Weekend Update: Christmas Day

At Mom's house.

James waiting for dinner. 

My grandparents and my Mom.

My brother Calum (purple crown), my sister Karen and her boyfriend Kevin.

Calum's girlfriend Claire and Emily in her kitty cat pj's.

Karelyn having very berry pie at about 9:00 p.m.

The living room after gifts.  

11:00 p.m.  when we picked ourselves up from lying in front of the fire and made ourselves go home.

from the weekend:

Weekend

This past weekend was fun, and exhausting. On Saturday the Young Philosopher had to work, but the Prof and I and his girlfriend went to a Victorian Christmas non-event in our town. There was some lovely carol singing from children dressed in Victorian costume and some hand bell ringing from the local bell ringers group that was fantastic> Other than that the event was a bit of a damp squib, but we had fun nevertheless. After dropping Curly Girl home, we went shopping. I picked up various crafty bits for a craft evening this week at the Womens' Institute and we got a few other bits and pieces.We ended the evening in our favourite Indian restaurant,

I spent Sunday morning writing and then we went out in the afternoon for more shopping, a visit to Hobbycraft to buy the stuff I forgot to get the day before,  a soggy Panini in Costa, a visit to my parents and a Chinese Takeaway. Oh, the diet's going well.

I am tired and lacking inspiration this morning. I struggled with my Reverb11 post. When I feel like this it's not that I don't have ideas, it's that I can't string a sentence together. The old grasshopper mind is doing its thing, Christmas gifts still to buy, I haven't wrapped a thing yet, housework to do, decorations and tree to put up....and then just for fun I decide to add to the mix finding a joyful photo every day and taking part in a blog challenge that involves posting every day. Oh, and I started another blog too, just because there isn't enough to do in December.

The Prof's picking me up in a bit, he has the afternoon off and we have to take the car in again. After it's fixed, we'll do a little more Christmas shopping in Canterbury. I am looking forward to switching off during the 90 minute drive there, and just enjoying the Kent countryside.

This is an advert which is on the tv over here at the moment, I thought you might like it.

sunday going home

(karelyn and grandmom)

(after grandad adjusted her seat and filled her tires)

It's been a beautiful fall.  I took the girls to my Mom's house Sunday to ride their bikes.  The lane to their house is about 1/4 of a mile long.  My sister and I used to ride our bikes back and forth and back and forth.  I don't know why I didn't think to take the girls and their bikes there before, but then again this has been the first year both girls are on two wheels.  It's a most definite thing that next year I need to get a bike and join them....that and a bike rack.  After this my Mom went shopping with my sister and the girls and I took their dog Elijah for a walk through the woods.  Karelyn told me this morning that Grandmom's was one of her favorite places to go.  It reminds me how lucky I was to grow up there.

eating the elephant

the photograph that prompted me to paint the doorstep!

My house is an old house and I never had any money, so it is pretty decrepit. Everything needs decorating, there is no storage, the garden fence is falling down, the carpet belonged to the previous residents and is horrible (good quality actually, but hideous). I was a broke single parent for years, so beyond a lick of paint here and there, I didn't manage to do much to improve things. Shortly after the Prof and I got together he was made redundant from his job and he was out of work for over a year, when he found work we got engaged and then had a wedding to save for, so it's only now with the wedding behind us that we can now start to work our way through the tasks that need doing. It's quite overwhelming to me at the moment, and honestly, the more overwhelmed I feel the more likely I am to suggest that we get in the car and go on one of our drives on the weekends.  We drive for miles and can be out for several hours. Whether it is town or country there is always lots to see and take photographs of, and in this way I have been neatly avoiding what needs doing. But enough is enough. We have been married six months now and it's about time we stopped avoiding things and started making this house into the lovely home we want it to be.

