Summer Routines

Summer for me started two days ago, and I wanted to get off on the right foot.  My dog and I went for a nice walk first thing in the morning, then I sat down to my usual breakfast (yogurt and granola) plus a couple leftover muffins.

I decided that I will take breakfast outside every morning that I can, enjoying the flowers and birds and morning breezes.  This was a great way to begin the day.  Of course, the second day of vacation, it rained, and I had to eat breakfast inside.  But my dog and I got our walk in just before the shower came through.

My second "summer resolution" is that the TV will stay off between 9 am and 5 pm.  I don't need to know what Kelly Ripa is up to every day, and Hoda and Kathie Lee will be fine without me.  Already I am more productive.  Today I transplanted a spider plant, yesterday I made two banana breads... so this is definitely a good thing.  And it will give me more time to read, which is something I need to keep up with in the summer, as our middle school librarians' committee is busy picking books for our upcoming Cafe Book Program.  There is a ton of reading that goes into this program, so having quiet time away from the computer and TV is a must.

I made a To-Do list of things I want to accomplish this summer, and since we're not really traveling much, it's the perfect summer to accomplish stuff that I don't have time for during the school year.  I have fabric to make curtains for the basement, and an idea to make an over-the-door flag holder for our outside flags, and several other projects.  I am a list person, and I love crossing things off!

And there's also time for this in the summer--flowers! My patio containers are doing great, and the marigolds I planted rescued just in time are finally looking healthy.  On the side of the house I don't really visit a lot is this beautiful hydrangea, and I make sure I take a look at it every day in the summer--so gorgeous!!

Spring is here!

There is a lovely Memorial Garden outside the library.  Every afternoon when I leave school, I take a short walk around and look at all the pretty perennials that others worked so hard to cultivate.  All I do is trim the weeds and cut back dead stuff after it blooms.  The garden is just lovely, and one of the paras walked me through it last year to tell me about some of the flowers that were planted in memory of staff members who had died, and some plants in honor of other staff members.  I told her that we needed to make a map of all the plants and what their significance was--we should do that before those memories fade.

I love the mixture of colors!

Clematis

Iris

Iris close-up

We have a whole row of these, but I don't know what they are called.