{"id":465,"date":"2017-06-21T09:42:15","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T14:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.jeanbaur.com\/?p=465"},"modified":"2017-07-11T08:50:55","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T13:50:55","slug":"a-lesson-from-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/?p=465","title":{"rendered":"A LESSON FROM SUMMER"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I love all the seasons, but being a bit of a speed freak, summer is a good season for me as it slows me down. I&#8217;m content to sit outside and enjoy the warmth, listen to the birds, mess about in the garden. It&#8217;s exciting to harvest the first vegetables, and this year, thanks to a lot of rain, my roses are amazing. Summer is also a nostalgic time for me as I remember my childhood summers:\u00a0 long days of swimming, playing with my cousins and brother and sister, eating outside, going barefoot, hanging my legs over the side of my father&#8217;s boat as we explored the Connecticut River.<\/p>\n<p>One of the lessons I&#8217;ve learned from summer is that slowing down doesn&#8217;t mean dropping out. In fact, taking time can allow the things that are most important to surface. For example, yesterday I had an endless of list of things to do to continue promoting my book, but because I wasn&#8217;t in a rush, because I sat outside and thought about what really matters to me, I decided that those things could wait. And instead I worked on a new book&#8211;one for children&#8211;called &#8220;Bella and the Cat Who Thought He Was A Dog.&#8221; And this story, came from an amazing thing my childhood cat did when one of our dogs was attacked by a neighbor&#8217;s dog. He rushed into the fray, scratching and biting the other dog, until he fled howling.<\/p>\n<p>Where it goes is anyone&#8217;s guess, but it felt good to complete it and submit it to my publisher. As I told a classroom of high school seniors a few months back, there are many ways to give yourself the gift of time. One habit I&#8217;ve taught myself, is to arrive for appointments about ten minutes early. I know, I can already hear you thinking to yourselves&#8211;<em>That&#8217;s crazy. I can barely make it on time! <\/em>The challenge I gave the seniors was to do it for a week&#8211;get to school ten minutes early. And then notice how the day goes. Notice how your relationships change. Be aware how kindness blossoms when you&#8217;re not in a rush. It&#8217;s summer. Take a deep breath and enjoy it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/photo-13.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-467\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-467\" src=\"http:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/photo-13-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"photo (13)\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/photo-13-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/photo-13-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/photo-13.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0961.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-466\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-466\" src=\"http:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0961-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_0961\" width=\"396\" height=\"297\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0961-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0961.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 396px) 100vw, 396px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love all the seasons, but being a bit of a speed freak, summer is a good season for me as it slows me down. I&#8217;m&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-burnout","category-jean"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2j73q-7v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions\/471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}