Summery ramblings

Where to start? Ayi yi yi… it is so hard to come up with a blog post after such a prolonged absence. I haven’t intentionally ignored blogging but with the gorgeous weather and Operation Spend More Time with Real People and Less Time with Cyber People (OSMTRPLTCP) in full effect, I just haven’t exactly made time for it. What I have made more time for are cookouts, parties with friends, trips to the park and the pool, backyard fun, nights on Main Street, and photographing all the aforementioned events.

I had promised myself a few months ago that I would be more social and make more of an effort to do things out and about with the kiddos and our friends on the weekends no matter how tough it was to take the two screaming banshees out of their cages. The husband and I also agreed to have more social events at our house and one fence, playground, gazebo, and kiddie pool later, we have hosted three cookouts at our house and a Fourth of July partay at a friend’s house (and by house, I mean resort)


I definitely think the kiddos have been benefited by being out and about more often- the Gavinator has even learned to swim by himself while wearing his floaty suit- and while the Goose still clings to me like her head will explode if I am not in a 1 foot radius of her, she is at least beginning to acknowledge and speak of people as long as they aren’t looking at her or even worse, directly speaking to her. Oh, and speaking of the Gavinator, he has two new favorite phrases. His first one is to declare “I’m pissed out” every time things are going his way (he totally got that from his father, I never say pissed off and his second one is to ask a question that he wants you to say “yes” to and follow up the question with “say yes or no. Say yes or no” and then when you respond with a “no” he’ll say “say yes! Say yes!” and then he’ll repeat the whole question over again. It can go on for days, I tell you.

It’s definitely been good for me to get out and do things with people. My inner social butterfly has been on hiatus since moving to South Carolina and it is about time she came back. I can’t believe the very same person who ten years ago was accused of being a coke addict because I was so spastic and hyper and always on the go during the one summer I spent at home was the same person who just last summer pretty much did nothing. Nada. Zip. Summer is about moving and shaking I was pretty much sitting and staring. I mean sure, I had two kids two and under but enough is enough.

There is just something about the long, hot days, evening thunderstorms, smell of sunscreen, and everything that comes with summer on the east coast that makes it seem as though all the summers that came before- summers spent at CATO park, getting my first kiss, cruising the hill and KC, sweating to death during dance, majorette, and band practices, working at Cedar Point, partying endlessly in Morgantown, meeting my husband- seem like only yesterday. There is something so timeless about summer. When I’m at the pool or driving with the windows down or watching a gorgeous sunset at 9:00 p.m, I can’t be sure if I am 13 or 31.

Pretty sure I’m closer to 13. Although, the next morning I was closer to 41.

Lending itself to this notion of a timeless summer is the fact that next month I am getting together with three childhood friends to celebrate our 20 year anniversary!!! Ack! It’s been 20 years this August since I stood outside of Lincoln Junior High (now granted, this is a very old pic and we went to school there, there was no fence but it was right in front of those double doors that we met)- a school that has been gone for 18 years- and shyly introduced myself to two super cool people who I hoped would be my friends. Unfortunately, I was wrong about the cool part but I still can’t get rid of them after 20 years. We always joke that no one else will have us. We’re planning on getting together in Charlotte and spending the weekend sunbathing at the hotel in our thongs and harnessing our inner ten year olds by spending a day rocking Carowinds Amusement Park. Three of us went there together the summer of 1995 and I swear, I don’t think I have ever laughed that hard in my entire life.

Then two weeks later, I’ll be heading to NYC to see Nikki G walk down the aisle. Sigh… and to think it has been 16 summers ago that I first met her and 5 summers ago since she did the nicest thing that someone has ever done for me. Funny story about how we first met. The summer of 1991 I became friends with her brother who was a lifeguard at my pool. Her cousin flew in from New Jersey to stay with her brother while she and her parents went to New Jersey so I didn’t meet her BUT I did meet her cousin and we started a little summer fling. Nothing serious as I was still pure but we had a couple of make-out sessions after downing bottles of Boone’s Farm (Strawberry Hill, baby) and girl, I thought I was so wild. Anyhoo, apparently tongue-wrestling wasn’t wild enough of a story to tell his cousin and all his friends so he told them all that we did the DEED!!!!!!! OMG!!!!! Ok, well not exactly OMG because for one, I had no idea YET that he had told people that and two, I liked the idea of having a bad girl rep without actually having to do any bad girl deeds. So fast forward to the start of school and I am so excited to meet Nikki G and become friends with her as we were going to be in dance company together and I figured since I had already met her brother and cousin, we would be fast friends. Little did I know she thought I was the biggest slut bag EVAH and she wanted nothing to do with me. I later caught wind of my new reputation and quickly cleared the air with her that I was not a ho bag and I have been in love with her ever since.

Don’t you love a happy ending?

Wow. What a rambling resurgence into the blogosphere!