This weekend we took a different approach. Taking advantage of the Indian summer we are getting here at the moment, we worked in the garden both days, there were a lot of shrubs that needed cutting back and pots full of dead plants to be emptied out, cleaned and put away.  On both days we stopped work in time to take a carload of stuff to the tip before 4pm when it closes, and then we went for a drive. I felt so much better on Sunday evening, knowing we had achieved a lot as well as had fun. Today I painted the front doorstep, which is another job that has needed doing since forever. Tomorrow I will paint the garden bench. We are going to try to tackle some chore every weekend, which will more of a challenge soon as the Prof starts university again next week, but we will try. In addition, I have some serious decluttering to do, which I am going to try and work my way through a little each day, on my better days anyway. Even 15 minutes a day has to get me there in the end, right? The best way to eat an elephant, one bite at a time. 

weekend update: weekend at home

I usually enjoy having Saturday afternoons/evenings to myself when the girl's visit with their father (my one day solo) but this weekend his family was away so I had them all weekend long.  It was a rare treat for us to have the whole weekend together.  I felt as if I wasn't trying to squeeze everything into one day.

It was truly our first fall weekend.  A blustery crisp day on Saturday and we trekked out to the far part of the lot by the edge of the woods and built teepees.  Last year I was surprised to find they had built a teepee by themselves, but they built it in the middle of the yard and we had to take it down for mowing.  This time we built one each, Karelyn's in a mossy spot at the edge of the woods, and Emily's in a little section off to the left side in a little grouping of trees.

The tropical storms we had a month ago had left us a multitude of fallen branches so we lugged as many as we could from around the back path, looking for the perfectly pronged first branch to get the whole thing started.  Nothing fancy here, no canvas, no string, just a nice collection of branches forming out a little secret spot for each of them.

Karelyn of course couldn't keep shoes on her feet (she never can) and had her toes nestled in the cushioning moss.  While they finished up I went inside to bake the oatmeal cookies Emily had made up earlier in the day and there was no better feeling than taking three of the first cookies out of the oven out to sit in the teepee and eat, warm and cinnamon tasting, sitting on the soft moss.

Later we went out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants, and we were in luck they had a fire going and we got a prime seat in front of it.  So after a light dinner we filled up on dessert (chocolate cake for them pumpkin cheesecake for me) and headed home to curl up on the couch together and watch a movie.

Today I realized something.  My life is pretty amazing.  This IS the life I have always wanted for my girls and they are happy.  Happy to spend the day scouring the woods, happy to bury their feet in starry night moss, happy to stir up a batch of cookies in the kitchen, happy to run leftover cookies, and chili and cornbread up the path to my grandparents next door, happy to spend time in my grandparents living room, Karelyn dancing in my grandfather's hat, Emily lying across the couch her head on my grandmother's lap her feet in mine.

Perhaps I should not always be thinking of the future, perhaps the best thing is to just enjoy the here and the now.  I have the rest of my life to become.  Right now I think I am content to just be.

Weekend Update: Dressing Up Rooms

happy monday!

It seems strange to be writing words here again.  As always the weekend has gone by too fast, back to school and work today.  Sunday we finished cleaning up the girls rooms.  Karelyn got these really amazing decals for her walls.  Owls, birds, hedgehogs and leaves and flowers over all her walls.  A new lamp that matches.  She wants to put a sign on her door that says "Welcome to the Enchanted Forest".


So I'm hoping it brings her the peace she needs to start sleeping again in her own bed.  We've been struggling every night and most nights I've been putting her in with me because I'm too tired to fight it anymore.  She spent some time in there herself Sunday afternoon.  I snuck a shot of her watching Prince Caspian on her bed.   We are all slightly in love with Prince Caspian, but as she says "too young for you, too old for me".  She loves The Chronicles of Narnia almost as much as Harry Potter.  I'm re-reading them right now, only on book two, but she is in bed now (because I'm writing this Sunday night) with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on at her bedside but closed so she can listen to it as she goes to sleep.  "Too scary"?  I asked, but she said, "No".


I guess we'll see.  Good to be back with you my friend.  

