I wasn't born with that gene in my body. Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast.

Today I'm going to talk about the beginning of summer. It's Memorial Day weekend, right, and that signals the beginning of summer, oh, my goodness. It also signals the first time this year that you can officially wear white. Or is it white shoes or a white purse? I always forget. I think it's white shoes. Well, here in Southern California we can wear white anytime, so it doesn't really matter, does it? I mean not that you'd wear white shoes, you know, maybe in December around Christmas, that would look kind of tacky, but anyway, yes, the beginning of summer.

It's been kind of an odd weather pattern here recently. Well, we started off in January with the fires, so it was super, super windy and then it was very dry, and the last couple of months, I would say. We've gone between having some very hot days and then having some cold days and having rain, intermittent rain, some cold days and having rain intermittent rain, and I don't remember it ever being like this before, with such a buffet of different weather patterns all mixed up together. I've wanted to wash my car now, for I've kind of lost track. I want to say close to, or over a month, but every time I think, oh, I can go wash my car now I see that there's rain in the forecast, and maybe not a lot of rain, because if there was a lot of rain I wouldn't have to worry about washing my car. But there's just enough rain to take the dust that's on my car and make a big mess of it and to make it look worse. So then I think about okay, then it gets warm. And then I think, okay, well, I'm going to take it and get it washed, but no, there's rain coming again. So I don't know, I just kind of give up on that. I guess I should just bite the bullet and get all the dust off the car and then, if it rained, maybe it wouldn't look so bad. But the windows look bad anyway. They're kind of spotted irregardless.

I don't really have time, my events coming up this week and it's been a very, very busy time for me. I don't know and I wonder how I ever did what I did working outside of the home, being busy, because I know then that everything in my life would suffer. You know, I wouldn't be able to clean, I wouldn't be able to pick up, you know, or do errands right as well or as efficiently. I wouldn't be able to do laundry. It was like an emergency situation. I would do laundry on an emergency. You know I need this now kind of status and get food that we needed, but not be able to lollygag around and I've tried to do things that cut out that extra time for things like I get groceries delivered usually all the time, because the time it takes to drive to the market, which is a couple miles away, go through the store, pick out what I want, go through the checkout, put it in my car, drive home It'd be like an hour, an hour and a half.

I feel like I don't have that, which is silly, right, but it's true, I feel like I don't have that. A lot of times we have food, like dinner, delivered because, again, because I don't have the time or I don't have the energy to go pick something up or go out whatever. Get it myself. It's not that much more expensive because I've subscribed to the different delivery services, so that works out okay. But some things have to be done, like buying the dog food, buying the cat food. I mean I go online and I can do that.

But other things, like right now I'm looking at the hummingbird feeder outside on the back patio and these hummingbirds are crazy. Now they have been eating like it's their last meal for the last week or two and I fill the thing up and then in two or three days it's empty again and I don't know what they're doing. But they they're out there fighting with each other. They're out there, you know, doing their little. What does it look like? Their air acrobatics flying around each other. I mean it's really great to watch. But come on, guys, so I have to refill that every two or three days now, which is fine. I mean I think about the microcosms, the little micro worlds that are on our regular size lot for our house, that we're supporting the squirrels.

There's always squirrels, just like there's always weeds, there's always squirrels. And the hummingbirds, the birds, squirrels and the hummingbirds, the birds, I guess the feral cats although I haven't seen the feral cats recently, but I think it's because I'm in here with my computer all the time I have seen the raccoons. We have some of the biggest, healthiest looking raccoons that you'd ever want to see. These guys are big. They must eat a lot. I don't know what they eat in general, but they come and they scarf up the remaining bits of the cat food that I leave out in the morning and they're out there at night and they're just wow, they're like big vacuum cleaners, eating anything that they can find. And they're big. I wouldn't want to go up against them. I really wouldn't. They're very yeah, they're healthy looking. And then there's the lizards too Lots of lizards, and the birds and snails.

