Well my friends, it’s that time of year again when I must, due to other obligations, take a short break from meeting you between the pages of FOCUS. It will pain me to not be here with you each week yet by some colossal cosmic magnetricity misalignment my life gets even crazier during the summer. Or maybe it’s just me being nutty about warm weather since, you know, I’m solar powered and all. Truth be told, after hibernating all winter I find it difficult to run off at the keyboard, weed whack, paint the house, re-do the deck, build a wall in the garage and sun bathe all at the same time.
Speaking of soaking up rays, this summer is shaping up to be awesome with three…count them, one, two, three…beach trips planned. Dickens, that’s almost as awesome as the year I was invited to 10 New Year’s Eve parties. Anyway, my daughter knows I love the beach so much she sent me a picture saying, “Life is short…buy the beach house.” Trust me friends, a home at the beach will be my next big purchase and not a summer too soon…right after I win the lottery, or become a famous author, or marry a billionaire, or…wait a minute…I can only handle one fantasy at a time!
So…as I was saying, the only thing holding me back is exactly which beach to stick my toes in the sand. There are so many and as far as I’m concerned anywhere sand meets the ocean is utopia. However, Myrtle is definitely out of the equation and any other heavily populated tourist attraction for all the reasons everyone flocks to them…too many bells and whistles. In other words, a quiet, relaxing stretch somewhere between the Mason Dixon and the Equator would suffice.
An ocean view would be almost too much to hope for, yet in my beach bum fantasy: I slowly open a sliding glass door, the ocean breeze gently caresses my skin, I walk outside to recline on my Adirondack and listen to the song of the waves crashing on the shore just over a small sand dune. Dickens, just daydreaming about it gives me goosebumps. Living at the beach has been a lifelong dream of mine I’m hoping will come true while I’m still around to enjoy it. Otherwise, my final wish will be…sprinkle my ashes off a pier and let me float away on a wave. Yikes, thinking like that almost burst my dream bubble.
Well, besides being a beach trip kind of summer, I, like most of you, will be catching up on much needed home improvements like replacing boards on my deck and building a wall in my garage. Speaking of walls, I just stained the one added to the back of my garage last weekend. Hard to explain but I have a shed roof off the back of the garage over a concrete pad, which I plan on pressure washing today if I can squeeze it in before or after I pick up Sunshine from school. Anyway, as if I didn’t have enough projects on my plate I decided to add the wall, hence utilizing the space as a gardening area.
A friend of mine had some leftover lumber and after he installed the horizontal 2×4’s I attached the vertical boards via nails. As my dad supervised he pointed out that not only do I hold the hammer at the very top it took me about a dozen swings with the hammer per nail. (Yeah, so?) Apparently, 2-3 swings is average for a man. Obviously, I’m not testosterone powered. However, I managed to achieve seven swings per nail…several times. Plus, I hit my thumb and I broke a fingernail. Ouch! What can I say, I guess my girl card fell out of my pocket.
Sadly my friends, parting is such sweet sorrow and I will miss you often. No worries though, I’ll be checking in with you to see how you’re doing. Catch you up on what I’m doing during my super busy summer and…oh wow, sun’s out gotta go!!
Can you imagine…a warm ocean breeze?
Smile, your tan lines are showing. Have a safe, happy and totally awesome Memorial Day Weekend!!