Day 23

Debbie: Sunday afternoon drive 

8.22.11

Jennifer- The Way I Travel

(Smithwicks Irish Ale, the novel Chocolat, an Italian Recipe Magazine, Cell Phone to Colorado)

8.15.11

Jennifer-A Rainy Weekend

concluding the weekend with peace.

I like your slogan.  All shall be well, may perhaps become my new mantra.  When I am at work lost in the chaos, when I am at home overwhelmed by household responsibilities, when I'm about to lose my cool with those daughters of mine, when I sit down in the quiet to bring calm to myself.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

Something to hold onto there, that one, isn't it?

I tried to do as you said.  I kept off the Internet, minus some random Facebook posts and a little time playing around on Pinterest tonight.  I love that place, don't you?  I didn't take any photos, I didn't edit any photos, the one above is one I did last week.  I didn't browse blogs, or websites, or write.  I just decided to bring myself back into real life a little bit.

But did I slow down.  No.

I did six loads of laundry, cleaned three bathrooms, brushed all the downy hair out of the dog, sorted the rest of the stuff out of my bedroom, cleaned out my cubby of papers out of the kitchen, scrubbed down my counters and cleaned out my refrigerator.  But with rests in between. Still somehow I find myself here tonight wiped out and achy, knowing sadly that tomorrow is Monday again, the girls will be home all day with my father and when I get home my nice clean house will be again in chaos.

It's 10:39 p.m. now.  The house is quiet.  Girls are asleep.  Insects are singing.  Air conditioning is humming.  I'm swaddled in clean sheets and have a cup of tea at my side.  I'm listening to the new Harry Potter soundtrack having been to the movies today to see it.  I could write a post in itself about that.

It's a good night.  It's a good time, this moment.  I'm guessing you have to grab these moments.  These little bits of time when all is calm, when all is quiet, and when I believe all shall be well.  

So how about you, is all well?  I hope so.

P.S.  I forgot to tell you, I had a dream Friday night that I was supposed to be meeting up with you in the afternoon and I arrived and asked someone where you were and they said, "Oh, she's over there right now" and I looked over and you were riding a bicycle down a steep, steep hill in a race with about fifty other people and I thought, oh no, I hope she doesn't expect me to do that too?

Hilarious!

all shall be well....

Image from michaelnoyes.com

While I was thinking about what to write here today, these favourite words of mine from Julian of Norwich came into my mind. A couple of hours later, looking at something completely unrelated on the internet, I came across that quote again. I am a great believer that if you pay attention, sometimes the answers are right there, or if not the answers, then messages, words of comfort.

I am so sorry you are so exhausted, I know how horrible and draining it is. I know myself that the more I have to do, the more stress I am under,  the more exhausted I feel and the less I am able to do. I am exhausted again today, having overdone things a bit this week. I don't have any answers really, except keep on keeping on, and hopefully 'this too shall pass'. I seem to be full of quotes today.  

Yes, the Prof is off for a week soon to summer school. I am planning to read, write, take photographs, maybe draw a little. I have new DVDs to watch, new books (and going to the library tonight for more). I am also hoping to sort out some of old my pre-digital photographs. I have a lunch/museum date with my Mum, a lunch/possibly little bit of shopping date with Julie, and a curry night at the pub date with Lisa. I hope I am well enough to do all those things, but if not, just some of them would be good.

Day by day is how you will make it, how we will both make it. The same way I brought up my son, you will bring up your two beautiful girls. There will be good days (or weeks!) and bad ones. Whining and complaining some days, smiling and looking on the bright side on others. You have come through so much to get where you are today,  I admire what a strong and loving mother you are, and how focused you always seem to be on eating well, exercising, getting out into nature.  Often I go around with my mind in a different place to the rest of me, and I miss what’s happening right now.  You inspire me to be more mindful and to try to be present.

Leave the housework this weekend. As I have said before, ten layers of dust look the same as one. Put a CD story on for the girls instead of reading, it won't hurt. Let them run their own baths. Lie on the sofa.

Relax. Look after yourself. Be well. 

