Remember When it Was SOOOOO Hot!

I don't want to whine about how hot it is.
I really don't.
Because I dislike bitter cold so much more.
But, after so many days of 90-100+ temperatures,
I do have to consciously put a lid on my
tendency to complain about the heat.

It always does me some good to think back to
younger days and the ways we beat the heat...or tried to do so.

*In our old farmhouse, all the bedrooms were upstairs and very hot in the summer. So as soon as this over-the-top heat and humidity hit every summer, we would sleep downstairs on the living room floor at night.
We'd grab a quilt to plant on, direct a fan our way, and snooze away.  It's a wonder we did get any sleep with four kids in close quarters on the floor, but I guess we were used to it.  We also were probably exhausted from playing outside.

*I remember well eating watermelon slices under our big, shady maple tree.  That's where the lawn chairs sat all summer.  Watermelon was a wonderful, cool treat on a summer's afternoon and letting the seeds fly was fun, too.

*Sweet corn and tomato slices, along with any other garden produce in season, were the evening meal day after day in the summer, and we liked it that way.  Mom had a huge pot that she would boil water in and then load with sweet corn ears for a quick boil.  The kids would often be the ones cleaning the ears before cooking, and we each ate lots of ears!  And we never tired of big, red tomato slices with a little sugar sprinkled on top.

*Do you remember the days we could play in the sun all day, no matter the temperature?  We didn't know what sunscreen was, or if our parents did, they didn't think it was important.  We'd come in to eat and then go right back outside.  Sometimes we'd take a drink directly from the outside pump or the hose. 

*Mom used to hang all the laundry outside - every piece.  And later on, I had that job.  I still love the smell of sheets dried outside in the sun, and I can "feel" the scratchiness of the towels, too.

*We went barefoot all summer at home.  We walked on the driveway stones gingerly, but confidently.  We watched for bees so we didn't get a sting.  We rode bikes with no shoes on, walked in the fields, and through the mud puddles.

Pretty good memories, eh?

This post originally appeared on the Elling Family News blog on July 21, 2011.