In General

In General, I loathe summer. I am, for the most part, much like my Alaskan Malamute, who spends three months of the year laying right on top of the vents the air conditioning comes out of. If you try to make him move, he just lays there and stares at you. He doesn't even eat in the summer, or at least not much. If I could sleep through summer, I would. So I just get cranky and grill things so as not heat up the kitchen while making dinner.
I very much prefer Autumn, or even winter. I know, I'm crazy, but hey, I try to live with it.
So, it is with great adulation that I woke this morning to a day of only 70 degrees and possible rain. And my Mal is actually moving today. And since it's been so hot here that you can actually feel your skin burning in the sun, our dear Mal is blowing his coat for the third time this year. (They're not supposed to do that. When a Mal blows his coat, it's like it rains fur-great chunks of it, everywhere, and they walk around looking like someone combed them by sticking a moving fan blade in their fur and running it backwards up their backs. Not pretty-got it? )
Since I have to endure two more months of summer before I get real lasting relief from the heat, I thought I'd make a list of things about summer I do like, in hopes of psyching myself into liking summer...

1. Strawberries
2. Garage Sales
3. Long Days
4. Evenings on our back deck
5. Grilled whatever for dinner ( !No planning! Just throw a slab of something on the grill... )
6. Saturday road trips to antique/junk shops
7. No school for my dd (great girl, love having her home)
8. Home Improvement projects actually getting done (December in Northern IL = frozen paint)
9. Occasional walks through local state parks
10. Local small city-fairs

Of course, if I made a list of things I don't like about summer, it'd be a much longer list, involving Japanese beetles eating my entire backyard, bees, sweat, bees, heat...Well, you get the idea. But I'm ignoring all of that. Really. Trying to, anyway.