Starting on the summer fun list

Memorial Day is the official start of summer, and I have been starting to make progress on my Summer Fun list. As noted in the previous post, I spoke at my high school’s commencement ceremony this past Saturday. Having a cappuccino at The Cup (the current iteration of my favorite coffee shop — it used to be the “MT Cup”) and perusing the stacks at the White Rabbit Used Book Store were enough to conjure up some serious nostalgia. I spent the first half of Memorial Day weekend dwelling in the past.

But then it was back to my current life, where the kids keep me pretty well lodged in the present. On Sunday, I took the three big kids strawberry picking. This is a perennial entry on my summer fun list. Something about the bright red berries lurking in those green plants appeals to me. My husband is not so big on the idea of paying to do farm work, so he stayed with the (napping) little guy. The pick-your-own farm had warned on their website that the berries were “small but sweet.” They were, in fact, small. We had to do some serious hunting to get enough decent berries to fill our buckets. Possibly the picking will be better in two weeks and I should go back. In any case, we came home with what didn’t seem like so many berries there, but later, when I was washing and cutting them, seemed like a lot. We made strawberry shortcake with homemade whipped cream.

On Monday, after the rain stopped, I went for a run in the afternoon on the trail along the Schuylkill River. I discovered that the honeysuckle vines were growing thick and fragrant on the rocks. Since “inhaling some honeysuckle” is on my summer fun list, I stopped here and there to just breathe them in. I was somewhat self-conscious about doing this in front of other runners and bikers, but hey. They berry season is short, and the honeysuckle season is short. I will try to get back over there during the week to enjoy the scent one more time before they disappear, taking the beginning of summer with them.