It’s the summer solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere) today, meaning it’s the longest day of the year. In the Southern Hemisphere, of course, it’s the opposite (the winter solstice, or shortest day of the year). Now, I thought rather than write my typical news story, I’d do something a little different today.
Today seems like a day to just sit back and enjoy what we have. We focus a lot, sometimes too much, on the threats we are facing and the failures of our society, governmental systems, consumerism, etc. But all in all, we have it pretty good. On this day full of sun (and looking at the national doppler radar on Weather.com, it looks like there’s mostly sun almost everywhere in the country), it’s probably a good time to take a step back and reflect on all the positive things in our lives.
So, some ideas I’ve come up with for this summer solstice to help you step back and reflect…
1) Have a picnic in the park: everyday’s a good day for a picnic, but what’s a better day than the longest day of the year?! Other than the sunshine, there are all sorts of fresh fruits and veggies in season. I love a good fruit salad in the park, or veggie salad for that matter. And, of course, sandwiches are great too.
2) SMOOTHIES: We’ve been making smoothies nearly every day (maybe every day?) for the past week or so. We have this little blender that I thought was too ‘dinky’ for frozen fruits, but we decided to try it out when strawberries starting popping up all over the place. Works great! So, look around in your cupboards or go buy a blender today and make yourself some delicious smoothies. I’m sure you won’t regret it. I think I might write a post just on smoothie recipes next week (perhaps with some video coverage), but for now it is really extremely simple:
- freeze some strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, pineapple, or whatever;
- stick them and some unfrozen or frozen banana pieces in the blender (we’ve been using unfrozen);
- put some juice of your choosing (I prefer pineapple or coconut-pineapple juice) in, up to about half the height of the fruits to the whole height of the fruits depending on your thickness preference;
- blend. It literally takes a few quick minutes.
Anyway, those are my ideas for enjoying this wonderful 2011 summer solstice. Have any more?
Images via terriseesthings; weather.com; kara brugman