Oh, summer. How I love you, how you drive me insane.
Summer and I have a love hate relationship. Most of the hate has to do with the life-sucking heat of the South.
The love is everything else. All the other parts.
This summer has been a little odd because I have been traveling so much, speaking and promoting At Home in this Life (all the praise hands!)
Also, Wylie has been away at college-prep summer experience, and we have had the twins for longer stretches, so that is different as well.
AND between my traveling, and the rain, the garden is behind. It took us three tries to get the bean seeds to take, and we are going to have to completely replant our Zinnia’s and Sunflowers because they got washed away almost as soon as we planted.
Last year we had sunflowers taller than me and juicy red tomatoes at this point, but this year the sunflowers aren’t even in the ground yet and the tomatoes are still green.
But we have squash and zucchini, onions and purple hull peas all ready for harvesting, so it isn’t all awful.
If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen most of these images, but I needed to post them here as well, because frankly, this blog has become my time machine. It is where I go to remember and retrace, and after 11 years I just can’t quit.
So here is a bit of my summer thus far in pictures:
Radishes from early summer
The lake at Kanuga Retreat Center in North Carolina
The porch on my cottage at Kanuga. It overlooked the lake. I had some profound revelations on this porch. More about that later…
The cottage, built in 1908.
From my Hope Hoop Workshop, inspired by At Home in this Life
This is my new favorite crafty workshop to lead.
Summer salads and tomato heavy sandwiches are my favorite summer foods
We taught Sister and Brother how to play Twister, which they LOVED
And we went to a local lake/beach only 10 min from our house – I drive by it on my way to work everyday but we had never been. Such fun.
My beautiful Maw. 92 and going strong. Being with her heals me.
And of course she made us her famous waffles on her 70 year old waffle iron. (The recipe is in A Homemade Year)
Zucchini going strong!
Our apple tree is doing great this year! I need to figure out how to best put them up…
Went to Cincinnati for the Christian Booksellers Association Trade Show – it was a lot of fun and I met some great people. Also, my face was on a giant poster!
The Intergenerate Conference in Nashville was wonderful – especially because I got to see good friends.
(Lilly in the middle is the amazing creator of Free Range Worship)
The summer has been filled with lots of interviews and speaking, but not much concentrated writing. Everyone keeps asking what’s next and I honestly don’t know.
Porch sittin’. That is the only thing I really want to do these days. The past six years have been INTENSE. I think it might be time for a fallow year 7.
Happy Summer Everyone!
Leave a Reply