I'll take the heat...

Now that summer has officially started let me count the ways that I love the season of the sun.

* Feeling the warm breeze as it blows my hair and tickles my face...

* Walking outside wearing a skirt

* Floating around the grandparents' pool

* Flowers, flowers... Behold the color of flowers

* Gardening

* Sweating

* Soaking up the sun

* Popsicles

* The night sky

* Flip flops

* Ice cream

* Going barefoot

* Water fights

* Sunlight!

* Cookouts

* Summer heat

* Sun tea

* Bees buzzing as the Zinnias bloom

* The sound of the summer night. Frogs croaking, crickets chirping and me listening...

* Childhood memories

* Handpicked tomatoes out of the garden

* Sitting on the front porch watching the world go by...

* Acoustic guitar sounds under the night sky

* Daydreaming

* Fireflies

* Iced coffee

* Thunderstorms

* Family vacation

* Southern winds

* Tank tops

* Dirty hands

* Watching the clouds float across the sky

* Smells of the season

* Thick summer air

* Reading outside

* Fourth of July

* And best of all, having my boys near!

In wrapping up, here's a few inspirational lines on summer time.

* "To see the Summer Sky

Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -

True Poems flee." -- Emily Dickinson

* "I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips." --Violette Leduc, Mad in Pursuit

May all your summer dreams come true...

Timberly is a staff writer at the Greene County Daily World. She can be reached by e-mail at tferree@gcdailyworld.com or by phone at 1-800-947-4487 or (812) 847-4487.