Momentous day

I am writing this on Monday, 18th July: today is the Young Philosopher's twentieth birthday. I am the mother of an adult! Twenty has always seemed to me far more momentous than either eighteen or twenty-one. The end of the teenage years! In honour of the occasion, here's a photograph from the archives: me looking old fashioned and twee in a very matronly dress, him looking his gorgeous one-year-old self.

He is heading off to Camden with his girlfriend today for shopping and food, and we will have a little family get together with his grandparents and uncle this evening.

I am feeling better the last couple of days and had a great weekend. Highlights:

Two long lie ins 

Coffee in bed and bacon sandwiches for breakfast, made by the Prof

Doing the The Telegraph General Knowledge crossword together

Two shopping trips - clothes for the Prof, birthday presents and clothes for the Young Philosopher, new bag, purse and notebook for me 

Saturday night dinner at my favourite Indian restaurant 

Sunday night pub meal with the Prof, the Young Philosopher and his girlfriend 

Getting ready for bed early last night to read/doze for a couple of hours on the sofa

Thank you so much for the link to the video of  a cicada. I had never seen or heard one until just now (I  may have changed my mind about coming out there to sit on your porch). We don't have cicadas here. We have crickets, but where I live is too urban for them really.  No whippoorwhils here either. I can see how they got their name! We have a lot of wood pigeons here, a friend of mine used to say their call sounds like 'how awful, oh, how awful'.

That breakfast looks amazing. Is that maple syrup on there? Yum. 

Space

It was a very quiet weekend. Despite a to do list as long as my arm, this weekend I have mostly been sleeping and I am still extremely tired.  After the outing with Gail on Tuesday that I wrote about, we had our regular fortnightly pub meeting with friends in the evening,  my parents came over for a couple of hours Wednesday afternoon and in the evening I had my T’ai Chi class. I visited  Gail with my other friend Lisa for couple of hours on Thursday night. Those things together were enough to wipe me out for the whole weekend. I spent most of it asleep. Recently I had been feeling better than I have for two months and I really don't want this recent exhaustion to be the start of a major setback, so I am just listening to my body and if it wants me to rest and sleep that's what I am doing. 

I know what you mean about literary criticism. I finished my rereading of the Time Traveller’s Wife a couple of weeks ago  and have been reading all the posts on the Summer Readalong with interest, but haven’t posted any thoughts on the book myself. I enjoy reading along with everyone’s reflections, but then feel I don’t have anything else to add. Sometimes it is hard to get my thoughts and feelings about a story to coalesce.  It’s easy to read someone else’s writing and think Yes! That! but less easy to formulate my own response. I do feel though, that it helps to work out what I like or don’t like about a book, so I try at least to reflect on other people's responses, even if I haven't got much to add.

I love the piece you wrote on your blog, you have a real gift for writing straight from your heart. That's not something I always find very easy. Until the last few months I hadn't written for years, so I am still finding out what I like to write, enjoying the process and seeing where it takes me. I agree that other peoples' writing, both in books and online, whilst being very inspirational to read, can just serve to make me feel worse about my own by comparison! You're right, we all need to write with our own voices and from our own experience.  I think it is often that voice of authenticity that comes across and makes a piece of writing resonate with me. 

As for the internet....yes, I have been avoiding it. I love the internet, the people I have met there, the ideas and inspiration...but sometimes it feels, as someone else said to me once, like everyone is shouting for my attention at once. Steering clear of the internet helps quieten my mind. Sometimes I get very tempted to unplug for a week or more, don't you? We had no internet on honeymoon and I really enjoyed the peace.  I hope to do more reading, more writing and to have some quieter head-space this week. 

Slow days

Happy fourth! I can't believe it’s July already. This year is running away from me. Maybe it's because of my wedding in April, but the months seem to have gone by in a blur. Years ago, my auntie told me that the older she got, the quicker the years went, and I am starting to realise the truth of that. The days, the weeks, the months all speed by.  I’m sure Christmas comes around three times a year these days. I would really like to slow time down a bit. 

