By Lindsay Martell – Confession time: I love heat. Blazing campfires, electric blankets, hefty shakes of Tajín seasoning and even North Carolina on its most inferno-like days. It’s not too surprising, as I’m a Sagittarius ruled by Jupiter: fiery, independent, restless and impatient.

Sooo … do I need things in my life that help temper my inherent heat and quick-flare moments? Yes.

So when I saw a poster at the North County Regional Library for a Coloring and Conversation event, I signed up. Like Silent Book Club and Bad Art Night for adults, C&C allowed me to cool my angsty jets for an hour, surrounded by soothing music, stacks of coloring pages to choose from and an endless supply of colored pencils and inky markers in every shade you could dream of.

According to the Mayo Clinic, coloring is the kind of quiet, pensive activity that slashes stress, calms your brain and helps you relax. The added boost of having like-minded people around you makes the experience even more comforting.

Another escape to tranquility I’ve grown to love is farmers markets, especially smaller ones in cities I don’t often visit. My husband and I strolled through the smattering of vendors at the Denver Farmers Market and found bright purple cauliflower, fresh corn, a hefty prime rib and cookies the size of salad plates.

Everything tasted bright and fresh, a good reminder of how much fun it is to buy from actual growers and bakers, rather than simply sliding things into a broken shopping cart under fluorescent lights.

The same can be said of the joy of making something, which is what led my daughter and me to take a beginning crochet class together. There, as my 13-year-old stitched together perfect rows like she’d been crocheting for years, I grew hot and panicky as I struggled with every single stitch.

My tablemates chattered away as their creations came together beautifully, while I sipped from my water bottle and “took breaks,” which is another way of saying I had no idea what I was doing and was too embarrassed to admit it.

Two hours later, as others showed off their coasters with perfect fringe, my stitches failed to resemble anything more than a wonky Band-Aid. Still, I tried, and I appreciated the camaraderie and intimacy of folks learning a skill together. Lifelong learning is my jam, and challenges are nothing if not the most humbling ways to grow.

As we slide into the most sweltering days of summer, I’m also relishing some indoor, sporty ways to take a break from the UV-saturated afternoons.

We’ve swum laps at Northern Regional Recreation Center, savoring the rhythm and relative quiet of the serious swimmers around us, all capped and goggled like former Olympians. It’s a nice break from getting whacked in the face with inflatables and scrambling to find the best tables in the shade at our neighborhood pool.

As much as I love a good scorcher, fire signs like me need to celebrate all the ways to chill the heck out.

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Milling About is a column about life around Lake Norman, written by Lindsay Martell. The column name is a nod to life around the lake and our town’s mill history.

Lindsay Martell lives in Birkdale with her husband, daughter, and a scruffy mini mutt named Dug.