I love the light that comes with Summer. When I wake up at 5:00 am, it is so exciting to look at the light just peaking in around the curtains in our bedroom. I know immediately that I won’t be able to go back to sleep, and that’s OK, because there is always something that needs doing!

Answering that email from a friend or relative that I managed to read, but didn’t have the time or energy to reply to.

Going to the Babble app and do my Spanish or Italian lesson for the day—they get you hooked by telling you that your streak is now 20 or even 200 days long & you can’t not do it today.

Plunking on the electric piano, always with the headphone, so no one else can hear.

Walking to the community garden plot to see if you need to water today or shake your head at how the bunnies are able to climb up on the raised bed & nibble your lettuce, squash or ripening tomatoes. The nice thing about walking is that I can listen to my current audio book and thanks to the public library, I almost always have one in progress and a couple on my hold shelf.

Back to the summer light. It is especially nice in the early morning, before the sun climbs too high in the sky and it is too uncomfortable to venture out of the shade, especially here in Colorado. Fortunately, even on most summer days, it is good to be out in the fresh air, especially if you can find a nice shade tree to sit under.

Just yesterday, Sue and I drove over to City Park, parked near the pavilion, and carried our new camp chairs to our favorite tree and settled in to eat our chicken salad sandwich lunch—it’s hard to imagine a lovelier day. The sun was high up in the sky & the temperature was 90+ but with the lovely breeze blowing over the lake, we couldn’t imagine anything better.

Charlie, our grandson, is 14 this year; he has entered puberty, so he has suddenly begun to shoot up, his voice has changed, and there is hair sprouting every where. The other day we picked him up to take him to a dental appointment, so it was just the three of us, no friends or other family members.

He, of course, had his phone in his hand, but we were able to get him to put it away and talk about his summer and how he feels about starting high school in the Fall. It was good to hear his thoughts and plans and his obvious excitement about his life and interests. After the checkup, we offered to take him to Hapa, his and our favorite Sushi Restaurant. Seated at an outdoor sidewalk table and over the lovely meal, we covered a lot of topics; I even got him to laugh at one of my “Dad jokes.”

And Boy, can he put away an Unagi Magi roll or three!