Sounds like you had a very busy weekend. It must be lovely now, having your living room as you want it. It looks really cosy and calm. 

It’s been a sunny day here, warm but not too hot which is exactly how I like it.  I am a chilly mortal, so cold weather doesn’t suit me, but I wilt in the heat. Today has been lovely.  I had a lazy morning, as most of my mornings are, these days. I get up when I wake, today that was 9.30. I've been writing, drinking coffee and enjoying the quiet, at least until one of the neighbours put on the album he has been listening to every afternoon for the past week, but it wasn't too loud, and I like Black Sabbath. I've done some laundry, and it’s blowing in the breeze on the washing lines outside.  For lunch I had a bowl of couscous with some olives, for dinner this evening a baked potato with butter and cheese. Simple food.

We had a good weekend, we visited my auntie on Saturday and had strawberries and cream, very fitting on the weekend of the Wimbledon final.  I took some photographs in her garden, and sat on the steps of her patio, watching bees on the lavender. One got a bit annoyed when I got too close with my camera but I escaped unscathed! We did a little shopping on Sunday, I had gifts to buy for my brother's birthday next weekend and treated myself to Hugh Laurie’s album and the film Shutter Island, which we haven't seen.


In the evening we had dinner with friends, and then a very leisurely drive home through the Kent countryside again.  I love these slow days and I find lately I am finding it easier to just relax rather than stressing about what isn't getting done.  I am savouring the slower pace, and taking time to enjoy things instead of worrying.

I am trying to focus more on the here and now. Usually my head is full of noise, things to do,  too many tangled thoughts. With the help of my notebook and my little point and shoot camera, I am making the effort to notice things around me and to just be. I like it.  

Fourth Of July and Furniture

Well, here I am on Monday, it's the 4th of July here which means Independence Day, or the day we declared our Independence from you Brits.  I guess I may be unpatriotic because my Grandfather asked this morning why I didn't have my flag out and I thought that the only flag I do have is a Canadian one the girls brought back from vacation last year.  So what of the 4th of July?  I am escaping the madness of heading to the beach or smooshing in for the fireworks and enjoying a bonus day.  I don't have to go to work and the children are still away at the ocean so for me it means I get to sit here in the back corner at the bakery and write this with a toasted bagel and a fresh orange juice.

You asked if I got my desk?  I did though it's not visible in this photo, it's actually behind me.  Nothing more than a table with a drawer really, but at least I am not crumpled up anymore at the computer on a stand with nowhere for my feet.   But you can see what else I did.  I hadn't expected to go furniture shopping and rearrange my living room this three day weekend, but I had a little bit of a windfall and decided it was about time I put together my living space and stop looking like I was living in a university dorm room. 

When I first moved into this house after my divorce I had the this and that's leftover from the marriage.  It looked fine and I've added and updated along the way.  In fact, perhaps the openness, the white and the sparse and the simple was what I needed at that time.  My old home, like the marriage was a mess.  The house was falling down (literally) around us.  I am lucky to have found this place to rest and be welcomed.

Like I said there was nothing wrong with the place before, but the mismatched dregs of furniture have been an annoyance to me.  So this weekend, I bought some actual matching furniture, mind you from the department store and we had to put it all together (my father and I), but it matches.  It brings a certain continuity and homeliness to this place.  I'm sure the neatness won't last much once the girls get home, but for now I will enjoy it.

So for the last two days it's been loading, unloading, assembling and taking out the old dilapidated bookshelf and piling books and toys and everything else up in the hallway.  Truly as of yesterday it looked as if a tornado had blown through and still this morning some of that remains.  Today after I leave here I will pop back to get a second bookcase to mirror the one you see here.

It's been a lot of work, and not much of anything else has happened, but it makes me happy.  It makes me contented and when I walk in I smile.  Saturday night I turned on that lamp and sat down with my book and a cup of tea and read by lamplight.  We only had the overhead before, no place for a lamp, so that in itself was a delight.

It hasn't been all work, I have taken your advice and read and I watched a movie every night this weekend before bed. And right now I am taking the time to write this from the bakery.

