You know that feeling of anticipation you get when you’re reading a really good book and you just can’t wait to see how it turns out? Well, I have that now… only I’m not reading a book.

I just feel that way about life at the moment.

This time of year tends to bring the best out of me. I just can’t stop thinking about all of the fun things we can do this summer!

I’m just so EXCITED!

Bridget feels the same way so we decided to make an advent calendar to count down the days until school gets out.

It doesn’t matter how excited we get for summer we will inevitabley come to a point where we’re sick of it and we can’t remember all of the fun stuff that we were planning to do during our time of anticipation. But this year is going to be different!

Instead of taking something out our summer advent calendar we decided to put something in. For each day of May Bridget is writing down a summer time inspired activity that she can’t wait to do and placing it in this glass jar. That way when she can’t think of something on a really hot boring day she can pick something out of this jar for inspiration. We’ll call it a ”boredom drawing”, if you will.

So far she’s come up with ideas like…

• Play flashlight freeze tag
• Have a back yard campout
• Have a Sandlot themed slumber party
• Walk to Magill’s for ice cream
• Go hiking
• Hunt for tadpoles, frogs or crawfish in a creek
• Have a cream pie war
• Have a shaving cream fight

This list goes on and on.

I’m actually pretty proud of this idea. If you haven’t already noticed, it’s not everyday that I’m good at this whole motherhood business. So I feel like this is a sort of motherhood slam dunk if I do say so myself

To be honest, Bridget and I have been scrambling to find common ground since she’s entered the realm of the “tween”… It’s a scary place.

She used to be my little partner in crime but now she’s too cool for that. I’ve been clinging to the golden days when she didn’t want to wear makeup or say things like, “I was like… uh, wow. Seriously?!”

But yesterday was Mother’s Day and she gave me the perfect gift… a day filled with all of the things that we used to do.

First we headed to the farmer’s market located by our favorite book store, The Tattered Cover. It was perfect outside and the smell of kettle corn was in the air.

Notice the uncomfortable tween stance.

We walked around tasting samples and smelling flowers. We bought breakfast at a norwegian pastry stand and headed inside the Tattered Cover for some iced drinks.

Bridget likes the iced chai tea latte and I got an almond milk iced latte. Bridget grabbed a few magazines and headed for the kid’s section while I browsed for some “must reads”.

I usually come up with an adult book list…

And a kids/young adult book list every time I go…

(Just to be clear, both of these lists are for me.)

I can’t afford to buy all of the books that I want to read AND I’ve chosen to boycott any type of reading device. So, after I collect these pictures I sign up for the waiting list at the library. Every time I get a notification that something is waiting for me I get that giddy feeling like it’s Christmas.

I prefer it this way. You can’t smell a reading device or see the left over signs from other readers on it, like a smudged chocolate thumb print or the remnants of tanning oil. (It sounds very unsanitary now that I say it out loud) But there’s love left over in a good library book that you just can’t get from technology! Plus, if books are extinct than book stores will be too and that would be a travesty. So that means I have to buy coffee or tea every time I go AND I’m given the perfect excuse to splurge every now and then on a good book.

There’s just something about summer that triggers the reader in me. It must be because as a child if I wasn’t living at the pool then I was dropped off at the library to entertain myself instead. Ahhhh, I can still feel the air conditioning…

In recent years we had finally hit the stage where I could sit by the pool reading my book while Bridget took off on her own but these days I’m back to square one again. There will definitely not be any reading by the pool for quite a while now that Penelope is in the picture. But I’m so excited to frolic in the baby section once again and save the reading for nap time.

When we got home from the book store, yesterday. It was time for Penelope to take a nap. So as another Mother’s Day gift Bridget stayed inside to do her laundry and listen for her sister while I sat outside in my bathing suit listening to music and drinking a beer.

As I laid out there my thoughts drifted back to this whole weight loss business. Throughout this whole process my goal was to be comfortable in my skin by the time summer arrived. When I first started this journey I was sure that I would have almost reached my goal by now and in a way I have. I’m nowhere near where I want to be but at the same time I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

It’s funny, but I never feel better about my body than I do during the summer. I practically live in a bathing suit. It doesn’t matter how much I weigh, I flaunt what I’ve got with the attitude of…”If you don’t like what you see then quit staring!”

In other words, I OWN IT!

I wish I was like this year round. It’s strange, but as soon as the temperature drops and the sweaters are taken back out I start to worry about things like love handles and muffin tops all over again.

I can’t explain it, so I won’t. Instead, I’ll put my bathing suit on again for another round of… Penelope is sleeping so I can sit outside and traumatize my neighbors read a book.

Oh and that whole bit about the suntan oil stains being found in the library books… those are probably from me

What’s your favorite thing to do during the summer???