On Summertime and Dining Al Fresco

Bison-Bacon Burger with Cheddar Cheese

Well, summer is definitely in full effect here, where we live in Monterey. I swear it's exactly as if the earth has a calendar and can tell when we're past the summer solstice. For a while there, I was almost enjoying the warmer weather. I was excited about wearing all my favorite summery makeup looks again and breaking out all my go-to summer jams. (Lana Del Rey, anyone?)

Now, it's just... hot. It's humid a lot of the time, as well. I'm not as miserable in the heat as I was when I was still super out of shape and not taking proper care of myself, but I'm still not liking it. Heat makes it hard for me to do just about everything worth a damn to me, including working out, keeping up with freelancing commitments, and being creative with the writing time I have leftover after taking care of my clients. 

One thing I have liked a lot lately -- dining al fresco. Seth got the little area around the side of the house where we used to barbecue all set up again so we could sit outside once in a while. At first, we just used it to have a beer or a soda and a sandwich after doing some weekend yard work here and there. But once it got too hot in the house for it to be pleasant to eat dinner in there anymore, especially when we've been running the oven, we started taking our dinners out there, as well. 

Strawberry-Feta Salad for Juneteenth

We've always liked eating together, but the fresh air and sunshine have made our dinnertimes into truly welcome breaks from our workdays lately. We sit out there for a while, catch up with each other about whatever's been going on, listen to music, and unwind a little bit before going back to our respective offices. It's really been giving me something to enjoy about summer, as much of the year, it's just too chilly, too windy, or gets dark too early in the day. 

The natural lighting is excellent for food photography, too, so I've been taking advantage of that. These are shots I've taken of some of the summery things we've enjoyed for recent dinners. We've had bison burgers and chili dogs. I made fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and strawberry salads for Juneteenth. We've done Chinese, and Mexican, and Italian. 

I love to cook, be creative, and make memories, so it's been lovely to get really into doing all three at one time. It feels great to be sharing food photos regularly again, as well. I used to be so good about it but have fallen out of the habit recently. Really, I'll take anything that makes summer a little bit more bearable, especially anything that's also creative.

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Chili Dog with Purple Potatoes and Corn

In other news, I can't believe it's almost time to start another month. I'm afraid I haven't been nearly as productive lately as I'd hoped, but I'm not exactly a dynamo when it's hot and borderline oppressive weather-wise. I've missed out on a couple of writing contests I was hoping to enter, and I haven't been doing a very good job of stepping up production over on Medium the way I planned. 

And I think I'm definitely not going to participate in July's Camp NaNoWriMo event. I still have plenty of ideas for more short stories and whatnot floating around in my head, but I don't think I need to commit to another month-long writing project right now. November will be here soon enough, so I'll start planning ahead toward my next proper NaNoWriMo project instead.

Right now, my creative time's probably better spent taking care of my clients, keeping my Medium feed up to date, entering writing contests when I have the energy, and journaling with what's left of my spare energy. Even though it's summer, I'd really like to work on tightening up my content production schedule and just plain producing more content, in general.