Listed

(photo: detail from thrifted shirt, June, 2011)

I’m kind of a silly blogger. (And infrequent, and rather lackadaisical as well  I’ve been wanting to post all week. But usually when I sit down to write, I have one big idea I’m unpacking, turning over in my mind. And these first days of summer are much more conducive to lots of little things, scattered like sandals on the patio, or cake crumbs after supper. I’ve been resisting doing a list post.

Until I remembered that I LOVE list posts, reading what people are reading, and eating, and watching, and growing. It can be like a peek over her shoulder at a splattered recipe card in the kitchen, or a glimpse of the titles on her nightstand. Those lists are little fairy doors and windows into each other’s afternoon hours and early mornings.

So here, in my hands, are a collection of our little things:

• Reading to Myself: The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food and Love, Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers, and Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity From a Consumer Culture. This is quite the crop of nonfiction for me, and frankly, I feel a little vacation with Jane Austen coming on, but each of these books gave such gifts, in thoughtfulness, rich conversations with my sweetheart, and those necessary moments when  we check our vision against our reality and course-correct.
• Reading Aloud:  The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book One: The Mysterious Howling  Perhaps it is the loving send-up of Jane Eyre in this delightfully funny book, or maybe it is the charming language, but we are loving this beginning to our summer read aloud season. Next up and much anticipated: The Monster in the Hollows.
• Cooking: An Italian Sausage and Orzo Soup like this, that I could eat a few times a week. And very soon could be made with fresh tomatoes and my basil if I have not killed it by then. And Smitten Kitchen’s Everyday Chocolate Cake. And contemplating making this ice cream 
• Coming Attractions: I can scarcely believe it, but the Image of the Maker Retreat with this exquisite woman. Blueberry picking at one of my favorite places anywhere.  Some waterfalls, and some cool rivers for hot days. Lots of library trips. The Farmer’s Market up the road.  Games of Yahtzee for hot afternoons. Clothespins between my fingers in the morning. Thrifting on fifty cent day. Sleeping later than on school day mornings, and sleeping well.

What’s on your list, these early summer days? What’s looking good, sounding good, feeling good, speaking His goodness to you?

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