Summertime, when the livin' is easy

This school year, unarguably, was one of the longest and most painful the girls and I have ever endured. Looking back on it, we can't really figure out why. I mean, it was largely the same as every other school year we've had. But it was a long one. And the winter was just abysmal. And, as high school students, they're doing work that's harder and takes more time and is just more involved than it was back when they were just little things, of course. So why, we don't know. We're just glad it's over. And to that end, when school let out, we fled to the pool as if wild dogs were snapping and snarling at our heels.

So that's where we've been: poolside. At first, we sat straight up on our lounge chairs, our eyes glazed and looking straight ahead in fixed stares, murmuring through stiff lips "Snow. The snow. The snowthesnowthesnowthesnow. THE ICE! THE ICE AND THE SNOW!"

Then we progressed to being able to lean back, although our limbs were all still rigid.

Then, as the sun began to warm our skin and our muscles and our weary bones, we relaxed. And we've been lugging in our favorite cooler stuffed with apples and peaches and popsicles and water bottles and diet soda and turkey sandwiches and those handy little one-hundred calorie snack packs. And we've been staying for hours, lathering ourselves with sunscreen and swimming laps and reading our library books and deploring -- DEPLORING! -- the hideous country music station that someone in the swim club's main office has decided would make a nice change from the "oldies" station (meaning "the music I listened to in high school") we'd all previously been enjoying.

We've been relaxing. Vacationing. Recovering.

You should see my tan.