Summertime!

One of my posts from last summer that I felt deserved another visit:

 Here, during the dog days of summer, are some reminders to get out and enjoy this wonderful season!  
You'll be wishing you did come winter....

                                                                    Photo by Catskills Grrl


"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world." 

~Ada Louise Huxtable

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.  ~John Lubbock

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.  ~Henry James

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Today

So here hath been dawning
Another blue day:
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?

Out of Eternity
This new day is born:
In to Eternity
At night will return.

Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did:
So soon it forever
From all eyes is hid.

Here hath been dawning
Another blue day:
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?

—Thomas Carlyle

Count Your Blessings

A great 1940's-esque rendition of this classic hymn by The Lower Lights.
Enjoy!

Real Food Video

Food for thought....

Moving

When we were younger, moving was an adventure!  
What would our next home look like, our new town have to offer?
Which restaurants or local stores would become our new favorites?
Who would we meet and then become our good friends?

Now I find that the older I get, the more I just want to stay put. 
Because everywhere you live and then leave, you also leave behind a part of yourself.
That's the hardest.
My children also realize this and they, too, have mixed feelings.

Would I feel as sad if it were January, not June?  Probably, but leaving my home when everything is blossoming , my peas are producing, butterflies are fluttering about and the fire pit is begging for marshmallows.....is just that much harder.


I remind myself daily of the reasons we wanted to move in the first place.
And when I'm packing box after box and wishing I was somewhere swimming instead,  I think of family holidays to come, sunsets in farm country, the sound of irrigation sprinklers in summer and all of our old favorite places.

It helps.


Content copyright © 2011 by Jessa at Graceful Landing

Dads

God took the strength of a mountain,
The majesty of a tree,
The warmth of a summer sun,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The generous soul of nature,
The comforting arm of night,
The wisdom of the ages,
The power of the eagle's flight,
Then God combined these qualities,
There was nothing more to add,
His masterpiece was now complete,
He lovingly called it, Dad.
~Author Unknown