The summer night is like a perfection of thought. Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)

Sunday, a summer day. I can hear a lawn mower in the distance. No kids playing yet, but I am sure they will be out later, screeching and calling to each other. The robins have found another home to lay their second brood and sometime tonight the town will shoot of the fireworks that were canceled by rain last night.
I have been busy the last few weeks. I painted Meghan's room while she was away in Florida. She had a great time with friends and came home to an orange room that had been planned for 2 years. I only had a gallon of paint, my mum and dad had bought it when they came to visit in 2007 to thank her for letting them stay in her room. It was only enough for 3 walls so instead of trying to match the color I did one wall in a blue/purple color. It was difficult to move around the room with her furniture in the middle of the room, the mattress and box spring leaning against a wall that I wasn't painting. I managed though and she was surprised when she got home, I think that the Jonas brothers poster was the thing she enjoyed most though. I had put it in a poster frame and it is up on her wall, so she can change the poster when she gets tired of them (hopefully soon). One of the things I am most excited about is taking off her closet door, which gives her a lot more room. Now just to find a beaded curtain to cover up the mess inside. I saw a wonderful glow in the dark one that I want to get.

Unfortunately I have been plagued by back and neck pain for a few weeks now and it is hard for me to do much of anything. Sitting in the computer chair is only comfortable if I lean back, which doesn't help with my typing and sitting in the recliner is OK, except for getting in and out. Turning over in bed is almost impossible and sitting on the hard kitchen chairs is not too comfy either. I have managed to get a few things done, but mostly I have been reading and feeling lazy, not wanting to bend over for anything I don't have to.

I sorted my photos. I know I have more somewhere but the ones I had in plastic containers here in the living room I went through and sorted into categories. I tried to go by the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid) and it seemed to work, just picking a few titles to start, family, friends, places, and of course the three kids. Troy and I had one category together as there are a lot of photos with both of us in. It actually went pretty fast. Then I started sub-categories. Troy's family, Laura's family, Parents etc. I am not done with that part yet, but I am really glad to have the photos in some sort of order, now to find the rest that are hiding in the house in a dark corner somewhere. I think the hardest thing is going to be purging the pictures, letting go of something that I once thought important enough to take a picture of.


What started me off sorting the pictures was a list of things I want to scrap into albums. I found a starter on Plinky. "What values do you want to instill in your kids?". That got me to thinking and then I thought about others that I want to do. I would like to make a green book. Green in my favorite color and it would be easy to pull the things I have that are green together into an album. Also, suggested in an online magazine, Scrapbook & Cards today,I saw an article that suggested using facebook as a journal, expecialy those 25 random fact notes that I have participated in. Another great blog is Creativity Prompt that has lots of ideas for blogging and scrapbooking and jornaling, I don't think I will ever get through them all. There are so many resources on line that it is easy to get distracted from actually doing to just browsing. I really want to set a goal of 'doing' so I can get some real things done.

I will say that contrary to my quote for the title of my post I am not a fan of summer. Hot, sticky and buggy: my least favorite things. Spring and fall are much more my style. The mornings with the frost on the grass. The rustle of leaves sounding like the sea or the seemingly dead trees showing new buds ready to burst with bright green. I do enjoy the longer days and the summer fruits and vegetables though.



So off I go to do. Well maybe after a nap.

Winter Weather

Yesterday was another of those days when I had to drive the kids to and fro. Robbie and Meghan had friends sleep over and I felt obligated to cook pancakes for breakfast, even though Robbie's friend had left before I awoke. Brandon decided that he didn't want a stranger touching his hair after all and didn't want a hair cut ( he needs one, badly). I let Robbie drive to the store and Meghan felt ill so I let Brandon drive home. Picking Robbie up later I let him drive me home. Throughout all this there was a blowing wind and little pellets of snow falling around us. We don't keep our house overly hot but it was really nice to relax in the warmth yesterday.
While Brandon was driving home, and he has been driving on his permit for a year so he is not so bad at it now, I snapped some pictures of the fields around our house.
We do not live in the country but we are on the outskirts of town and we have a lot of corn and soy bean fields close. I used my mobile phone camera and the pictures came out quite well from the moving car. I had wanted to take these pictures for a while but always when I think of it I am rushing off somewhere and don't have time. In the spring after the farmers have planted it is really awesome to see the straight plowed lines of the fields. stretching on for an eternity it seems. I am still awed by the flatness of the land here in Illinois. Even after 14 years of living here! North Carolina was not so flat where we lived but we were not near the mountains. Where I grew up it is wonderfully hilly, although I am sure I would be car sick going back there now.
Needless to say I didn't get much done at all yesterday in the way of crafts or my ever lengthening to-do list. Besides, I was reading a book that I was anxious to know the end of and couldn't put down except for the direst of need. Today I plan to work a little on the list and see what happens.