The Longest Day of the Year

Yep. That's right. This is the Summer Solstice and, thus, the longest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere, at least). And at least two or three times in the past week I've been involved in conversations about how light it was late at night.

But my longest morning of the past week was definitely yesterday. Christopher and I are dogsitting for a miniature schnauzer named Fred, who rather enjoys getting up at ungodly early hours. Yesterday, he got Christopher up for a quick trip to the backyard at a little after 4. Then, less than 2 hours later, he was ready for a longer trip out. So around 6 I was up taking him on a walk around the block (and bringing back two baggies that immediately went into the bin in the garage).

At that point, since I was already up, I took the opportunity to go out and put down a "weed and feed" fertilizer. It needed damp grass, followed by at least 24 hours of dry weather, and I had been planning to do it, soon, but hadn't really contemplated doing it at 6:45 in the morning.

Around 9, I was off to one of the local garden centers which has started its yearly summer closeouts. By 10:30, I was home and working on planting my new finds and by noon I had finally gotten the chance to shower and get cleaned up. (And, yes, a nap was soon to follow.)

Of course... There is something else going on today: Father's Day. Because my brain isn't entirely functioning this morning (Fred, who is now napping soundly, woke me up at 4:19, and then again at 5:48...), I'm going to take this opportunity to steal something about Father's Day from a newsletter that hit my email earlier this month. (Don't worry. It's not copyright infringement or plagiarism--I'm the one who wrote it for the June NoNutsAboutUs.com newsletter.)

Isn't it time to say thank you?

I don't know what it was like in your house, but I know that Father's Day was never quite the same as Mother's Day at our house. On Mother's Day we all gathered together to toast Mom. There were flowers and (well-intentioned but really bad) breakfast in bed and an afternoon of peace and quiet.

But on Father's Day everyone wanted to spend the day with Dad. No one worried about breakfast in bed. No one bought flowers. Instead, the gifts were typically of the family-fun variety.

Unlike Christmas and Birthdays when gifts were actually for Dad, Father's Day brought out the gifts which Dad may never have seen after the wrapping came off. I know that in our garage there are still a croquet set, lawn darts, and possibly even a basketball hoop or two. Sure, Dad helped put them together and set them up, but after that first afternoon, he left them to the kids. (Not that we minded, though...)

So... All these years later, let's all take a moment or two on the third Sunday of this month to say "thank you" to the man who cheerfully played croquet, hung the hammock, and even let us take him to see "101 Dalmatians" (because we were sure he wanted to see it).

And, while you're at it, we doubt he'd complain if you bought him a cookie or two.

** Disclaimer ** The preceding was written as a "feel good marketing" piece. It's not entirely true. My parents never actually had lawn darts in the garage (we had to play those when we were at family gatherings at my grandmother's). The hammock is in the basement. The croquet set, however, is still there. ** End Disclaimer **

I hope you enjoy the longest day of the year. I'm going to go have a nap.