I realize we celebrated an important holiday this past weekend, that amazing thing called Independence Day, but if you live in the Pacific Northwest, second maybe to Independence Day, is summer, our summer, which we joke doesn’t begin until after July 5th. So many, many years it’s no joke. Cold, rainy springs bleed into cloudy, rainy June-uary; both feel neverending. And that’s often after an entire winter of ceaseless rain. Even today as I write this, it’s 60 degrees and raining outside.
When July arrives, it’s like we can breathe. We grab onto summer and wring every single drop out of it as it stretches before us, warm and dry and sunny and beautiful, into October if we are lucky. We spend so much time outside. I take my morning coffee out into the garden; I read outside; the kids play outside all day as long as the hose and bugs and their made-up games are involved. We grill and eat dinner outside, and we stay up late, gathered around the fire pit, drinking wine and eating s’mores. …