10 on the 10th: August 2023-Summertime Yin-Yang

As summer break is coming to end for most students and teachers in the northern hemisphere, Marsha in the Middle has crafted some fun yin-yang style questions about summertime activities and favorites. For this monthly series, Marsha presents us with 10 questions about a common theme and asks us to share our answers in blog post form on the 10th of the month. This series is such a wonderful way to share more information about ourselves and to learn interesting new things about others. Anyone is invited to join and answer the questions. It is a great way to start new conversations, make meaningful connections with new people, and have a good hearty chuckle every now and then. Without further delay, here are Marsha’s 10 inquiries along with my responses…

1. Tell us about your favorite summer vacation. Now tell us about a vacation gone wrong.

I am not a big vacationer type of person. We mostly take little mini vacations or long weekend trips. My favorite summer vacation in recent years is our annual festival camping weekend at Smoked Country Jam every June. We tent camp for 3 nights in the Pennsylvania wilds with great music, great friends, and great vibes.

I honestly cannot think of a vacation that has truly gone wrong for me. But I have definitely experienced some less than desirable things during some vacations. For example, this year’s Smoked Country Jam festival ended with Ralph waking up with a stomach bug on the day we had to drive 5 hours to get home. That 5 hours felt more like 15. And back in 2019, I attended the final Hickory Fest and a wicked storm passed through on the last day, which caused a very large tree branch to fall on my brand new car. That was a bit stressful, but the damage was minimal. Thankfully, it only took off a sideview mirror.

2. Share an activity from your summers as a kid, but now you wouldn’t even consider trying it.

My summers as a kid were spent at the public pool mostly for swim practice and swim meets. But during my downtime, all I wanted to do was hang at the pool. Now, I actually hate swimming. I don’t like the whole process of getting in and out of bathing suits. I hate the smell of chlorine and the sticky feeling it leaves on your skin. And the sun burns my very fair skin all too quickly. I hate the sticky feeling of sunscreen as much as I hate the sticky feeling of chlorine, so now I honestly don’t even consider going swimming these days. My kids, of course, love being in the pool and I am so grateful for our amazing neighbors, Dani and Fong, who allow the children to use their pool all summer long. And I don’t ever have to get in the water myself!

3. Is there something you love to wear in the summer, but would never wear in the colder months?

My rope sandals from Nomadic State of Mind are my favorite summer footwear right after my Birkenstocks. But I have the fur lined Birkenstocks (my Furkenstocks) which I wear all year round, generally with socks because my toes get too cold. Because of my cold toes, I do have to retire my rope sandals from rotation during the colder months. While I can wear the rope sandals with socks as well, they really aren’t that comfortable with socks. But without socks, they are freaking amazing. Like a warm, comforting hug for your feet!

4. Spill the tea! What summer beverage do you need to make it through the day? What beverage wouldn’t grace your table even during the summer?

My beverage choices remain fairly consistent all year round. I start most days with a big ole mug of hot lemon water followed by two big mugs of coffee and then I return to hot lemon water for the remainder of the day. On days when it is just too hot for hot drinks, I drink plain old bottled spring water at room temperature and I will put ice in my coffee on occasion. I keep a ziplock in the freezer that is filled with frozen coffee cubes for those iced coffee days because watered down iced coffee is really gross. And every once in a while I enjoy a lemon-lime Gatorade.

There are many drinks that don’t grace my table anymore like soda, beer, wine, and liquor. I gave up soda more than 30 years ago and while I have enjoyed some carbonated sugar syrup on occasion over the years, I have realized in recent years that I really don’t like soda at all and so I have stopped even taking occasional sips. As for beer, wine, and liquor, I don’t really like those either and realized that I only ever consumed alcoholic beverages in some feeble attempt to fit into whatever social gathering presented me with booze options. I don’t much care about fitting in these days, so I am perfectly content smoking my weed while every one else gets drunk and judges me!

5. When you were a kid, was there something you did that kids today would think was a complete waste of time? Is there something kids do today that you find a lost cause?

When I was a kid, I generally had my face buried in a book. And if I wasn’t reading something, then I was writing something in my journals, which I carried everywhere with me. I am sure there are kids today who enjoy reading and writing as much as I did and do, but my children are definitely not those kids and find these activities a bit mundane and waste of their time. Both of my children are becoming more interested in reading anime graphic novels but I don’t think they will ever find writing just for the sake of writing to be a worthwhile activity. For me, it is not only a worthwhile activity, it is an activity that has extraordinary therapeutic benefits as well.

