We all get asked the same questions over and over: ‘How is your summer?’, ‘Are you traveling this summer?’, ‘Any exciting plans for the summer?’.

My answers to these questions are: ‘Boring’, ‘Nope’ and ‘Nope,’ respectively. And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Recall if you will… last summer was spent like this: 

The summer of 2016 lives in a vacuum. I was inside, mostly at either a hospital or in my mom’s bedroom with the shades drawn. Ice packs, drugs, drains, bruises, pain, suffering and too many mozzarella sticks, ’cause they were all I could stomach. I have zero ‘summer’ memories. I simply existed.

I didn’t take my kids to a single swimming lesson at the local outdoor pool. I never rode a bike. Heck, I barely took a walk. I keep running into camp counselors and acquaintances who reference something my kids did last summer and then we all take an awkward beat when we realize that I don’t know what they are talking about because I wasn’t there.

My goals for this summer? The most basic summer of all times. Enjoy the sunshine and warm air, take bike rides, go to the pool, enjoy my family and friends, get too much sun. All I want is ordinary and mundane.

When you have a summer like mine in 2016, you realize that simple is spectacular. I don’t need to travel or do anything out of the ordinary. I just need to take one internal glance back at where I was a year ago and, somehow, the sunshine gets even brighter.

Let’s take a look at some of the fantastically simple things I have done this summer, shall we?

​I swam:​

 

I celebrated with family:

I did the whole 4th of July thing, despite my current loathing of American government:

I had a giant margarita at lunch:

I went to a concert with my favorite people:

I took the kids to Milwaukee by myself:

Did touristy stuff in my own city #chicagobean:

I stood by my husband as he wore a tank top in public (and I have a shark in my shirt, obviously):

I went on a boat and acted like a lady:

I celebrated my daughter’s 7th birthday:

I also stole the mic from the kids at her birthday party because I am ‘that guy’:

I exercised:

I did this to my hair:

But mostly, I just lived.