We have a lot more snails this year, but anyway. So when I think about all the little colonies, oh, and the birds and snails, we have a lot more snails this year, but anyway. So when I think about all the little colonies, oh, and the bees, the bees are great. There's lots of bees because I have a lot of flowers this year and the bees have been buzzing around. I think I have seen the skunk? Not as much. I haven't seen the skunks as much as I did last year, but we still have skunks, so that's great. But yeah, there's at least three hummingbirds out there now. Anyway, I digress.

I love summer and I've always loved summer, but as I've gotten older now I don't enjoy the heat anymore. I enjoy the air conditioning, but I don't enjoy the heat anyway. And I've noticed, because we have had a few hotter days. We had a couple of 90s last week and we had some 80s. What's more challenging is that some of my plants are a little borderline because I have to go out and water them every day, otherwise they're going to not make it. That's a little tougher. That's. One good thing about the rain is you don't have to worry about a plant dying because it's dry. You have to worry about them getting too much water, sure, but that's not usually a problem. Anyway, welcome to summer. It just seems like a more carefree time, doesn't it, for some reason for me. But I am now.

It's the end of May, right? So it leaves June, july, august, and then we have September, and in September I'm excited because then I can start decorating for Halloween. I know it's, I know it's a little early to even think about it, but I'm excited. I'm excited because I'm going to try to make a new display all on my own. It's a DIY thing. I wanted to do that last year. I didn't do it. Um, it wasn't this particular thing, but I saw a picture of this great kind of circle of ghosts with a burning thing in the middle. Thing is one of my favorite words, by the way, and and I saw it and I've seen, I've seen it done now in a couple, three, four different ways on YouTube. By the way, if you haven't checked out DIY videos on YouTube, I could sit in a dark room with a TV and a remote control and I could go through. I could spend the rest of my days looking at DIY videos on YouTube. I never realized how many DIY videos there are on YouTube, and I'm not just talking about Halloween decorations. We're talking about Christmas decorations, we're talking about gardening things. We're talking about I mean and then I start to kind of blank over I'm sure there's other DIY things that you know.

I watched a woman. Here's the thing. I watched a woman the other day, and I'm not sure why, but I watched her ironing her clothes and she was talking about how she irons and how she does her laundry and how she organizes all of her daily household chores. Now, am I that detailed? Now do I have my daily household chores? No, did I feel like I was crazy for sitting there and watching a woman iron her clothes? Yes, I did. She had a lot of views. This is the thing. She had a lot of views she was.

I mean, I get, maybe I'm just, I don't know, am I weird? Maybe I get distracted, but I start a project like I want to clean out an area, right, and I'll start. I get kind of stuck on things. Or I could do a load of laundry, but if I had to iron let's say if I had to iron five shirts, I would. It would take me the rest of the afternoon. When was the last time I ironed, you could ask? I can't remember because I don't iron.

I'm a bad ironer. I'm a bad organizer. I've learned to be a little bit better, but I wasn't born with that gene in my body. I wasn't. I'm a I'm, you know, I'm organizationally disabled. I just I really am. I watch other people who are so good at it and I'm not good at it.

So I think about organizing my garage, because now we have so much, so many Halloween decorations and so many Christmas decorations and it's absolutely overwhelming and it needs to be organized. I did, actually I did pretty well with the Halloween stuff when I put that away, but the Christmas stuff is there's too much and there's too much other junk in there, but it's kind of too much for one person. Do you ever feel that way? Yeah, I do. Anyway, I'm rambling, but maybe the summer is the time for me to do this. After my event, I'll have less work, and that's a good thing, hopefully. Anyway, I hope whatever you're doing for the summer, it's going to be fun and it's going to be productive. So that's all I've got for today, folks.

Next week we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on and consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well, and visit my Instagram page, only Child Diaries or Facebook Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace and these are the Only Child Diaries.