Summer Favorites

Posted for a variety of prompts: Camera Critters (photo), Meme Express (“seasons” or “seasoning”), Photo Scavenger Hunt (view”), Saturday Special (“Summer Favorites”), Slice of Life Sunday (“writer’s choice”), Smiley Saturday (“smiling”) and Wordless Wednesday’s Saturday edition.

Summertime

Summertime, and the living is easy
Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high
Your daddy's rich, and your ma is good looking
So hush little baby, don't you cry.
One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing
You're gonna spread your wings and take the sky
But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you
With your daddy and mommy standing by.

(from Porgy and Bess,
by George and Ira Gershwin,
with Dorothy and DuBose Heyward)

Summer is a wonderful season, as we embark outdoors to enjoy warm weather and panoramic views. Look around, and catch all those smiling faces, as folks enjoy sports and other fun in the sun.

Here are several of our summertime favorites. (Follow the links to read more. Press your CRTL key to open the links in a new window, so you can linger here at Practically at Home.)

1. Favorite Summer Activities:

“Beach Volleyball”

“Blueberry Picking”

“It’s a Wild Ride – A Tribute to the Rodeo Cowboy”

“Low Maintenance”

“My Dirty Secret”

“The Paper Hand Fan – It’s a Breeze!”

“School Supplies”

2. Favorite Summer Meals:

“Best Pizza Restaurants in Chicago”

“Chicken-Citrus Salad Delight”

“Funky-Chunky Fruit Salad”

“Perfect Potato Salad”

“Riviera Resort Salad”

3. Favorite Thirst Quenchers:

“Citrus Punch”

“Unleaded Party Fuel”

4. Favorite Summer Weather:

“Calmed by the Storm”

“Four-Season Acrostic – Summer”

“The Last Blast”

“Tick-Talk”

Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.

Click here to visit Linda Ann Nickerson’s poetry and humor blog, Nickers and Ink.

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Vacations

Posted for: Meme Express (“sailing”)


Summer spells vacations for many. What is the ideal vacation?

For some, the best breakaway is a day at the beach. An afternoon splashing in the surf may be just the ticket. Others relish a great sail on the open seas.

Still others crave crowds. They want to be where the action is.

What's your favorite vacation? Where do you go, when you choose to get away? How do you debrief and decompress?

Try this fun quiz, and see what it says about you:

You Should Spend Your Summer in the Mountains

You're quiet, introspective, and a great thinker. You need a summer vacation that gets you away from the crowds and the heat. So retreat to the mountains, where you can clear your head.

Where Should You Spend Your Summer?

Related Items:

Beach Volleyball
Hurry Up and Wait
Liftoff
Our Sandy Surprise
Strange Gifts: Encountering Strange People on Vacation
Struck by Luck
Summer Jobs and Career Choices
Therapy
Vacation Crafts

The Family Reunion

The Family Reunion

With only the highest intent,
Engraved invitations were sent.
The clan from both coasts
Arrived to give toasts
Until all the budget was spent.

The history shared was a dream,
Relationship healings, extreme –
And politics tried,
Both narrow and wide,
With orators deemed most supreme.

The barbecue never grew cold,
With would-be chefs, both young and old.
The tots shucked the ears,
While kids plunged from piers,
And memories recalled were extolled.

When we could but stand it no more,
We fled for the great out-of-door.
The lodging surprise
Did widen our eyes,
As campers withstood a downpour.

The vestiges live with us still,
And we count our calendars till,
We gather again
The clan lion’s den
For family times and goodwill.

c2008 by Linda Ann Nickerson

Posted for a variety of prompts: 
Hump Day Humor (“surprise”), Inspire Me ThursdayMeme Express (“Family Reunions”), Simply Snickers (“stand” and “still”), Three Word Wednesday (“history” “narrow” and “spent”), (“healing”), Weekend Wordsmith ("reunion" photo - below) and Wordless Wednesday (Wednesday edition).

Et Cetera

Posted for Friday Fill-ins (#80) and Meme Express (“Et Cetera”).

