Random Shots

These are just random shots from the summer I've been hanging onto.  Maybe you'll enjoy.

day 197

day 175

 day 190

End of Summer

These are the last of my weekend beach trip photos.  Hope you have a lovely weekend.

my Flickr

Sea Treasure

One of the biggest thrills as a kid at the beach was to find a whole and perfect shell, especially at the Gulf Coast where we'd usually find shell bits.    

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(days 176 and 179, ttv52 weeks 24 and 25)

We never tired of looking for sea beans, hermit crabs, and jellyfish.   I brought the best of my little treasure home and put them in a cigar box in a drawer.

My brother and I had a system for castle building and my sister taught us how to make dribble castles one summer at Crystal Beach.

I've taught my own children how to make dribble castles and moats.  They know the rarest colors of sea glass and my favorites to hunt for.  Once, we had the Summer of Sea Beans, where we found too many to count.

Always at the end of the day you can find us laying on our bellies, propped up on elbows, in the shallow waves.  We let them crash on our backs while we talk.

 on my Flickr

I still might slip off to find some little treasure of my own.  Only now I usually capture it with a camera.

Have a Seat on the Beach

For someone who likes to make wool sweaters, I don't transition very well into fall.    

If you live near the coast you know how much of childhood summers are spent at the beach.

How the first warm weekends mean packing up the cooler to go and the last few weekends before school starts are spent the same way, only with a melancholy walk along the water thrown in.

I'm spending the rest of the week at the beach... in my mind.  

You're welcome to have a seat with me.

front row, day 225

my Flickr

Last Summer Campout

We had our last summer campout a few weeks ago.   

We were fortunate enough to be able to share the fun with my cousin and her family.

There's something special about family getaways.  Especially when it brings us closer to relatives we don't get to see very often.  

 day 188
My son and his big cousin fell right into their play together as if they'd seen each other the day before.
But I wondered how well my daughter would hold up in the heat and with her younger cousins now that she is out of the kid phase.

It turns out, my daughter isn't really out of kid phase (she spent the entire time we swam in the lake grabbing people's legs underwater to scare them.  It worked every time.)

Then there were also trails and board games.

   

Not to mention the break from routine, that is oh so routine.

I even got to slip away for a long run, which did my heart good.

 I learned things about my grandparents that I'd never heard before- stories her father had passed to her.  And she learned stories and perspectives that I'd received from my dad.

We learned that we were a lot alike as kids: tomboys and into sports.

Our desires for our children and homes are reassuringly familiar.

It was just good to get to know them better.

day 189

Evenings were spent by either ours or my cousin's campfire, talking and laughing.   I left feeling blessed.

Nurturance is Underrated

The garden reached it's zenith and what was green and crowded when these were taken is now dry and browning.  It's time to make room for Fall.  

basil, day 187 and Ttv 52-week 27

I just don't know if I want to try fall vegetables.  This dry summer was a let down, (though you may not be able to tell from the photo) and I have a feeling my life is about to get busier than ever.  But once you set a garden up, it's hard to abandon it.   It's like disowning a child, plus it's really ugly if nothing's growing in it.

Who am I kidding?  I'll probably be weeding and disturbing all sorts of things in the backyard tomorrow when the kids go back to school.   This is the crux of my intense nature:  I don't easily just let things take a backward course, not if I think I can help.  I can't let sleeping dogs lie in relationships and I can't let living things die.  (sounds like a bumper sticker.)   Don't get me wrong, I can kill them accidentally, but it's hard to just do nothing while a little gift of life (be it a plant, an idea, or a relationship) withers away.   This leads to lots of effort on my part that may or may not be a waste, depending on your point of view. 

Nurturance is underrated.  Sometimes I think it's nice to revive languishing things and put more of myself into it though I'll have nothing to show for it, just to show gratitude for God's putting it in my life.

So, just like I'll continue to extend myself to certain people who don't value it, and keep reaching out to teenagers that may or may not want it, I'll probably clean up and replant the garden- even if it is just leggy and fruitless, because it was in my care.  And I do care.

extra large pine cone (day 210 and  Ttv52- week 30)

Galatians 6:9 - "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap if we faint not."