Cozy in the Dog Days of Summer
How do you create cozy in the dog days of summer? When the heat is scorching and the days are long, I’m sharing my favorite things to do midsummer that are keeping me cozy.
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Honestly, I’m in a weird midsummer funk lately. The garden and all the tending to it is kind of at a standstill: Things are growing, but not producing just yet. Weeds are petering out from the shadows of giant pumpkin leaves, or at least staying small.
I’m past the excitement of a new summer season, content in my gardening and outdoor spaces, but not ready to move onto fall.
Hmm, I guess that’s not true. In my mind, I’m embracing the air turning crisp, the apples ripening on the trees.
New woolly cast ons and knitting needles clinking together every night. Ahhh.
I want to knit more often, to create more beautiful photographs and videos to share. But it just seems like all of my energy is spent fighting off the craving for fall.
I’d gladly light all the fall candles, decorate for our cozy homeschool space, and watch the number of bugs inside the house dwindle down to zero.
What does one do in late July?
As a kid, I remember calling it the dog days of summer. I’d sit underneath trees and read books, slurp popsicles. Can I do that as an adult now? How do adults live in the dog days of summer with kids underfoot, ticks in the tall grass, and meals to prepare?
How I keep cozy in the dog days of summer
What’s keeping me sane, giving me glee, and filling my cup as I work through midsummer days as a mom?
- Chocolate chip cookies with extra melty chocolate (thanks, 90 degree sun!)
- Fresh flowers from the garden
- Family walks down the hill
- Quiet mornings in the sunroom
- Second breakfast of pancakes or cinnamon rolls
- “Just because” runs to get ice cream
- Ordering fall candles to light in a few months
- Extra buttery sweet corn
- Getting lost in cozy mysteries
- Propagating my philodendrons into 6 more pots
- Listening to Lauren Daigle at naptime
- Clara finger knitting by the big open window
- Slow walks in our tiny town
- Big salads with lots of dried cherries
- Bringing crickets down to the creek to catch fish
- Reading about sunflower fields and babbling brooks in Bella Grace
- “Gilmore Girls” reruns of every autumn episode
- Reading aloud my favorite children’s book, “Charlotte’s Web” with the kids
- Knitting with my toes in the kiddie pool
It’s not a fancy list. There are no trips, hardly any spending money. Not much to share with the faraway family who asks, “What have you guys been up to?”
And yet?
It’s lifegiving. These things are the important things.
And, although we’re long into summer and the bucket list has been long forgotten, these things all represent the original goal for our summer. A benchmark written in my tattered planner one May morning during morning quiet time. These words come to mind, still, here in late July:
A summer of rest, with purpose. Slow, simple, and focused on relationships.
Structured, but fun and easy.
Sometimes our favorite things don’t have to be things. They can be places, feelings, and actions. And they make up the greatest stories and memories.