Et Ceteras

(The prompts are in bold, and my responses are in italics.)

1. Oh, I can't wait until I have a good night’s sleep. (See “An Uninvited Guest” for specifics.)

2. Mysteries of the universe are the first things I see when I open my refrigerator. (See “Fridge Space” for more details, if you dare.)

3. I never leave home without my wallet . . . although I did so today. I drove all over town . . . even across state lines . . . without it. I’m glad I wasn’t stopped by a traffic officer for any reason. Guess I had no danger of identity theft today! (See “Identity Theft: the Ultimate Identity Crisis.”)

4. If I were a condiment, I would be pickle relish because I seem to relish getting into one pickle or another. Thank God for my garden, which offers “My Therapy.”

5. Rude drivers (particularly tailgaters) are really high up on my list of pet peeves. (See “Turning Off Tailgaters” to see what I mean.)

6. The last thing I thought of before I went to bed was “I wonder if the power will go off again tonight . . . and it did! (Read “Offline . . . on Cloud Nine” to see how this works.)

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finishing a good book I’ve been reading. Tomorrow my plans include a family get-together for a niece’s birthday party, and Sunday, I want to get to church and ride a horse or two (hopefully, without falling off).

Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.

Click here to visit Linda Ann Nickerson’s poetry and humor blog, Nickers and Ink.

Click here to subscribe to an RSS feed for this writer's helpful Helium content. If you wish, click here for a free subscription to this author's online AC content, so you won't miss a single post!

Good Sports?

Posted for prompts at Ten for Tuesdays, Simply Snickers, Heads or Tails, and Meme Express.

Good Sports?

What are my choices for the top ten sports to play or watch? Today, as the mercury tops 75 (F), I think I will stick to summer sports.

1. Horseback Riding, of course. Just check out The Mane Point: A Haven for Horse Lovers, and you will see what I mean. To me, the most magnificent moments are spent on horseback, or at least in the company of my equine companions.

2. Horse Racing. Wild hooves flying, brilliant jockey silks flapping in the wind, crowds cheering – what could be more exciting than that? Check out Horse Race Survey: Equestrian Entertainment for a roundup of the various types of horse racing.

3. Golf. Actually, I haven't played in a few years. I found I was getting far too much exercise . . . with all those strokes. And all those lost golf balls can really add up. (See Hitting the Golf Ball Jackpot for the story.)

4. Baseball. Cubs fans never quit. And nothing beats an afternoon at Wrigley Field, except perhaps a day at Fenway. Summertime trips to the ball park are a favorite summer memory. (Today, Heads or Tails asks for a summer memory.)

5. Biking. Of course, sports shorts can be an issue. Read Biking: A Poetic Quip on a Cycling Trip, if you don’t get my drift here. When I do go biking, I like to go fast.

This reminds me of one of the George Carlin quotes today (July 1^st) at Meme Express:

"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"

6. Swimming. What a wonderful workout! And that’s just trying on swimsuits. Swimwear Is Life: A Rhymed Retort to Suits We Sport tells the story.

7. Water-skiing. Zipping along atop the water is a pure blast. Of course, there was that eerie underwater shadow on the Florida Intercoastal that one time . . . I surely do hope it was a manatee.

8. Beach Volleyball. It’s fun in the Sun. Why not? See Beach Volleyball: A Spiked Retort on Olympic Sport, just for fun.

9. Roller-Blading. OK, so I may be a little behind the times. Maybe I am just too old to be a skater babe. But I still love my blades.

10. Power-Walking. It’s all about cardiovascular fitness these days. How can I not love putting on the miles, looping through the neighborhood or leading young horses to and from the pastures? Still, as summer heats up, Sunstroke-Free Sports: How to Keep Your Cool merits reading.

Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.

Click here to visit Linda Ann Nickerson’s poetry and humor blog, Nickers and Ink.

Click here to subscribe to an RSS feed for this writer's helpful Helium content. If you wish, click here for a free subscription to this author's online AC content, so you won't miss a single post!