Badminton and counting down to summertime (7 Quick Takes)

~1~

The school year can end anytime, so we can kick off summer vacation. Our post-cicada plans are still coming together, but I expect them to include frozen lemonade and badminton, which was part of last summer’s fun, too.

I seem to have lost any badminton skills I picked up last summer, so I need to start practicing.

Is anyone else getting nervous-excited for the cicadas?

~2~

The other day I asked my neighbor if she would like to start walking with me, and she said yes right away. We’ve been walking together almost every evening, sometimes in the dark because it’s hard for me to get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. It’s remarkable how much better I feel about everything after a walk and a chat. It’s so good to get out of the house for a bit, get a little distance, enjoy a little evening air, and have a chance to talk.

I’m looking forward to connecting with more friends in person this summer. On personality tests, I always fall close to the line between extrovert and introvert, but I’m just a little more extroverted, and I really do enjoy time with friends—and not just virtual time.

~3~

That said, I also enjoy my time at home. Last weekend we went to our nephew’s First Communion Mass in New England—all from the comfort of our living room. It hit me, as it does now and then, that there are some benefits to the pandemic. The fact that we could see our nephew receive the Eucharist for the first time without 15 or 16 hours of driving is really a gift.

~4~

Mother’s Day can be a little like opening a can of soup that lost its label months ago. You never know what you might find. I’m pretty sure it will be a good day, but I try to keep my expectations in an appropriate place, especially since May is always a really hectic time for us.

I wonder whether the finches are working on a Mother’s Day card for me since I am their grandmother and great-grandmother.

Oh, and the soup? It was Chicken and Stars.

That was my guess, too.

~5~

We have talked for years about putting some kind of flooring over the tile in our basement. Being home so much inspired us to move forward and add some vinyl sheeting on top of the tile.

We didn’t do the work ourselves, so we waited until the grownups in the household were vaccinated to have people come in and install it. It’s amazing to me how it transforms the space.

It’s also amazing to see the space completely empty. My husband and sons worked so hard to move all the furniture out of the way before the installation.

~6~

We never took a vacation last summer, and I’ve been thinking we really need a real vacation this summer. We’re still trying to be Covid-cautious, though, so we don’t want to go anywhere crowded. We thought renting a house for a weekend or a week would be fun. Some of us are hoping for a house with a pool. Others are just hoping for a house near decent carry-out food.

It’s astounding how much time you can put into searching for vacation homes without ever actually choosing one.

Other people take up crocheting or baking bread as a hobby. Mine seems to be searching multiple states for a house where my children can splash in a pool while I sip iced coffee and read.

~7~

Sometime last spring or summer I ordered a whiteboard so we could keep track of the boys’ school assignments.

It’s still completely blank, and we’ve never hung it on the wall. That seems about right for my approach to virtual schooling.

If I had a dollar for every time I decided we were going to be more organized about school assignments, I could buy even more whiteboards—and they would all sit here blank and unhung.

Find more quick takes on Kelly’s blog, This Ain’t the Lyceum, and have a wonderful weekend.

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