Do you know what is a nice way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon in summer? Spend two hours floating in the pool with your friend, then come home, take the dog on a walk/roll around the neighborhood. Cool off with a cold beer on the patio while reading a few chapters of a really great book. Boom! You just had a great afternoon!

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Speaking of a really great book: I’ve recently started reading The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach and I am in love. Because it’s the Summer of Frugality around these parts, I needed to check it out from the library instead of buy it (but I already love it so much I’ll surely buy it when I can). Except, well, our library hadn’t bought it yet. I put in a request for it and (due perhaps to the awesome power of a faculty ID), they ordered it right away and even delivered it to my campus office. I am also in love with the library a little bit now. Anyway, the novel is fabulous so far. It’s a campus novel, which I always enjoy, and it’s a baseball novel. That’s a walk-off double right there! The characters are fascinating but not unfamiliar, well developed, and likeable. The shifting narrative focalizers keep me turning pages from one chapter to the next, and the whole thing has me longing for the smell of fresh-cut grass and the crack of the bat. Perfect summer reading material. Perfect. I already know I’ll be sad when it’s over.

I’ve taken to reading a few chapters every afternoon on my patio after I check on my herbs and tomatoes. So far all my little plant charges are doing well and I’ve enojyed my own tomatoes, basil, and mint in various recipes. Can you guess what I did with the first of my mint?

A mint julep, obviously. Muddle mint and sugar, add ice, pour bourbon over the top. That’s what I did here, anyway. My friend Dangermoose gave me the following idea on twitter: “Can I share my own sacrelicious mint julep method? 4 oz bourbon, sugar and mint to taste. Shake, strain, serve UP! You can really pack in the mint, the shaking brings it all out, and the straining leaves you less glass salad to contend with.” I believe I’ll try this method next time. I do love a drink served up, and as long as I can still taste all the mint I don’t necessarily need to drink the leaves. Dangermoose added, “Anyway, my julep method is probably a felony in Kentucky but it is the business.” I can’t argue with that. Besides, I don’t live in Kentucky and therefore cannot be arrested for this.

In television news, I am currently re-watching Gilmore Girls, in the middle of season three. (Team Jess!) I’ve watched this show approximately a million times, but it never gets old for me. It’s deeply comforting to me, somehow. I laugh; I cry; I just love it. I suppose it fills some empty space in my mind that, in most other people, gets used to store knowledge of what it is like to have a decent mom. On the other hand, maybe I just love the fast-talking banter and clever library of cultural references and the keenly written emotion.

Generally, things are going fantastically well here. Several months ago, when I went through the most angry-making break-up of all time, I had to stop and make myself a daily checklist of things I could to to take care of myself and make myself happy. I didn’t want to forget to eat my vegetables or floss my teeth or listen to music or read or think of something postitive every day. I actually kept up with that checklist for eight weeks. It worked. When you prioritize your own health and happiness, you are reminding yourself that you are worth the effort and that you deserve to live well and be happy. And when you are living well and being happy, it attracts good things, good opportunities, and good people into your life. That is a promise.