Summer Days

Last Wednesday, I found one of those cute downloadable lists that you see floating around the internet. This one was entitled " Summer Bucket List." Its still sitting here on my desk. Not a single thing written down. It gives me heart palpitations. Ron saw it sitting on my desk and said, " Lets sit down and brainstorm and come up with some fun things to do this summer!"
Neither one of us sat down and did it because we were painting. I don't know if we are just addicted to work or what, but I still can't think of anything to do except to do some from of work. I think I just like working best. I have a stack of library books to read, but they are still sitting in the place I put them after I got home. Unread. I am thinking of just taking them back so I don't have them sitting there shouting every time I walk by.

In the evenings after we get our work done outside we sit in the living room. I hook or bind rugs and Ron makes trees. He did his first show downtown in May. Its too hot right now to do any more shows but hopefully he will start up again in September. We both really enjoyed that show and look forward to doing it again. Here is a couple of trees he finished this weekend.

My pictures don't really do this one justice. It is a cascading tree down this piece of wood. The wood is a a bit of driftwood that our son Ben found on his last camping trip. Since Ben has been making knives, he has learned all of these incredible ways to make wood hard. This piece of wood was almost like paper and after Ben took it and put it into this thing he made. It turned this soft wood into something like hard wood, almost like petrified.

Ron's next  tree is one I think you would see on top of a granite mountain that has been hit over and over by lighting. Up in the Sierras when we have been hiking, we have seen trees like this.

Its a very pleasant thing that we do in the evenings. Its so hot right now, it is nice to have things to keep our hands busy.

As Ron always says, " Life is an experiment." So we continue experimenting, trying things that work and some that don't. All of it is good for learning and for growing. I hope you have a wonderful day.

~Kim~

“All my girlhood I always planned to do something big…something constructive. It’s queer what ambitious dreams a girl has when she is young. I thought I would sing before big audiences or paint lovely pictures or write a splendid book. I always had that feeling in me of wanting to do something worth while. And just think, Laura…now I am eighty and I have not painted nor written nor sung.”

“But you’ve done lots of things, Grandma. You’ve baked bread…and pieced quilts…and taken care of your children.”

Old Abbie Deal patted the young girl’s hand. “Well…well…out of the mouths of babes. That’s just it, Laura, I’ve only baked bread and pieced quilts and taken care of children. But some women have to, don’t they?...But I’ve dreamed dreams, Laura. All the time I was cooking and patching and washing, I dreamed dreams. And I think I dreamed them into the children…and the children are carrying them out...doing all the things I wanted to and couldn’t.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich, A Lantern in Her Hand

"---I think all mothers dream dreams into their children---I know I have and it is more exciting to see those dreams becoming realities in my own children's lives than it would have ever been in mine." K.