Hello! Happy Summer and happy Earth Day. I'm packing up all of our winter clothes (which is just a bunch of jackets and hats because we don't really have winter here)and bringing out the Hawaiian shirts. This is also the time of year I take all of the clothes that don't fit anymore and donate them. It helps make my house "lighter" for summer.

To get really in the mood for summer, I play Jimmy Buffett while I clean the kitchen or work in the house or my studio.

Since my family has a wide variety of skin tones, we have a lot of different kinds of suntan lotion. There's a lot of bottles kept on a shelf in the garage. How long does suntan lotion last? I looked and never saw an expiration date. Also, how long does bugspray like OFF last?

I replace my tubes of sunblock every spring. I was told it degrades in a year and the SPF doesn't work. I also buy a box of 100 ice pops, My kids and I love 'em. Yesterday was so warm, I found a half pint of vanilla ice cream in the back of the freezer and made myself a Dr. Pepper ice cream float.

Sunblock here in Australia has use-by dates. Sometimes ours starts to smell funny, even before the date. Being in a hot car at the beach probably doesn't help.

Ice cream float. Sounds like what we used to call a spider. No idea what they call them here now.

I tend to put away tabletop accessories that might make things cozier in the winter. I want lots of clear surfaces to make dusting really fast. Pillows get switched to lighter colors and some rugs get changed.
I bring out the beach towels, plant color, and scrub down window screens and patio furniture.
With good weather's arrival I have even less desire to clean, shop and prepare food. I just want to be outside!
Sunscreen, bug repellent, those ice pops, frozen lemonade,bottles and jugs of water, paper goods (more people home more often)bandaids.
This year I'd like to get better at making decisions on dinner early in the day and shopping ahead for those items!

I pack away the backpacks and bookbags, and try to figure out what my kids can use to carry swimsuits, lunches, etc., to summer camp.

That's the biggie.

I swap the bike helmets & wrist guards for the winter hats & gloves.

I buy new sunscreen, swim suits, waterproof sandals (we might be able to use last year's)

Our summers are quite different since we own a U-pick flower farm. I only get to go to town for groceries once a week and we have a lot of friends and guests stop by to visit.

So my pantrys and freezers get stocked with extra bottles of wines, canned goods that I can easily whip together for appetizers and things like frozen shrimp, good marinara sauce and some nice frozen rolls for when I can't get to the bakery. I keep a large supply of napkins and glasses on hand.

Then I always re-fresh the first aid kit, make sure I have extra gardening shoes and cute hats and lots of sunblock. And for my customers -- I keep wet ones and hand sanitizer around since children often forget to wash their hands after playing with the animals.

Some days (not often!) -- I'd like to get to go to the beach too!!!

Cathy

There isn't anything we need to stock up on except bug spray. I keep the garden organic and will probably die of DEET poisoning. Nothing else really works with Alaskan sized skeeters.

We wear the same clothing, winter and summer. I pull some shorts out of the laundry room storage, but since I was raised in the Mid-West, I think we have about one day a year which warrents shorts. My kids think they are dying if it's above 75. I do take the time to wash and repair the winter gear before putting it away until next fall. I can never tell if something will fit in five months, so I do my gear cleanout in October.

My biggest change for summer is rearranging our schedule. Each of the kids has Scout camp for a week and then there are several things they would like to do. DS 12 really wants to take the culinary boot camp offered at the local university and I was too late to get him signed up last summer.

Gloria