Summertime

... and the living's sneezy. Grass is growin' and the pollen is high.

I am super-stoked that summer is here, but sad because I'm sick. Not sure if it's allergies (I don't usually have summer allergies, but anything is possible), I just know I've felt icky the past few days and had to call in sick to work today.

So, here I am blogging - finally. It's been awhile, so let me catch you up.

As school ended, my summer life started taking shape and I couldn't be more excited for the next 2.5 months! I'm not taking any normal classes, but am working as a research assistant and creating an independent research project for credit later in the summer. I'm still working my part-time job, but just one day a week and I'm interning with a local public defender's office full time. I guess listed out like this it looks like a lot, but it certainly doesn't feel like it!

I come home every day at 5:30 and get to enjoy my evenings without the guilt that hangs over me during the normal semester. Not having to read 150 pages a day from a law book is totally and completely a vacation for me!

So far, I've settled into an easy routine. I get up, make coffee and eat breakfast. Then, I walk half a mile to the nearest bus stop and bus the 25 minutes to work, walk another half mile to my office and then spend the day hoofing it around downtown as only interns do. At 4:30, I walk the half mile back to my bus stop and ride home. All in all, though I keep forgetting to wear my pedometer, I'm walking between 2-3 miles a day.  I wear flip flops when walking to or from the bus (unless I'm wearing pants). But as much as I walk around downtown in heels, I'm hoping for some killer calves by August!

I've been working on the front porch a lot lately - pretty much creating an outdoor dining room and kitchen. At least three nights a week we can be found sitting on the porch grilling our dinner. I love that my house is so shady and cool despite the 90-degree temps we've had this past week.  Yay, trees!

Thanks to some hard work, my jungle of a lawn is finally under control and ready for it's weekly cuts. I have a big yard, so I take two days to mow it. The front yard gets cut on Mondays and the back yard on Wednesdays. Usually it takes about 30 mins to mow each side, but thanks to the crazy rain we've had lately, I spent almost two hours on my backyard this week. My Sparkpeople.com app says I burned 500 calories!

That's the thing I love about mowing - it burns a lot more calories than I ever realized. And y'all know me - I love multi-tasking. Burning so many calories while also taking care of a chore is awesome to me.

For the Memorial Day holiday, we bought a badminton set. Sure, most people think badminton is boring and slow, but the way we play (poorly!), it's fun and involves a lot of running after birdies. I'm thinking we can upgrade to a full size volleyball net later in the summer. My neighbors are totally down for some couple against couple action!

And there you have it - be on the lookout for a few blogs in the next few days. I've got a lot of time to make up for and I'm sorry about that.

Summer: Jobs and Salads

Tomorrow starts the first day of the rest of my life!

I know, I know - pretty melodramatic. But for reals (that phrase always makes me think of Apol btw), I start my first legal internship tomorrow! I'm clerking for the Missouri Public Defenders Office. My alarm is set for 6 a.m. and I will be in the gym by 8 ... then, when I'm done on the tread mill, I will have to suit up (literally!) in time for class. When class ends, I will fly back to Kansas City for work.

6:00: Wake up, make breakfast
7:00: Leave for gym
8:00: At gym, on treadmill
9:15: Shower for work/class
9:40: In class
11:00: Lunch time
11:20: Second class
12:45: Head to Kansas City
1:35: Afternoon snack
2:00: At work
5:00: Off work
6:00: Eat dinner
6:30: Homework!
9:30: Bedtime

Just typing it out makes me tired! But to be honest, I just went over my training regimen and it's only going to be that bad on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And that's *if* I work 5 days a week - which I'm not certain will be the case. I'll know more tomorrow.

What is certain, however, is that this summer is going to be crazy! Time for cooking will be minimal. And time for researching recipes and such will be even harder to find! It's a bummer too because summer is finally finding Kansas - and with this heat comes an intense desire for cold foods! I don't have a pile of yummy salad recipes and stuff and I could really use a few.

Tonight I defrosted boiled shrimp and ate a plate full of watermelon. I just couldn't bring myself to turn on the oven - it's so hot in my house! If anyone wants to take it upon themselves to find yummy summer dishes that are cool and crisp, I would be very grateful! Clearly, no one needs a new lettuce-based salad, but other summer food is very welcome! So far I have a great tuna salad recipe (the secret is garlic powder), a wonderful stoplight salad made with peppers, and a fantastic black bean and corn salad.

In that spirit, here is the recipe for the Watermelon "salad" I had with my shrimp tonight.

Cut watermelon in 3/4 inch pieces - removing rind in process. Spray with Balsamic Breeze spray dressing. Enjoy. :-) That's all. Simple and lovely. This is the recipe that inspired me, but I was missing a couple of ingredients and didn't feel like sorting out the nutritional stats. The version I made was only 60 calories per cup of watermelon. YUM!