Welcome.

Today is officially the first day of summer. My stomach is flip-flopping with excitement. There is something about this time of year. I come alive.
Tomorrow morning my sisters and I will throw open the curtains and windows and let the lemon sunlight flood my home. I'll put on a tank top and shorts and scrub baseboards, dust the cobwebs from the ceiling, bleach the patio,  change the linens, and together we will wash my car. My scratchy, fuzzy radio will sing the tunes of Alan Jackson and Blake Shelton all day. Maybe I'll brew some iced tea, sweetened with plums. Maybe I'll grill up some hot dogs and corn. Maybe I'll drive with windows down over to the ocean and dive in. I'll fit a nap in somewhere, and maybe a card game with sisters. What better way to welcome summer than with sunshine, tank tops, country music, tea, and a bucket of sudsy water? And, at the end of the day, when my little sister's cheeks have been kissed by the sun, and our bodies are sore and sweaty after a long day of hard work, and we smell like saltwater and grass clippings I'll sit down and read aloud the perfect summertime story: Dandelion Wine.

"It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer."

--Dandelion Wine