Thursday, July 20, 2017

July 20, 2017: Well, hello!

Hard to wrap my head around the passage of time since my last post! Today is a hot, still, humid, sunny day, and Andrew, Nate and I are planning a "float on the river" day once we get our acts in gear, and deal with the fact that there is very little food in the house but also very little motivation to do anything in particular about it. The half and half (I have just realized what a weird title that is--it always makes me think of my grandparents, for whom we would buy it specially when they visited) is nearly gone, so I, at least, am hyper-focused on the need to get to the store before 7 am-ish tomorrow. Some fruit would be nice as well.

So: I am a month into summer vacation. As usual, I have not been as focused or productive as I'd hoped: have not finished the shawl I'm knitting, have not finished or started any sewing projects, have not finalized any of my writing pieces nor completed my summer teaching prep tasks. I feel that I've spent a lot of my summer imitating Katniss:

or the deer who's starting coming around to our smorgasbord--errr, garden: 

(look closely. She's there, digesting.)



However, much good has unfolded:

I had an excellent (mostly-train-based) trip to CT to see Julie and her family and then to PA to see my mom's family down there. I was gone from June 23 to July 1, did a lot of visiting, saw this wonderful adaptation of Pride and Prejudice AND watched "Wonder Woman" as well, met several new baby and spousal additions to the PA family, knitted, read, and listened to audiobooks, and generally had a great adventure to kick off my summer.

Nate came home from France/Russia (6 months and 6 weeks, respectively)! He also turned 21 in short order, and we had a double celebration last weekend with a lunch in Windham with family on Saturday and a lawn party/Game of Thrones season opener party for his friends on Sunday. Camnesia was widespread, but I did take these stealth photos of the friend gang playing Kubb before dinner:


So. Now I am bugging him to get money-making jobs doing yardwork and / or catering support. . . . so clearly he's enjoying his vacation. :)

I have also read a lot (I may insert a pic of my books-read-to-date from Goodreads), slept a lot (I do think I would like to sleep from 10 pm to 7 am every single night of my life: life goal), had a fun "staycation" day with Andy and a lovely anniversary dinner at the Crocker House to celebrate 28!!!! years together, hiked Bernard Mt. and swum at Echo Lake with Cathi, picked strawberries with Lyn and Heather and made jam, watched several good movies at the Grand ("A Man Called Ove," and "A United Kingdom" to date; plan to see two more next week), gotten good exercise, and done a bit of knitting nearly every day, often while watching the Sox: my rule is that if I'm watching TV, I need to be knitting. I've done some school stuff, switched the ownership of this blog over to my personal gmail account (I think) and helped demonstrate in favor of the ACA on Tuesday. . . . . 

Here are some plans/hopes/ideas/goals for the future: 

1. finish and block the shawl by the end of July. 
2. start the body of my knock-off J. Crew sweater by Aug. 1. 
3. have at least one beach day in July and another in Aug. with our boy.  
4. make some good new dinner recipes. I have this book and this idea
6. finish and submit the family food memory piece for Zest. 
7. fix up Lyle's room for our incoming AFS student: paint the door, tidy up. 
8. start doing four hours of school stuff Tues, Wed, Thurs.
10. finish reading The Book of Joy

That's enough to be going on with, yes? 

I also want to organize an activities jar for when our boy arrives. So far I think we'd include: 
--trip to the water park
--mini-golfing
--beach day
--cooking adventure
--road trip up to Jasper Beach in Machias
--real-deal kayaking trip
--trip to Portland (he wants to get an iphone)
--hike up Cadillac (maybe the South Ridge as I haven't done that one)
--something oceany like a boat trip to the Cranberries or to Swan's? 
--breakfast out. . . 

Amazing: the list is not simply made up of eating activities! Progress!

Okay. I think I will save this fascinating entry and begin to do some basic stuff: laundry and cleaning up the kitchen. First steps first, after all! 

No comments: