What is Summer For?

For the past few summers, I have made it a goal of mine to get lots of writing done. And it's never really worked out for me. So this year, I did not delude myself into thinking I would get much written. I have realized that, even though I have two and a half months off from my day job, summer is not really for writing.

This summer has been for:

• My oldest daughter's last summer before her senior year.
• Water gun fights.
• Mad dashes in the rain at 10:30 at night (after over a month of heat and drought).
• Horseback riding for the first time.
• Tubing on the river for the first time.
• Celebrating birthdays. 
• Visits with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
• Making a patchwork quilt with my girls (still in progress).
• Book binding.
• Lego projects.
• Art projects.
• Experiments in the kitchen. 
• Lemonade stands.
• Books and reading.
• A little writing.
• A poem in Highlights.
• A few queries.
• A few rejections.
• A couple requests for fulls (one still outstanding).
• And two more weeks to fill up with whatever we want.

What have your June and July been filled with?

I read like a poet

One important thing about poetry is
the line breaks,
the little pauses that we are forced to take
when reading
a poem.

Today
as I was driving down the road
I saw a sign.
It was a sign for a clinic.
It was not a poem
but I read it like
a poem
and it sounded...
weird
in my head.

The sign read:

OsteoArthritis
Centers of America.

Did you notice it?
The little pause after
OsteoArthritis?

I know that it is suppose to be
simply:
OsteoArthritis Centers of America
but they didn't write it that way
so I didn't read it that way
and
I suppose if it had been written
the way it was meant to be read
it wouldn't have fit so nicely
on the sign.

What about you?
Do you read like a poet?