Better Late Than Never, Summer.

It has been a long, slow climb toward summer here this year.  Every time the weather would flirt with the idea of acting like summer, a big storm system would come through and knock it back down.  Which is why it took over three weeks since the pool opened for me to go for my inaugural visit as a member.

Yesterday was not exactly a perfect pool day but it was close enough: passing clouds, kind of breezy and about 80 when the sun was not obscured.  M had a free hour so we packed up our towels, pulled out the sunblock, grabbed our books and we were off to the pool.  Despite it not being quite a pool day, it seemed like A LOT of people had the same idea as us about ripping off the summer band-aid as the place was pretty packed.

It was really quite delightful.  I was there only about an hour but that was long enough for my pale skin to get a light pinking.  It was funny to watch the little kids do little kid things.  I had to ask M what we did in the pre-noodle days  because I honestly couldn't remember.  I know we didn't have noodles when we were kids but it seemed like everyone -- both kids and adults -- were using them.  Her response: we actually swam.  Oh, right.  Shark and minnows.  Marco polo.  Ring diving.

Good times.

Planting Day!

Today was finally planting day!  We had thought about making our annual trip up to Andersonville three weeks ago but I was out of town.  We were then going to go during Memorial weekend but circumstances combined to make that impractical.  So, while slightly belated compared to years past, on June 1, we have our flowers.

Even though we knew that it would likely be fairly busy at the flower place, we decided to stick without our usual morning workouts and then go, rather than go first thing in the morning like we did last year.  As we learned then, it doesn't change how busy the place is and then we don't get our ice cream cone because 10:00 am is just too early for ice cream.

This is our fourth year (surprisingly to me) and we have finally got it figured out.  It took us longer to get there -- and get a space in the parking lot -- than it took us to select our flowers and checkout.  Two and a half flats of impatiens plus half a flat of assorted other stuff plus one large bag of potting soil equals a fully planted balcony.  And, that is the only arithmetic I need to do today.

And, while it took two tries, we got our delicious McDonald's vanilla cones this year.  The girl working the drive through was markedly less enthusiastic than we were about them but I'm sure that's because she wasn't getting to enjoy the tasty goodness.