My Least Favorite Season

Entry #15
Summer is definitely NOT my favorite season. Although this summer has been the mildest I can remember, it seems Mother Nature is making up for lost time in a big way. I've heard it's supposed to "cool" down to around 97 tomorrow and then the weekend is supposed to be in the 70's. I'm looking forward to the weekend!

I've always had a hard time with summer. When I was a kid I loved school and didn't like summer vacations all that much. I rarely saw my friends over the summer and there were always plenty of chores to help with around the house. Not to mention the almond harvest which was sheer torture for about a month. Dad had 160 trees and he did things the old fashioned way. He'd climb the trees with a big rubber mallet and knock the branches to get the nuts off of them. The nuts would fall into tarps he'd laid on the ground. Then us kids would have to rake the almonds into piles, then put them in buckets and pour the nuts into gunny sacks. The whole business was filthy. We'd be sweating because of the heat, then the almond dust would stick to us and make us itch. I was so happy when I got old enough to stay in the house and help Mom with the canning of vegetables.

My Dad could eat anything he wanted and as much of it as he wanted and never gain a pound. The reason for that, I suppose, is that he did lots of physical work around our place which provided him with plenty of exercise. I remember him going through an old trunk and finding his Navy uniform. The last time he'd worn it he was about nineteen. (He lied about his age and enlisted to fight in WWII at the age of 16.) When he found it in the trunk he was either in his late thirties or early forties. He put the damn thing on and it fit him perfectly!

Unfortunately I didn't inherit my Dad's ability to eat anything he wanted or his penchant for hard physical labor. I would look at cupcakes and put on five pounds and always preferred television to exercise. Now it's come time to pay the piper. Every day that I make myself get up and go to the gym is a victory over my natural state of laziness. Sometimes it's a real struggle to get my exercise in and just about any excuse will do to just stay home. Just as sometimes I would use any excuse to eat junk food, I'll use any excuse to skip my time at the gym. There have been mornings when I've driven to the gym and left because the person opening the doors (my gym opens at 4 a.m.) wasn't there on time. I could have waited a few minutes, but didn't. That doesn't happen very often anymore. I'm determined to take this weight off and it's slowly sinking in that it's going to be a very long, hard road. But this time I'll do it and it will all be worth the work and sweat.