I enjoyed summer so much more as a child than as an adult, especially since I moved to Texas from Colorado in 1975. I have never gotten used to the heat here… still find it unbearable. Texas is what my dad calls disdainfully, “A swelter pit.”

What keeps me here of course is my dear, sweet, native- Texan husband and the life we have built, the community of precious friends, and the warm, hospitable southern culture. Hey the Tex-Mex is pretty good here too. 

As a kid, summer meant running barefoot for three months, except on Sundays, when my brother and sisters and me were forced to put shoes on for church. I remember the free feeling of running shoeless during the hot summer days, the wet grass under my feet, the hot pavement, the rough bottom of the community swimming pool, the slick, yellow “slip-n-slide” that my brothers and sisters slid down hour after hour in our backyard, picking stones up with my toes, getting my feet wet and making footprints on the sidewalk, playing hopscotch barefooted…

Running barefoot symbolized being carefree, unencumbered. Ah, those were magical days… the barefoot, summer days of childhood…

Well, Sunday morning, Wayne and I leave for a vacation in Scottsdale, Az. Yes, it will be hot. It’s the desert for heaven’s sake! The dry heat of Arizona is much, much different than the humidity of Texas!

I love the desert. It’s heat and unique beauty draw me like a magnet… actually replenishes me! We will be staying in a great resort and pampering ourselves a bit…

With that in mind, I am casting off my shoes, my worries, my burdens, my work… and I am going to create some new summer-barefoot memories in our own little desert oasis.

If you want to track my footprints in the sands of southwest America… I will be posting photos of the desert, so stayed tuned…