School’s out for summer and I couldn’t be happier! We’re celebrating tonight with a pizza party, homemade vanilla ice cream sundaes and we’re watching “Dazed and Confused”, which is our last day of school tradition.
Hello, Summer! We are more than ready for YOU!
{Deena Martin as ‘Shavonne’, Christine Harnos as ‘Kaye’, and Michelle Burke as ‘Jodi’ in a publicity still from Dazed & Confused, 1993 found HERE}
Hello, July! We’re ready for you to bring warmer weather our way and keep the rain at bay for just a little bit. We’re ready for early morning coffee on the beach when the world is quiet and we can go swimming and have the water all to ourselves. We’re ready for homemade ice cream after dinner and dancing around the kitchen to the ‘60s music groove we’re in at the moment.
We’re ready for school to come to a close for the year and the chance to stay up late watching old movies on the projector and eating popcorn and making ice cream floats. We’re ready for our annual Christmas in July party and this year it might last more than a day, it might be an entire weekend of Christmas music playing and Christmas movie watching and Christmas feasting and just general Christmas happiness.
We’re ready to devour more books while sitting on the beach and then lazily strolling up to the house to make cheeseburgers that have thick slices of heirloom tomatoes sitting on top of the melting cheese and fresh corn on the cob smothered in butter.
We’re ready for all that you bring and we hope it is filled with love and laughter and light.
{Slim Aarons / Getty Images: Mrs. Charles Rogers sits on a submerged bar stool in the Villa Vera Spa & Racquet Club pool, Acapulco, Mexico, January 1961 // Pinned HERE}
Hello, June! We’re ready for the closing of the day to take longer to come. We’re ready for breakfast on the beach with hot coffee and croissants and then diving into the water with the cool rush of the waves beating against our skin.
We’re ready for date nights with the windows open and dusk falling as we watch a double feature projected on our old screen while we share a bowl of popcorn. We’re ready for BLTs stuffed with the first heirloom tomatoes of the season that are pouring into the green grocer’s stand with crunchy salty potato chips and sweet iced tea.
We’re ready for evening strolls and quiet star filled nights and making dinner together while 1960s beach music fills the air and we dance and laugh and live.
{Slim Aarons, “Oberon’s Lunch”, Acapulco, 1966 // Pinned HERE}
Hello, May! We’re ready for you to bring us more sunshine and usher in a few warmer days here and there. We’re ready for sun kissed blueberries to start arriving on the farm stand so we can gobble them up by the handfuls while we read our books.
We’re ready to be greeted by the beginning of the heirloom tomato season at the green grocers so we can feast on our first delicious BLTs of the year on homemade bread while the juice runs down our chins.
We’re ready for evening to draw in a little slower so we can keep the windows open longer. We’re ready for hot cups of coffee on the beach in the early hours when the world belongs just to us, as we watch the waves roll in.
{Strawberry Bouquet, Becca Stadtlander // Pinned HERE}
Hello, April! We’re ready for the Easter Bunny to visit us and see what is tucked into our basket come Easter morn. We’re ready for the sunlight to change hue and the days to deepen. We’re ready for the golden shadows that welcome in evening when the world starts to quiet again.
We’re ready for the warmer days you will bring and the bulbs and branches in blooms, dotting the landscape around us in menagerie of colour, like a painter’s palette.
We’re ready for the chance to picnic on the beach and leave the windows open longer before the evening chill sets in. We’re ready for strolls at dusk along the water and up through the gardens. We’re ready for spring to continue to be ushered forth, we’re ready for this next season to continue to bloom and grow. And we’re ready to see where you take us next.
Hello, March. February brought us the first flush of bulbs pushing up from the earth and bursting into bloom. The world around us has slowly been polka-dotted with the whites and purples of crocuses and the eruption of saffron painted daffodils. We’re ready for you to usher more pops of colour into the landscape.
We’re ready to spend more days in the sunshine and for dusk to take a dash longer to arrive before the curtains close on the day. We’re ready for more chances to picnic outdoors and for longer evening walks. We’re ready for St. Patrick’s Day, where my Nana’s Irish Soda bread will grace our table.
However, we’re not quite ready for our rhythm to change with the latest government announcement that all children will return to school in one fell swoop on the eighth. Selfishly, I will miss the opportunity that this time has afforded us (Mr Michie and I) to work around one another again. I will dearly miss being able to pop out of one room, while on a break, and see Mr. Michie’s beautiful face working in another. That has been a gift that I have cherished.
We are blessed during this time to still have a roof over our heads, food on our table and jobs when so many others are not in the same circumstances. I think it’s easy to say during this time, that we’re all in the same boat. But, in actuality, we’re not. We’re all in the same fleet, but each of us face different challenges in our own boats. We should strive to be physically, mentally and emotionally aware of that. We are navigating these waters as best we can.
So, let us continue to live in the moment and not let the small things pass us by. Let’s celebrate the coming of spring and welcome her with open arms.
{Image by Barbara Dziadosz found HERE // Pinned HERE}