Instead of spending hours engaged in reading and writing, my kids much prefer video games. And video games are an activity in which I have never found any joy, only frustration the very few times I have attempted to play a video game. Honestly, the last real video game that I played with any amount of skill was on an Atari back in the 1980s. I don’t think I find video games to be a lost cause, however. You can make a lucrative career in the video game industry as long as you can shift your focus from just playing the games to learning how to design and market them.

6. Share a summer movie you watch as often as you can. What summer movie do you wish had never been filmed?

Grease and Grease 2 are two of my favorite movies of all time and they always give me good summertime vibes. In fact, I watched Grease this summer while I was ironing fabric for my bohemian bedroom rag curtains.

While I can’t say I wish any movie had never been made, I can say that Palm Springs was a pretty awful summer movie. I fell for the hype and watched it and it’s just weird and confusing and really kind of stupid.

7. Tell us about your current favorite summer song. Now, tell us a song that instantly takes you back to your childhood.

Well, my current favorite summertime tune is Freak Flag by Here Come the Mummies, which was the subject our most recent Songful Style post. Another favorite summer song is about the season coming to an end, Summer is Gone by Beth Hart. There are a few songs which flash me right back to childhood in a moment, but three come to mind immediately, Survivor’s High on You, The Who’s Behind Blue Eyes, and Meet Me Halfway by Kenny Loggins.

8. Time to spill the tea again! Are you a bikini type person? Or, do you only dip your toes in the waters in a one piece?

Well, I already stated in my answer to number 2 that I don’t much like swimming at all. But on the off chance that I am compelled to immerse myself into a public body of water, I do opt for a two piece because they are so much easier getting on and off. I don’t think I even own a one piece swim suit which is funny since I never liked two piece swim suits when I was younger. I didn’t own a single bikini when I had the body for a bikini. But guess what, I still have the body for a bikini at 49 years old. In fact, we all have bikini bodies beginning from the moment you put a bikini on your body. Just like humans come in all shapes and sizes, so do bikinis so wear whatever makes you feel fabulous! For me, it’s high waisted two piece bikinis with maximum coverage.

9. Share a favorite summer recipe that you love to fix over and over again. Now, what recipe did you try one summer and will never attempt again?

Two recipes that are staples for summertime barbecues as well as family favorites all year long are Liz Veloz’s Chicken Macaroni Salad and Paula Dean’s Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps.

A few weeks ago, I made four batches of homemade muffins which are pictured below. I seriously never mess up my muffins to this extent but I tried some new things that didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. The muffins in the photo from left to right are spiced zucchini, tropical, banana nut, and blueberry lemon.

The zucchini and blueberry lemon came out perfect as they usually do but the other two were complete busts. I attempted to make the banana nut muffins using almond flour and I completely screwed up the flour conversion and ended up with very dense collapsed mammoth muffins. They tasted good but they did not look good at all. Since I don’t have any dietary restrictions, I doubt I will try it again because wheat flour just bakes better than almond flour, in my opinion.

For the tropical ones, I substituted coconut mil and added chopped pineapple, diced strawberry, and shredded coconut. Just as I goofed the conversion for the almond flour, I also messed up the conversion for coconut milk and ended up with soggy crumbly muffins that stuck to the pan. They also tasted really good but were not at all presentable!

10. What is your absolute favorite summer smell? What summer smell makes you want to vomit?

Some favorite summer aromas include the smell of fresh cut grass, the scent in the air after a summer thunderstorm, fire pits sending smoke into the crisp evening air, and people cooking food on their backyard grills. Summer smells that turn my stomach include pool chemicals and the smell they leave on your skin after swimming, exhaust fumes from vehicles that smell more strongly when we drive around with our windows open, and carnivals, amusement parks, and county fairs. Seriously, the odors that permeate the air in and around carnivals, amusement parks, and county fairs are enough to keep me far, far away from those venues. Even driving by them can cause severe nausea when the plethora of too many odors hits my overly sensitive proboscis.

And with that, we will be bringing summertime to a close soon enough. While my kids still have 4 weeks of summer vacation left, we are noticing a significant drop in temperatures already indicating that fall is just around the corner in the north country. How has your summer been?

If you enjoyed reading my answers, be sure to check out Marsha’s post and her link party for more interesting responses. And feel free to share your own answers in the comments. I would love to read them!

Keeping it on the edge, 

Shelbee

Joining these Fabulous Link Parties.

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