Happy Summer

Hello. It was a really busy spring and today I am sinking into the warm breezes of summer. What have I been up to? There were gardens to plant. 

 

 

 

We went on vacation for ten days. Our first big trip in a long time. We camped in the mountains of Virginia,visited family in North Carolina

 

 

 

 

and explored the Luray Caverns.

 

 

 

We met our new grand kids. Literally. Kids!

We are also into our busy season at work with Summer Reading programs. Whoever says that kids aren’t reading sure hasn’t been to our library lately! They are checking books out by the armful which makes me very happy. And more than reading they are also talking about the books they are reading. That is a lot of fun.

I have been doing some writing. Not as much as I should but I’m making progress.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading. Some for myself and some for work.

Today I am getting caught up in the blog world. I have been seriously lax about that. It’s nice to visit again.

How is your summer going?

Brain Holiday

I hope this makes you smile. Please enjoy.

wordsthatserve

Just stumbled across this , which I originally wrote and posted three years ago, but it’s that holiday time of year again, so thought you might enjoy. Written after reading The Lorax by, who else, the inimitable fantabulous most marvexellent … Dr Seuss!

(LOL – I think I just gave my spell checker a heart attack…maybe IT will take a holiday…)

I’ve thought and I’ve thunk

And I’ve tickled my brain

I’ve chased all the thinkylink

Thoughts you could name

I’ve just about caught

Every thought the world has

But they’re all just too big

Or too small or too sad

So I told my brain, ‘Go!

Have a holiday friend,

Find a beach or an island

A planet, a star

Go further than the furtherest

Everest star

And please don’t come back

For a few years or more

‘cos me and that drum

Playing musical chest

Where it beats…

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Quiet spring meditation in the woods

Even if you can’t get out into the woods today, enjoy this meditation. You will feel like you did go outside thanks to this wonderful post and photos.

Lake Superior Spirit

It sometimes takes a long time–a truly long time–maybe even years, or decades, or a lifetime–for one to learn how to truly become quiet in the woods.

So quiet, so still, that there is no difference between you and the landscape, between you and nature.

Until you realize fully that you are nature itself in your stillness, in your activity, in your very essence.

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30 Interesting Facts about Books

This is a great post for book lovers from Interesting Literature.

Interesting Literature

30 fun facts about books, in honour of World Book Day 2015

SF writer Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) is the only author to have published a book in all ten Dewey library categories.

When asked what book he’d like to have with him on a desert island, G. K. Chesterton replied, ‘Thomas’s Guide to Practical Shipbuilding.’

Hugh Lofting, author of Dr Doolittle, thought books should have a ‘senile’ category to complement the ‘juvenile’ section.

Dickens’s house had a secret door in the form of a fake bookcase. The fake books included titles such as ‘The Life of a Cat’ in 9 volumes.

Playwright Joe Orton went to prison in 1962 for defacing library books. One of the cartoons he drew shows an elderly tattooed man in trunks.

The first book bought on Amazon was called Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.

Author…

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Put Another Log on the Fire

This beautiful post says exactly what I feel this holiday season. Please enjoy.

On the Homefront

My newspaper column for this week:

Ten days before Christmas. By the time you read this, the timeline will have shifted. Sounds ominous doesn’t it? Remember when we were kids and ten days was a lifetime, and Christmas seemed to take its jolly time to get here? I read an explanation the other day about why as we get older things seem to move faster—something about events no longer being new to us so we experience them at a faster pace. I am sure that explanation makes sense to someone somewhere, but it did not really resonate with me.

I do find that different things have become more important to me over the years. Things I would have glossed over or not paid any particular attention to when I was younger. As I get older, I may not get wiser, but I do find myself being more reflective and more…

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Friends

I think this post is just beautiful and full of truth. If you like this, please check out the bottledworder blog.

End of Summer

It’s like a switch has been flipped. All of a sudden this week the birds have grown silent and invisible. Overnight they have disappeared. I still see the hummingbird but I can’t tell now if its one of the youngsters or not.

Now instead of the cacophony of bird calls and the flurry of feathered activity in the yard, there is silence and absence.

The fireflies have finished their light shows for the year as well. The nights now belong to the bats eating the mosquitoes for which I am grateful.

The only sounds now are the crickets and cicadas which tell me loudly that it is still summer but that it is coming to an end. I know here in Pennsylvania we can have summer weather for at least another month and that’s great.

As much as I look forward to having less to do in the yard, I really dislike the Autumn. Maybe because I am too tuned into the plants and feel the trees slowing and the annuals dying. Despite the beauty of the colors of the leaves in the fall, I find it sad.

For now I will enjoy every day of being able to be barefoot. I relish the warm ground and soft grass. The bright flowers are showing off their incredible variety of colors and shapes. I will save seeds from my favorite flowers to plant next year. I will clean up the gardens so they will be ready for the spring. And I won’t take any days for granted.

I am grateful for a wonderful Summer this year.