Itchy feet, adrenaline, firing nerve-endings
That’s the end of May all over for me.
I wake up in the morning and if it’s sunny, I’m flinging clothes off my body, sliding my feet into cool flip-flops with the green trim on the black background. I don’t care about my hair, I throw on lip gloss (no lipstick by June) and I wander around my backyard making up reasons to be outside rather than indoors: someone’s got to encourage the baby birds to get out of their nests and what tree will grow without a pep talk?
We bought a swing for our yard last year (one of those very midwestern ones with the two seats and little awning over the top to shade the sun). I drape myself over the canvas, ears plugged into my iPod, swinging with one leg thrown over the side, forgetting I own a business or homeschool children, soaking up the green of our lush yard.
Some days I round up the kids and we head to the zoo. Okay, that’s not quite accurate. MANY days we head to the zoo, like, every chance we get. The Cincinnati Zoo is a seductress with its riot of thousands of bulbs in bloom and the spring eruption of zoo babies (every shape and size from the 300 pound rhino to the very adorable ape baby clasping mama).
Most days I strike a big black X over the previous date on the calendar because each day that goes by means we’re nearer to the most fateful, important day of our academic calendar: Memorial Day! That’s the day our YMCA opens the outdoor pool with its dangerous red and yellow slides, groovy snack bar and luxurious lounge chairs. That date signals the end of routine, objectives, plans, duties, responsibility and hiding my white skin under turtlenecks and jeans.
There’s just something about May that makes it nearly impossible to focus on anything important. I’m like the battery in my MacBook Pro. I was able to sustain a charge for long stretches of time at the start of the fall. But now, with merely a week left before M. D. (you know, that auspicious date!), I can hold a charge for about fifteen minutes and then my mind and body are all like: “Are we there yet? Get me out of this house!!”
So that’s precisely what I’ll be doing today – walking with Liam around the neighborhood, heading out to the zoo, stopping for lunch somewhere outdoors and eating our first ice cream cones. I will go braless and shoeless. 🙂 Yay for the end of spring!
What are you up to? What’s May like in your corner of the world? (I know that Down Under, life is just getting into the swing of routine – quite the opposite to us Northern Types.) I’d love to hear from you!
Well, we had our last day (180th) yesterday!! Unfortunately here in Phila. it has been cold and rainy, therefore, requiring me to put on my ‘cudde duds’ and a scarf to stay warm. But we are all very happy about our freedom and looking forward to true spring/summer weather to come soon. We will be tidying up our portfolios and getting evals in the next few weeks.
It is 1:45p here, and I am going to crawl in bed right now to finish a book The Yarn Harlot, and watch an “instant watch” on Netflix and do some knitting. (it is clouding up again threatening another shower)… *yeah for me)
For the past few days the temperatures in Southern California have soared into the high nineties and low hundreds in the inland valleys and mountains. Last weekend I dragged out the tall oscillating fans, and with my youngest’s help, cleaned the blades, the “caging,” and the stands, and we placed them in the living room and kitchen areas. One activity in our home always signals the coming of summer: stripping off the flannel sheets and down comforter in warm, soothing colors of cream, evergreen, and burgundy and pulling out the crisp, cool, white cotton sheets edged with delicate eyelet and the thin cornflower-blue and white Irish chain quilt that provides just the right heft for summer sleeping. Cornflower pillow slips cool my cheeks compared to the warm fuzz of the burgundy flannel I’ve been sleeping on since October.
We’re back to watering the flowers daily to avoid losing them in the heat, usually in the cool of the evening just before sunset, even if there is a chance of a stray mosquito bite. A friend gave us an armchair and table she didn’t want, so our dog-eared wicker sofa is now on the porch, its pillows protected from the neighborhood cats (and any other critters wandering on our porch, especially the cheeky squirrels). The sun doesn’t land on the wicker sofa until very late in the afternoon, so it will be a pleasant place to settle with a book and a tall, sweating glass of raspberry iced tea as soon as school is finished on June 13 (but who’s counting, right). I hope to live on the porch this summer, writing away in comfort and, I hope, relative quiet.
The kids will be living in the tree house soon. They drag their sleeping bags, pillows, backpacks, favorite stuffed animals, drawing paper, and Nintendo DS’s up the ancient Jeffrey Pine (the kind that smell like vanilla – yum!). Through the clear treehouse roof, they stare up at the stars they can identify through the tree branches before dropping off to sleep. I see them briefly each morning when a few kids run a recon mission into the kitchen for breakfast foods, then they disappear up the ladder with their loot. I may see them before lunch. But probably not.
Susanne 🙂
Being one of those down-under types I’m forced to confess that we are not getting in to the swing of our routine at all. Rather the opposite! I think I’m suffering from a sort of homeschooling mid-life crisis, currently reevaluating everything we do and asking why are we doing this?,why are we doing it this way?, is it working? do we even want to do it at all, let alone this way? Somewhere in amongst it all the kids are still covering some academics, doing plenty of reading and the younger ones are enjoying copious of creative play. Currently the living room sports two separate houses and a large, overflowing supermarket. It is definitely being lived in! Weatherwise we have enjoyed some gorgeous atutumn days – frosty mornings giving way to crisp but sunshiny afternoons, perfect for crunching through all the leaves. Today though is overcast and cool., givingmy youngest the perfect opportunity to practice some French. Il fait froid. Snow is forecast for other areas but not here, much to my kid’s disappointment. Mind you they are being optimistic. Snow here is a once-a-winter (at most) event.
I have between one and five chilblains in each toe from standing on the tile floor in the kitchen without slippers. The summer sun no longer warms it. The fire is lit most nights. Life is packing boxes and making Important Decisions as we move into our first house that will be our OWN! No more hand-me-down rentals that don’t quite fit right. No more cold tile floors in the kitchen. I have a special secret that only Beloved and I know about yet, and I hug it close to my heart. The children run in knitted jumpers as the pale autumnal light brightens the crisp days.
What nice writing in these comments! Brave Writer moms are the best. 🙂