Summertime Fun ... Fun Summertime Memories!

Good morning, CardMonkey fans! 

I know I am not alone when it comes to those who complain about the dangerous sweltering soup we find ourselves in this summer.

Here in the Philadelphia suburbs, we're reaching record temps of nearly 100 degrees this week. Even the in-ground pools are turning into hot tubs so they are not refreshing, for sure. 

The best bet is to stay inside in the central air conditioning and to stay as cool as possible. Drink plenty of water! And stay out of direct sunshine, which for me here in the Jungle -- the second floor loft that gets direct sun from sun up 'til about 2 p.m. -- it means our A/C can barely cool where crafting gets HOT!

The base design of this card is from the July Jillibean Soup's Card Kitchen kit. It didn't call for the ribbon accents , which I just think make this card POP louder than sizzling asphalt poured on a tin roof. 

Do you have memories of hot summers growing up? I remember baking cats' eye glass marbles on our driveway, then picking them up (burning our fingers!) and plunging them into a cup of icy water. Crack! Crack! Crack!  They'd shatter on the inside of the marble, leaving a cool design. Or the pop! pop! pop! of the line of gunpowder caps smashed with our rocks -- you know the kind I mean: the ones bought for Brother's toy gun but that we'd leave rolled up and slam with a rock or pop one by one on the stoop 'til our fingers smelled of gun powder?  

Then there's Mister Softee trucks that melted through our neighborhoods, the tinkling of the ubiquitous melody that sent us like Pavlovian dogs to beg for a buck from Dad for an ice cream cone. I thought they'd long ago gone by the wayside, another victim of the economy and gas prices, but NO!  Just last week, one came through Charlotte's neighborhood and Gii could not resist introducing her to the summer habit. 

We had neighborhood carnivals mostly to benefit Jerry's Kids where there were bean bag tosses, sack races and watermelon eating contests. We dug into blueberry pies with our hands tied behind our backs, staining our cheeks but we really didn't care. Hot dogs charred on the grill, and visits to Linvilla Orchards where we held a family membership in the swimming pool and where there was the highest high dive e-v-e-r.  Slip-and-slides matting our grass, running through the sprinkler, bee stings, the sound of Cicada, pesky mosquitoes and catching fireflies -- that is what summer meant to me as a kid.