A Summer List




The spazzy month of June is over. Don't get me wrong: the spazziness was divine; we loved our company, we loved our adventures, we loved it all. But now it is July. And this year that means Home. The annual Oregon trek won't happen until July is down to its last drops, so I am beginning to wonder what four weeks of home will include. It's been a year of serious household neglect, so there will be projects aplenty, but I am thinking of a list more along the lines of what I read at Orangette today. Colors, sensations, memories that end up tucked away in the corners of my mind, fortifying me when the sun (literal or figurative) no longer shines, these are what I want to anticipate and savor.


To Do in July

Catch the sunrise in the garden
Read Pinocchio aloud
Record my mother's stories
Nap in the sunshine
Star gaze on the deck
Swing dance
Paint a watercolor of my view
Have an elegant dinner party
Sip champagne under the full moon (July 25)

Comments

Donna Boucher said…
You have some lovely plans for the month.

Enjoy.
6:33 AM
Alison said…
This is the best to-do list I've read of late.

You've inspired me to make my own July list.
12:09 PM
Janie said…
I wish my July list looked like yours! Enjoy!

Janie
4:48 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bridal shower devotional

For a very dear young woman whose bridal shower was tonight: If you google “Marriage Advice Quotes” you have to be prepared for a whole bunch of attempts at humor that bash the idea of a happily married couple, that assume without question that a long-lasting marriage with faithfulness to another is impossible. It is not impossible. It is hard work, but it is not impossible. And it is the most satisfying kind of hard work you can do!  Marriage is an intensely personal thing. We know our husbands like no one else knows them: habits, moods, wishes, regrets, sins,giftedness…we get the inside look. And (here is the hard part): they know us better than anyone else does. The trick is to take that knowledge, the beautiful, the difficult, the work in progress, and to really LOVE them, to SERVE them, to be loved and served by them, to know the truth and be faithful because of and in spite of it all. It is a privilege and a responsibility to know someone so well, and to commit to being
Read more

Mama and Claire

Image
My beautiful mother Ready to ride, but lipstick on point. Movie star beauty with a no-nonsense expression. She was a mother to be proud of.  I wish I could have seen her ride. I know it gave her so much joy, but she left that part of her life behind when she moved to California and started a family. Every now and then, these pictures would surface and she would get that far away smile that told me she was reliving memories of freedom, of dusty Colorado trails, of the wind in her auburn curls. It is now seven years since Mom's death. I usually do very well with the day-to-day missing, but right now we are preparing for Claire to head out on another adventure, and I cannot help but think how much she would love to watch the flurry of leaving and to be here to cheer her on. They really understood each other, Mom and Claire.   Claire lives in the granny flat now, and she has made it her own version of beautiful. But now her eyes are looking elsewhere, as she leav
Read more

COVID Strategy: Shizzazz

Image
COVID:226 That number signifies that we have been marking our days since March 13. That was when we came home to work remotely. That was when the Division II Basketball Tournament in San Diego, featuring our beloved Chico State Wildcats, was canceled We have children in Chicago, New York and France, and they had already starting living the new normal, but for those of us in California, March 13 was Day 1.  When our Chico son finally made his way home on Saturday, we settled in to four of us zooming away from various corners of the house.  Some of us are more change averse than others, but it is not an exaggeration to say that it was not a great week for any of us. By Saturday, our oldest and youngest kids, fellow COVID Pod Dwellers that they had become, took matters into their own hands. They planned the weekend down to the last detail. A picnic to the mountains to enjoy the snow in solitude, watching Hawaii 5-0, playing speed scrabble, to name a few. But the real inspiration hit on Su
Read more