Summer Smarty Pants

Mental Break
One of the best things about summer is the opportunity to take a step back from the serious demands and issues influencing “adult life,” and enjoy some leisure. Soak up the sun. Read a novel by the pool (I’m working my way through number three already!). Catch a few mindless action flicks at the cinema.

Because the truth is that nobody really wants to think too hard in the summer. Least of all me.

the Bigger Picture
Nevertheless, I can’t in good conscience shelve the Smarty Pants column for an entire 12 weeks (smarty pants is a regular column here focused on current events and issues in our world). So I thought every once in awhile, I’d take some time to look at the bigger picture behind a few of the summer topics I’ll be posting about. So when we spend a few weeks talking about gardening and growing food, I’ll probably write about how the local food movement has grown in popularity over the past decade.

And during the weeks on customizing your home/apartment, I would love to discuss when tract housing become the norm for residential building (and how that has affected the way our communities function).

And when we dive into outdoor living, I’ll probably mention how the way we landscape our yards influences the environment and those around us.

Why the Effort?
Why go to all the effort? Because even the simple and recreational things that we do usually have greater significance in our communities than we realize. There is almost always a larger story to be told, and taking a few minutes to listen can be very rewarding.

Just a few minutes, of course. The rest of time I'll be soaking up sun and reading novels.

Previous Smarty Pants Posts:
Protecting Yourself against Fraud
Blame the Pigs
Avoiding Pitfalls