How is it June already? Summer has officially arrived and there are so many fun things to do here in the Oklahoma City area! For me, summer has always been a time of finding ways to make memories with family and friends. I hope that you, too, will take time to enjoy the community around you and the fun that Oklahoma City has to offer this summer? The first thing I will always recommend is a good coffee shop! So, here are a few of my favorites.
Summer is a complicated season. I long for it to arrive and then I am ready for it to move on out. I welcome the slow mornings and sweet summer evenings; it’s the in-between part of the day (yes, the bulk of the day) that can be a struggle. If you are like me, the idea of outings to public places with your young kids is a bit overwhelming and, honestly, could go really well or be a total disaster. I am in a season where man on man defense is preferred and often required for outings to be enjoyable. If you are familiar with my family dynamic, you know that I am incredibly outnumbered at home. All that to say, I have to get creative! I have come up with some fun ideas for slowing things down at home, saving money, and keeping the day moving.
Summertime marks the time of year where we prefer to turn off our ovens and fire up the grill. Fresh vegetables and fruits abound, allowing us to savor them in their raw state or perhaps cooked over an open flame. It’s a no fuss season when it comes to cooking or meal planning, and we certainly prefer for our protein to be just as simple and flavorful as the produce we are enjoying.
Summertime! School is out! Camps! Pool parties! Vacations! But the flip side of all this fun? Your rhythms of friendship and community are disrupted. Whether you need a change from your school year commitments or need an on-ramp to community, Book Clubs are a great opportunity in the intermediate months full of sun.
I have a bad habit of signing up for things before I really know what’s going on. Like Vickey’s book study this summer—I signed up simply because I had never done a Jen Wilkin study (we are reading Ten Words to Live By.) Lo and behold, I get the book and it’s on the Ten Commandments! Whaaa?! Why did I sign up for a study on something so ancient—I had a brief flash of Charleton Heston playing Moses with the stone tablets and horrible special effects created by 1956 Hollywood. What was the likelihood of any massive new insight emerging on this particular topic?
This summer, our women’s ministry book club met and discussed the book Fervent by Priscilla Shirer. We love the reflection, community, comradery, accountability, and friendships that come from reading books together. As most book clubs come to a close on their study of Fervent, we want to look back on what we learned. Our blogs these past few weeks have gone with many of the chapters from Fervent. I am going to recap the prayer strategies we worked on and attach links to the blog posts that go with each strategy. If you haven’t taken the time to read these blogs yet- do it!
School’s out for summer! Which means we *should* be getting a little bit of a break along with the school kids. Welcome longer daylight hours and cookouts, swimming and road trips, watermelon and snow cones, movie nights and fireworks - oh, how we missed you. Of course, as a mom, there’s still work to be done... but I do like to ”summer hard”.
