Archives for July 2012
we are all packed up and ready to go.
my mom is up at the lake already and says it is in the 70s.
i’ve got socks and a sweater packed for cool nights by the fire.
lots of tomatoes for blts.
our favorite card games including milles bornes.
a knitting project.
a new book from the library.
cast iron skillets for dutch babies and bacon.
and a guitar, a uke and this book for lots of sing alongs.
i think this year i will post a few photos each day of our trip.
have a great week.
ta-ta
xoxo
some highlights…
:: hannah is loving colonial plantation camp this week. so far she has made ginger beer, bread, noodles, apple butter, pickles and rose petal pound cake. they have a big feast on friday. she also has been swimming in ponds, dipping candles, making soap, playing with piglets and hunting for ghosts.
:: norah is loving farm camp this week making seed bombs, harvesting veggies and making homemade snacks from the fields, exploring the woods and creek beds and preparing for a kid run farmers market and harvest party on friday.
:: about an hour ago i was washing the dishes. there was a knock at my back door. a stranger (without a dog) opened the door to tell me she had never seen anything as beautiful as my garden and she thought i should know. i told her it made my day.
:: a storm is brewing and they say this heat wave will break bringing in cooler temps in the 70s.
:: tonight i am going out for mexican and margaritas with some old friends.
:: maybe tonight we can sleep with the windows open.
we snuck away to the lake this weekend.
we packed light to make room for the tools.
chris built a floating dock for our friends.
they started early in the morning and were floating on it by the afternoon.
norah caught 2 huge bass.
we didn’t eat them but she wanted to.
i pretty much laid in the hammock all weekend.
we’re headed back in a week and a half for 8 whole days.
it’s not soon enough.
norah has fish sticks planned for dinner our first night there.
we went on a date last night to see these two.
i can’t count how many times i got the chills up in the balcony holding my sweetheart’s hand.
they were amazing. beautiful. perfect together.
today as i was about to throw my ticket away from last night’s performance i stopped.
i tend to get rid of things.
you know, the whole clutter thing.
chris however is the sentimental kind.
i wondered what he did with his ticket.
he saves everything.
he has a basket full of movie tickets, playbills, letters, notes written on paper napkins, cards, all from our last twenty some years together (yes we have been together since we were 19).
sometimes i will open a book to find a poem i wrote him or open a drawer to find a valentines day card i gave him from when we first got married.
those are the things i just can’t get rid of and as much as i want to organize them all and store them together in one place, i kind of like the surprise of finding something from the past in places i would least expect.
so i think i will tuck this little ticket of mine somewhere safe. somewhere random. somewhere i might find in ten years and remember listening to bluegrass up in the balcony holding his hand.
someone who commented about my blog once told me my life and home felt effortless.
when i read this i have to admit i agreed.
i feel guilty about it sometimes. but then most of the time i feel appreciative.
lately my life does feel effortless. it feels so good. simple. calm.
don’t get me wrong sometimes there are bumps.
but those bumps soon get smoothed out.
and somehow everything always works out.
growing up, in times of struggle my mom would always say “we’ll work it out.”
and we always did.
there was something so comforting in those words.
and they still live in me today.
last night as we were sitting on the back porch watching the girls out playing in the neighborhood, chris said to me what he usually says to me at least once a week “we have the best life.”
i of course agreed.
there is nothing spectacular or fancy about it. but it’s ours.
and it feels just right.
::the crape myrtle is about to bloom
::there is a nightly game of ghost in the graveyard
::you eat an entire watermelon for lunch
::the song of the cicada lulls you to sleep
::your back porch has become your living room
::tomatoes make their way onto your window sill
::your compost bucket fills up on a daily basis
::your kids start talking about what they want to be for halloween (i swear it happens every july)
::days start blending into one another and all you know is that it is july but have no idea what the date is
for any of you who have not boogie boarded out on the waves since you were young like me, i highly recommend it.
i rode wave after wave. i came up for air and rode another.
i giggled as i rode one all the way to the shore.
i swallowed salt water and cut my foot on a shell.
my shoulders are sunburned and my eyes have that heavy washed out feeling from being in the salt air.
i declared today after seeing the beaming look on my girl’s faces that i will no longer be the mom who just dips her toes in and waves from afar.
blts on toast.
writing postcards to old and new friends.
back porch sitting.
spending your weekly allowance at the swim club snack bar.
slumber parties in the only air conditioned room in the house.
lots of bobby pins to keep our necks cool.
swim suits hanging up to dry on every hook in the house.
:: the humidity dropped
:: we came home with a boatload of cucumbers from the farm
:: the architect came to look at the attic
:: found out our truck will soon be on the road
:: i wrote a few postcards to some old farm friends
:: i danced around the kitchen listening to rufus wainwright while i made dinner
:: norah could not get enough of my zucchini and corn griddle cakes
:: i realized that my bangs have officially grown out.