Summer Hype

When you're a kid and go to the traditional type school (i.e., non year-round), you have this thing called a summer vacation. Back then, you also didn't have this mid-winter break crap (an extra week off in February after you've been back in school 5 weeks or something like that), so you got out of school by June 2nd. Then you started back around September 2. Three whole months off. Wahoo! Now the school year seems to be slowly creeping toward year-round school with all of these breaks during the year.

I did year-round school in Las Vegas for a year. The only reason they did year-round school because the number of kids exceeded the amount of space available. So you went to school for 9 weeks and then had 3 weeks off & then repeat that pattern x3. It wasn't too bad of a concept, and I've never been one that really cared for having summers off. It was kind of weird to have off 3 weeks in October, though.

As an adult, I have a hard time with summer. I suppose I don't really embrace it like I should. I work at a place where the work year (and vacation time accrual) goes from September - August, and we get a lot of vacation time. I love it, I really do. But the thing is that people really don't take vacation throughout the school year; hence, you only take a few days here and there throughout the year. Then you end up with 3-4 weeks of time you have to take by the end of August. So the office is a ghost town for most of the summer because everyone is taking their vacations. If you're the poor sap that's holding the fort down for your department, you can't get anything done because there's no one else there, or anywhere else for that matter. In essence, it's kind of like you have to take your vacation from late June - late August.

I suppose I understand asking a kid how his/her summer vacation is going. But in the office, it's just kind of weird. "How's your summer going?" is the most frequently asked question. Ummm, no one asks me how my fall/winter/spring is going. Summer gets its own vernacular, almost as if you're not truly appreciating summer unless you're laying on the beach in Hawaii and sipping a cold drink of your choice for the whole summer. As I've already covered, my husband and I are not "vacation" people, so our summer is like every other day of the year - except I tend to go to work less. Since I'm working less, I tend to spend more time doing things around the house. If I didn't have to do things around the house, I'd probably read more and, ummmm, blog more, maybe??? As much as I complain and whine about all the painting I have done and still have to do, it's not like I'd be filling my time with anything more interesting if I didn't have to paint. Yeah, I might take Julia out of daycare more and participate in more playdates if my to-do list wasn't so long. But that's about all that would change.

Here are my summer achievements, in no particular order:
- Painted
- S's parents stayed with us for about 4 weeks (1 one of those weeks was unplanned)
- S's sister and kids stayed with us for almost 2 weeks. It wasn't too terrible, but certainly threw us off our normal schedule. In essence, we hosted another family's summer vacation.
- Read 10+ books

Certainly it's not a list to write a book report on. But as I sit here, I can't come up with anything that I feel like I have to do by the end of August - except for painting, some routine doctor appointments, get my car's oil changed, and some random other small stuff.

So is it just the hype around summer that creates all this buzz around me, or am I so serious about life that I can't have any fun during summer?