Send Her Packing

Four days after I was done with school this year, I needed to start packing a child's lunch again. This was for an 18-year-old, mind you, but I was happy to help as she had long days ahead of her with 4- and 5-year-old's in a camp setting.

We all knew we'd miss her....

and that days around here would be just a little quieter with her gone til dinnertime.

After packing her lunch for a few weeks, she asked me to write her name and the name of her group on the front of the bag because it all got thrown in a bin when she got to camp according to age division. So I wrote "Lauren...Cubs...." and then I just couldn't stop myself as my pen went further down the bag and drew a big smiley face on the front. There. That looked better now.

When she came out to pick up her sack, she looked at the bag with a questioning smile and said, "What is THAT?" Without answering, I just threw a big ol' smiley face on me, turned her to the front door and sent her out.

Days passed. Lunches were packed. I experimented with every stick figure and form of a smiley face that I knew how to draw. And each day she'd turn the bag around on the counter to see what creation I had affixed front and center to her bag that day. And usually I got the same slightly off grin that said, "Ok Mom, I get it...you love me....".

Just the other day she picked up yet another lunch from the kitchen on her way to camp. She stopped for a moment and said, "You know Mom, all my friends really like that you put a smiley face on the front. They think it's neat." Inwardly I heard her finish the sentence with, "And so do I."

Wow. Mission accomplished.

Summer Afternoons

This is the stuff summer afternoons are made of.

Hope you're having a great one!

Perfect Summer Day

I write this at the end of an almost picture perfect summer day. The weather was ideal, the sky was an irridescent blue that you only get once in a while, and the word "humidity" wasn't in anyone's vocabulary.

It was a day just to putter. Run errands. Pick up a car. Get a haircut. One of those leisurely I-don't-have-to-be-anywhere-at-anytime-in-particular kind of days.

The pool was opened last night (after some patch and repair work), so we sat ourselves in the sun this afternoon and I watched my two grown and growing sons hang out in the water together while I retrieved items that escaped the pool's edge. I soaked up rays of sunshine that seemed to infuse my very self with so much natural light that it was invigorating. We marched fresh laundry from the clothesline into the house, felt the breeze from the open windows on our faces, and chased after our Golden as she escaped out the door many a time.

At one point mid-afternoon I stepped out the front door into the sunlight, drew a long deep breath, and just stood there in order to recount all the minutiae of the day that made it such a great one in sum total. These are days to bottle and keep, I thought to myself. And that being an impossibility, I went and did the next best thing I could. I blogged.

Mornings

This is how I start my day. And this is by far my current favorite mug. I love the color, I love tea, and I absolutely adore the sentiment on the back.

(Let me know if you realize what the numbers are for....and no, they're not for texting, as my 15 year old thought.)

This summer I've come to cherish cool, breezy mornings in our patio room with a cup of tea and some quiet time as my favorite part of the day. The peaceful early hours....to hear the birds sing, see the freshness of a new 24 hours begin, and think of the promise that the day holds.

Sometimes I sit here....

sometimes I sit over here....

...but no matter where I end up, it seems that this room and morning go perfect with a cup of tea.

Save my glass....

My dad was a drinking man. He loved his liquid refreshment. Nothing in his book could be better than a cold glass of water on a hot summer day when he was out working in the yard. Better yet was some of my mom's homemade iced tea with lemon and sugar. To him, either one just hit the spot and was the strongest stuff he ever needed to get by, except his morning coffee.

My dad also loved to work outside. Having a good size property and house to maintain, he had quite a bit outside to do in the summertime when I was growing up. I can remember certain rituals and routines he had for times like that, and one of them was re-using the same drinking cup over and over again throughout the day. "Margie", he'd say to my mom, "Just leave my glass in the windowsill there over the kitchen sink. No need to wash it yet - I'll use that one for today."

As the day progressed, he'd stop in the kitchen from time to time, quite hot and sweaty from an outside chore. He'd get his water, drink it down, put the cup back on the windowsill and head immediately back out to finish something he had no doubt been in the middle of doing when his thirst had gotten the best of him. This, of course, would go on until he declared himself through for the day and my mom knew it was safe to wash what he'd used and put it away for next time.

Fast forward 30 years. I live in the house where I grew up. Just the other day my 21 year old son was taking a break from mowing the lawn and walked in while I was washing dishes at that same kitchen sink. He pulled a lime green plastic cup from the kitchen cabinet, drank a long, tall glass of water and reached in front of me to put the cup on the windowsill. "You can just leave that there", he told me. "No need to wash it; I'll just use that one for today."

As he walked back out to finish mowing, I found myself with my hands still in the soapy dishwater staring at the cup he'd put in front of me. The familiarity of what had just transpired fixed me to my spot and I was in awe. Only I would have realized that my son had repeated the exact same simple act that my father used to do. Do family habits skip a generation? Did I have something in my DNA that passed on the same propensity for male members of the household to save a water glass til the day's work was done? I surely don't know, but I loved savoring the moment.

I heard the lawn mower start up again and it swiftly brought me back to reality. My son was the one on the mower now; my dad was a wonderful memory. But a sweet happening had just occured to break through the barrier of time and bring those two together in the same spot at the same time, and to show me that sometimes life's best surprises come not in big displays of grandeur, but in little unexpected moments of familiarity that can make you smile and completely warm your soul.

Great place to be on a rainy day!

This is one section of the elementary school library where I work on school mornings. It is a bright, cheery, happy place to be. Today was yet another raining-cats-and-dogs kind of day...one of many we've had this spring. What better place to be when it rains than in a lively colored space filled with books? Can't help but smile when you're here...

Our Grant from the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation

This past week, Lauren and I were doing a papermaking project with the second grade classes in order to fulfill a grant we had been given in our district from the Keats Foundation. We had a lot of fun working together and with the kids. I set up various stations for the process- the first step was dunking their grids, screens and frames into the pulp mixture.

Next they were sent over to the "press as hard as you can with a sponge to get all the water out" station.

After that, they needed to put the still very wet piece of hand created paper in between two pressing cloths and this time take a small wooden block to get out yet more H2O.

Last table- decoration! We already had some glitter in the pulp mixture, so they applied tissue at this point to add some more color.

Finished projects were laid on the table to dry, and then the cleanup process could begin. What a fun activity!

A Bit of Summer

Again, a picture perfect day. The sun was warm, the clouds were puffy, and the breeze was mild. A day to look around and count one's blessings, and for me it's even more precious to do so right now because of some unexpected recent bends and turns in this road called life. To breathe the fresh air deeply, bid goodbye to the rainy gray days that have recently huddled over our little spot in the world, and feel the strong summer light on my skin today was as good medicine indeed.

I've completely enjoyed this Saturday. And I've enjoyed heralding the approaching summer season. For us, part of this entails having fresh(er) fruit in the house. Strawberries are a favorite around here, as are candles in the evening to make our home seem even more homey-er. I'm known for having candles lit whenever I'm around and plan to stay around, so a friend of mine deemed the significance of this event a "The Queen is in Residence" flag for me. I like that. I'll claim it proudly.