in the backyard “digging a hole to China” with my brother and sisters (Dad didn’t like that little project). This year, I’m going to extend my daily walks with Casey the dog, get out to Lincoln Parish Park more often and just sit in the backyard coated in Off with a tall glass of water — or a Route 44 cherry limeade.
• Watch more bad movies. Every week when Friday rolls around, my husband takes it as his cue to start asking me to go see a movie at the theater. I don’t know how this happened, but somehow I stopped going to the movie theater except on very rare occasions. Well, not anymore. In the tradition of my teenage years of cash burning a hole in my pocket and nowhere else to go, I’m going to go see more movies this summer. And I won’t let it bother me if the movie isn’t an Academy Award winner. I’m just going to enjoy the freezing air conditioning, the overpriced concessions and a little quality time with my husband.
• Take on a couple of (doable) projects. My mom was the queen of the summertime projects back when my three siblings and I were growing up. This was probably out of sheer necessity, because how else do you keep four kids occupied for three months while school is out? She’d cook up some crafty ideas and help us put our own spin on them, and it always left us with something to hold up and feel proud of at the end of the summer. I’m not going to get too ambitious and say that I’m going to sew myself a new wardrobe over the summer, but I am going to peel myself off the couch after work and try to be a little productive.
My summer 2009 experiment could prove to be a smashing success or a disastrous disappointment. Either way, though, I’ve got to at least try. I just can’t let the students have all the fun.
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