Ever since I was a kid, the beginning of August has always signaled the shift out of summer and into the beginning of a long slow slide to fall (although Mother Nature works on a different schedule in our state and we are blessed/cursed with several more months of warm weather). The pace will pick up, and probably sooner than you will like.
With that in mind, I hope everyone has logged plenty of good memories over these last few months – and if you feel yours are a little lacking, you’re in luck, because there’s still time. If these last heart-wrenching months have taught me nothing else, it’s to seize the day. Don’t wait for tomorrow. Enjoy the people in your life … every day, starting right now.
Ranking high on my personal “Best of Summer” highlights reel: Hosting a big family celebration for my Grandma Jeanette’s 95th birthday. A 10th wedding anniversary “stay-cation” filled with lots of off-the-grid downtime, dreaming and planning the next few decades with my sweet husband. Our neighborhood’s Fourth of July parade, complete with floats, decorated bicycles, cold watermelon, live music and an ice cream truck. (I had no idea things like this existed within the city; I believed them to be relics of a one-stoplight-town era.) Biting into the first ripe tomato, plucked from a plant that was a mere seed and some hope on my kitchen table back in February. Barbeques and the attendant, delicious, “Woohoo, easy dinner tonight!” leftovers. Whole days (OK, whole weekends) spent in a swimsuit next to the pool reading a good book … occasionally substituting “laptop” for “book” if something really pressing needs my attention. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, and if I can do it outside in the summer sunshine, all the better.
I don’t want to lead you astray by painting a mental picture of an idyllic, perfect season – I’ll keep it real. There have been some less-than-grand moments. For example, the Great Garage Purge of 2013 is now dragging into its second excruciating, sweaty week – and let’s just say the initial enthusiasm is waning. Sunburn. Heat rash. Grasshoppers. I won’t go on, because to dredge it up is to feel the sting all over again. But I know all those irritations will fade into obscurity by Halloween – Thanksgiving at the latest – and only the good will remain.
Now is the time to squeeze in those last few things you’d hoped to accomplish before the hectic pace of fall’s shorter days takes hold and back-to-school mania reaches full throttle. Our pages are packed with loads of things to do and see this month, but if I had to recommend the one thing you must not miss, it’s to try a few of our “10 Bodacious Burgers” on page 35. Proofreading the article prompted a nearly-immediate office exodus to fulfill a sudden, roaring hunger … and I will admit it was barely after breakfast. Let’s just say the day demanded an onion burger, and I seized it!