So I have been off the grid and I hope you haven't thought I have disappeared altogether.  It's almost 11:30 am here which means you are headed to evening before I even get this post up.  I panicked when I woke up and realized it was Monday and I hadn't written my post yet, but then I gave myself a thump on the head and realized it's your own blog, just take your time.  This is supposed to be the week to slow down and take things easy (HA!)  Perhaps I just don't know how to do that.

Look forward to hearing back from you.  Reading your posts is the first thing I do in the morning before I even get out of bed and start the chaos of the day.

And in the spirit of indulgence, I have gone back for a pumpkin muffin and a cafe mocha before I head out.

A perfect weekend: coffee, crossword, countryside and a concert

Pictures of Eye village from here

Morning Jen! Well, morning for you, that is. It's just past 1pm here and a much cooler day than the last couple have been, which is very welcome. As usual I am sitting here with my cup of coffee, its becoming a lovely little ritual every day, to make my coffee and then sit and either read your words for the day, or write my own. 

I loved your photos yesterday, they have such a sense of peace about them. We had a good weekend, and I managed to forget to take photographs most of the time. I am still getting into the habit of taking my camera everywhere and then, crucially, remembering to use it. 

On Friday I met the Prof from work. I went into a little café near the station and had a cappuchino while I waited for him. It was a nice little place, and for once my coffee was perfect. Often I find it so bitter I have to add sugar, which normally I don't take. It was really nice to sit there quietly with my book, drink my coffee and read. This is one of my favourite things to do, to sit in a café and read, or write. It doesn't happen too often, there isn't a café locally that I can walk to, so it tends to be if I am waiting for someone - often the Prof, who is likely to be rummaging through Latin documents in an archive nearby. On honeymoon we spent a lovely hour or two in a bookshop where, not only was there tea and coffee on offer, when we asked for some it turned out to be free of charge. If I lived in Bath I would be in there all the time. Surrounded by books plus the opportunity to sit quietly and write, with free refreshments - what could be better? 


We drove that afternoon to Ipswich, where we went to a lecture on the Black Death by the author and politician Ben Gummer It was fascinating. After the lecture we drove to a little village called Eye. My friend had been telling me about it as her sister lives there, and we decided to go and explore. It is a lovely place, though very isolated, a bit too much so for me! I am coming to terms these days with the fact that my living in the country fantasy is probably exactly that. 


On Saturday, we had to do grocery shopping, and stopped to have a drink and do the crossword in a coffee shop. We have been doing the Telegraph general knowledge crossword together on Saturdays since early in our relationship, and its become somewhat of a tradition. 


We drove to Southend on Sea on Sunday evening for a concert. There were lovely views across the water from the theatre, it would have been nice to sit and look out across the water for longer. The concert was really good fun, I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I came out a little deaf by the end and the Prof had to turn the volume on his hearing aids down. We were amongst the youngest people there, but I am not sure we felt it!


All in all, it was a lovely weekend. It was longer than usual, because we started on Friday lunchtime. We packed a lot in, we also included two lie ins and some gardening. Not bad going! 

a weekend tale {in photos}

My weekend: chasing rainbows and chilling out

rainbow: just before it disappeared 

There was no country drive for us this weekend, as Saturday was one long round of torrential downpours, not really the weather that makes me feel like heading into the country. We spent an entertaining twenty minutes or so chasing a rainbow on Saturday, though. We were just driving home from shopping locally and a lovely rainbow appeared, but we couldn't park the car on the road we were on. We drove around for a while, trying to find somewhere we could park where there was a good view of it. It was disappearing by the time we were able to stop, as you can see from the photo. Something similar happened last Thursday, when we drove to the river in the hope of finding a break in the heavy clouds that would be large enough to catch a glimpse of the lunar eclipse, with its blood red moon. Sadly, we had no such luck. Next time.

