What simple summer pleasures are you still enjoying while staying COVID-safe?

Ice cream! Our local frozen yogurt/ice cream shop re-opened mid-June.

Staying inside, in the air conditioning. Same as every summer.

@zenvelo Oh yes! Me too. My local place restructured for outside service only (And I think I’ve been in the for yo place in your town.)

@cookieman You’re no fun! :-) But I do find the AC a blessing!

Camping. Except we haven’t gone this year yet.

@Dutchess_III Hope you get to go!

@janbb: Oh, but I am fun. Just not in the summer.

@cookieman I’ll come visit in the winter and we’ll make snow angels together!

I’m becoming a plant lady. I give my plants baths in the tub each Sunday. I gently mist my succulents. All week long, I tell them how pretty they are and how much they are growing.

Not really related to summer, but being in the house all of the time.

@Cupcake is losing it! We gotta help her, guys!

Oh, and we’re an hour from the most beautiful beaches. We’ve gone at 7am to play at the beach and leave by 10am when it’s starting to get “busy” and I get anxious about whether people are staying 6 feet apart (they’re not).

@Dutchess_III I couldn’t have imagined how much getting my PhD would take out of me. I am losing it. But it’s ok.

I am really enjoying my plants, though.

You got your PhD? How very cool is that?! Good job.

I’m nearing the end. I plan to graduate next spring, so I basically have to have my dissertation written by the end of this year.

What is the topic of your dissertation?

Identifying facilitators and barriers of screening pregnant women for opioid use disorder. I’ve also added a section on the impact of COVID-19.

Gardening, walks with my kid from time to time, going to the farmers markets, pretty quiet this summer, but it’s OK.

I’ve been sending lots of time at the lake. I’m able to find fairly private spots at the beach at just the right time.

I’m with @cookieman . I have always hated summer. I am allergic to heat and sun. Not literally, but it makes me feel ill. So nothing new here. Just thanking god for a/c.

Now that the summer is here and it is nice and dry-ish outside I broken out the table saw planer and am getting to work building random crap.

Warm weather, lumber, power tools and beer is all I really need right now. Suck it covid..

Ice cream, watermelon, bike rides, taking a dip in the pool, sitting outside reading a book in the nice weather…these things are the same this year as they always have been.

The fish in my pond need me every day. When i walk up to the edge carrying a bug zapper full of bugs they greet me like cocker spaniels. I change out the filter and make sure the clean water is flowing. Then I fix whatever was knocked over or broken by other critters.
I figure it’s my early morning yoga.

@annieborn: Exactly. I too feel physically ill. Particularly if it’s hot and humid. My stomach gets weird. I eat very little. Have trouble sleeping. It even affects my mood.

Nobody gets this and think I’m just a grump.

@cookieman Just got in from a hot and humid walk. I get it. Thank God for AC!

@janbb: I’m surprised you wouldn’t prefer a nice ice flow.

@cookieman The AC keeps the ice floes from melting!

@cookieman I totally get that. Apparently I am “just no fun” cuz I don’t like to go out in the summer and be miserable. It’s okay to be grumpy in the winter. We just are not well represented :p

@anniereborn and @cookieman, I am the person who refuses to dine outside (pre-pandemic) because I am so delicious to all of the bitey bugs. If I wear any repellant, even my own, homemade, natural stuff, my friends complain that it’s annoyingly smelly. If I don’t, I get eaten.

Not a lot of social for me, either. :-)

@anniereborn & @canidmajor: Exactly. Let’s form a club. The Summer Stinks Syndicate perhaps.

Well, I love the gardening, I just hate the socializing! Give me an overheated room full of my convivial buddies (again, pre-pandemic) in the cold of winter.

I enjoy having company on my walks. People are much more likely to join me when it’s not pouring. I’m walking with two friends tomorrow and looking forward to that already.

I always like ice cream and I recently started enjoying floats! I never got the appeal, but I’m a total believer since I tried them with red soda that’s not too sweet. So good.

The sea. I hope I get to go soon.

Water gun fights, Frisbee, and other outside games – hoping to get down to the river for some of that this weekend.

Baby cucumbers and zucchini in my vegetable garden!

Finding (eating) wild raspberries.

^^ I made iced coffee yesterday and put some vanilla ice cream in it. Delicious!

well @cookieman , I guess it’s just you and me

Minimal dressing. In summer, all I have to put on to go out are shorts and a tank top.

@anniereborn: I’m in.

Making salads of all kinds. I know that’s my usual modus operandi, but since we only eat meals at home, since March, I have stepped up my game. One of my friends gets a produce delivery every other week, with different items, depending on what the farm has harvested that week. My friend’s husband and kids are pretty good at eating healthy food, but there are some things they just don’t like, so my friend graces me with a random bag of goodies each time. She drops them on my porch. Bok choy has been plentiful, so I’ve made a bunch of stuff with that, as well as red and green peppers, and cucumbers, and different kinds of mushrooms.