Get out

I was out walking today, on my way home from work, and it wasn’t until I got home and inside that I realized what a beautiful day it is. About 75°, sunny, a few white puffy clouds, and a light cool breeze. Just perfect. And then I thought, how often does this happen? Well, I don’t know where you live, but where I am, here is southeastern Pennsylvania, the weather doesn’t really turn nice until late May or so. Once you get to the beginning of July, it gets unbearably warm and humid. There may be 4 or 5 days during the summer that cool off, and maybe another month at the end before the leaves fall and the wind picks up. That about 80 days a year, and that’s a conservative estimate. If you are lucky, you may live to the ripe old age of 90. So, if the seasons are perfect and you are in excellent health and a truck doesn’t run you over tomorrow, you might expect to see about 7000 beautiful days in your lifetime.

When you stop to think about it, 7000 isn’t a whole lot. 7000 seconds is slightly less than 2 hours. 7000 inches is less than 2 football fields. If you have a 50 gallon fish tank, I can almost guarantee there are at least 7000 pieces of gravel in it. 7000 blades of grass cover only a couple of square feet. The average American is $7000 in debt, not counting mortgages. And I’m sure that same American has at least 7000 pennies in his or her bank account.

7000 goes by quick. Placed in a row, that would only be 19 years of beautiful days. Now, 19 years may seem like a lot, but for those of you over 25, think about yourself and what you were doing 19 years ago. It went by quick, didn’t it? Cripes, My best friends in the world have known me for about 7000 days.

Now, I’m not suggesting you be pessimistic about this. Don’t get out your list and tick off another beautiful day (that’s 4,387 down, 2,613 to go….). But don’t forget either. And certainly don’t waste them.

What’s that? You have nothing to do on a perfectly beautiful day, except to waste it? Well, then, for your perusal, I offer this list of things you might want to spend such a day wasting.

Take a walk.
Fly a kite.
Spray the hose at your kids.
Go to the zoo.
Play baseball, frisbee, basketball, soccer, lacrosse.
Eat lunch under a tree.
Eat lunch in a tree. (Trust me, this is fun.)
Ride a bike, scooter, tricycle, Segway.
Put the top down on your convertible and go for a ride.
Put all the windows and sun roof down and pretend your car is a convertible.
Go swimming.
Write an article on how nice it is. But do it outside.

Summertime

Well, I know that my schedule is generally different from everyone else's, but even if you're not a school teacher, I think that summer is still different. You might be in the office, but things are a little more relaxed. Rush hour isn't as tense, and you tend to enjoy going out to lunch a little more. (And if you happen to take an hour and a half instead of an hour, the boss is less likely to complain.)

But then you have the dog-days of summer, here in the middle of August, and if you are a kid or a teacher of kids (or a parent of kids), you start to look forward to September. And with good reason: cooler temperatures, pretty colors on the trees, the smell of new pencils and new notebooks, and Halloween on the horizon.

Keep summer in mind though, when sometime soon, deep in January or February, when the thermometer bottoms out and you slide across that intersection on a sheet of ice on your way to work, when two sweaters and a down jacket don't keep the wind out, when you leave home in the dark and return home in the dark. Just remember. Remember cool breezes and iced lemonade, remember hanging on the swings and playing in the pool, remember "five more minutes, mom, we can still see the ball". Remember the good ol' days of summertime.