On Sunday we spent the afternoon and evening at my parents' house, with it being Fathers' day. We have a tradition of having a meal together on our birthdays and other special occasions, this time we had a barbecue. It was really nice to be all together - my parents, me and the Prof, the Young Philosopher and his girlfriend and my brother. 

I look forward to the weekends, when the Prof is home from work. During the week I am mostly on my own and often don't go out, so the weekends are when I tend to do more, or go out and about. This past weekend was a quiet one, though. It was nice. I did lots of reading, and finally got around to writing our wedding thank you letters, which was a job that was seeming bigger and bigger the longer I thought about it. Does that happen to you? For the rest of the week I am planning more reading, some writing, and plenty of rest as I have a few things coming up that I need the energy for. What plans do you have for this week? 

contentment lies on the porch.

I'm hoping you had a good weekend.  I did something completely different than usual this weekend....I did nothing.  Not nothing really, but I did try to do as I said I would and live more in the moment.

What I did do was spend a lot of time on porches.  I am so happy that winter is over.  Winter this past year was really hard on me.  Do you get those wintertime doldrums?  So it was a real pleasure to spend some time this weekend sitting outside with loved ones.  Saturday I went to visit my parents.  My brother and his girlfriend were home and so for a few hours we sat on my Mom's porch and talked (my mother, Claire and I) my brother and my step-father tended to flit in and out of the conversation.  We didn't have that porch ( a long, concrete open one, that runs the length of the house) when I was growing up.  It is a new after the children grow up and move away addition.  My brother, the youngest,  is twenty-four and works for a newspaper about three hours away.  He was the second marriage child, thus I am fifteen years older than he.  I used to read him The Many Adventures of Winnie-The-Pooh long before I read them to my own children.  I have a special kind of attachment to him.

When I decided I had lollygagged enough at my mother's I came home with good intentions to get to work.  That is until I saw my Grandmother sitting on her porch.  A small wooden porch just big enough for a wooden swing on the side of their house facing mine.  I walked up so we could fret over my Grandfather who was working way too hard in the heat (he refuses to admit he is living in his eighth decade). So I sat with her until my Grandfather finally gave up, plopped on a step with us and I listened to them talk about when they were younger (something I could do for days, let alone hours).

Finally I went home and did a bit of laundry, a quick trip to the grocery and went to pick the girls up at their father's.  When we got home about nine p.m. they settled in to watch a movie and as I bustled around the kitchen I realized a storm was coming in.  Now one of my favorite things in the world is to watch thunderstorms coming (is it a stupid question to ask if you get thunderstorms, they must be a worldwide phenomenon right?)  I poured myself a glass of wine and went and sat on my own front porch, wooden, wide, pots of herbs and seashells from vacation running along the sides.  I watched the fireflies (ok, fireflies? yes or no?) in the field compete with the heat of the lightning in the sky and felt the temperature drop about ten degrees with the coming breeze.  I stayed out until the rain came down and the thunderclaps became too loud for the girls and the scaredy-cat dog to be by themselves.

Sunday, I had to suffer the consequences of goofing off so much and went to work doing the cleanup around the house in the morning.  By late morning the girls and I commited to one of our happy rituals of warmer weather, snapping beans on (of course) the porch.  Do you get any more country than that?  I have to tell you I am just happy to have children who value where their food comes from (in this case our Amish farmers down the road, I have the evil black thumb) and think that an afternoon splitting open pea pods is a good time.  Exclamations of "This one is stuffed"and "Eight, eight in this one"!!  Karelyn gave up about three-quarters of the way through and chose instead to sit in a chair and read poems from a library book to Emily and I instead of snapping, but so it goes.  Regardless, we ate through that hard work this evening.

Maybe someday you can come and share the pleasures of our porches with us.  They are nothing grand or ornate, simple concrete or wood, a few flowers here and there.  Sometimes it's a bit hot, or the bugs get a bit bothersome, but something about it calls when the weather warms.  It is a nice place to be together, shelling peas, watching a rainstorm, debating local politics or reliving well-lived memories.  It seems a perfect simple pleasure and a perfect weekend way to live in the moment.