We live near a local university and for the last several years an organization has sponsored a concert series on a grassy lawn adjacent to a row of shops behind the school. We thought last year was the final year for these free, family oriented concerts (rumors of a new basketball practice facility intended for the space were floating around), but the lawn remained and the concerts continued.

Saturday's concert, which featured a group called Malt Liquor Sundae, was the first of the summer.

It really is a family affair. People bring beach chairs or blankets and all manner of food and drink from beer and wine to margaritas in John Deer cups.

Babies cling to their mommas before getting brave enough to veture out.

The whole area is fenced in, leaving the kids free to roam (within reason) while the music plays. See that little guy trying to escape?

Of course Neel and Cal took a ball and their gloves, leaving me alone long enough to soak up the scene and the music.

A girl walked past me wearing a shirt that said "Daddy's Little Girl," but the way it was laying on her torso, it looked like "Diddy's little girl!"

At one point there was a woman a few blankets ahead of us bent over her picnic in a skirt too short to be bent over in! As soon as I nodded to my friend Catherine to point it out, the skirted-woman's husband came over and must have told her the same thing because she promptly straightened up! Good man.

Men wandered among the crowd drinking Mickey's Big Mouth, which brought back a host of memories for me. That was our college beer. Appropriate to drink during a concert by Malt Liquor Sundae.

A Lady in Red got up and danced for everyone. Braver woman than I could ever be.

Kids darted in and out and over blankets. Playing and fighting and playing more.

There was face painting.

Malt Liquor Sundae is described on the concert series brochure as playing funk/reggae/rock. Hmmm. That's quite a combo! But you know, they did it all, and pretty seamlessly too. When they played Wagon Wheel, I got tears in my eyes. I'm not a huge concert goer, but live music can do that to me. And it was everything. The sun setting and all those happy families around us. Our friends on the blanket next to us and knowing that we'd run into even more friends (I love small towns.). Summer. Saturday night. Contentment.

Every year we make a lot of plans for our summer. Ever year there's a list. Every year it includes the beach (for me and Callum, at least), and every year we miss crossing a few things off. Last year we didn't do a great job, and this year I'm determined to remedy that. I have a completely different approach to this summer, actually. We have some goals as a family, but I have some goals for myself as well. Some important things I want to work on.

First, the camera.

I've missed my camera. And I have a lot of work I need to do. Oh sure, it's always to hand, but my intention has not always been set the way I want it to be regarding my photography. Part of this means just being more intentional about taking photos, but it also means some hard work on the back end of the business too. Researching new lenses. Clearing out my Lightroom catalogs. Clearing out my studio. Painting back drops. Some pesky business stuff that have been dangling threads. Like ordering Moo cards. Stepping up my game. So focusing on photography and moving toward legitimatizing it as a business is one of my goals for the summer.

Then the blog,

I'm not gonna lie. I've been feeling a little "meh" about my blog lately. Don't get me wrong. I love SPL. I love coming here (nearly) every day. This space is incredibly important to me. But I'm restless. Do I need a redesign? Do I need a logo? Do I need a new header? I know I have some housekeeping to do here too. Some clean-up on the back end of things. I want to reconnect with this community and continue to build it. But what I also want to do is reignite the spark I feel for this space. I want to really verbalize my goals for SPL and my blogging life (scary!) and put myself on the path toward reaching those goals. That's another of my goals for the summer. Would anyone like to come and hold my hand?

And some homework...

So it'll be me doing the studying, not Callum. His middle school has a summer reading project, but that's about it. (Although there might be some math done, let's face it.) I have some work of my own to do. O pointed you toward Noreen's post on executive function last week. She mentioned the book Smart but Scattered that I'll be diving into, and I'll be reading another book Organizing the Disorganized Child as well. As you know middle school is upon us. One of the things that is so key I think is that so many of these skills (time management, organizational skills, task initiation, even estimating how long it'll take to accomplish a project) are learned. And even kids who don't have ADD or learning differences struggle. Even those kids' moms. I struggle in the summers with sitting and reading during the day. I feel I should be cleaning or working or out and doing. I know I need to and want to, but it was hard to picture myself pouring over these books. Saying it out loud made everything make a little more sense. As Neel said, Cal is our most important work. Studying these books isn't me sitting and chilling. It's me tending to our family. And maybe learning a little about myself in the process.

And then there was fun.

Oh yeah. We plan to have some fun.

summer concert series {life}

project summer {life}