Little By Little

*1*

My quote for the summer is going to be, "little by little, one travels' far." (Tolkien). I am out of umph but seems like there is lots in our lives that is still requiring it. I'm a "get 'er done" kinda a person and I will be working to the bitter end if that's what it takes, dragging along whomever I can grab ahold of with me in order to.get.things.done.  I am just so beyond that in terms of energy this year (not to mention the fact that my natural walking pace of "fast" might be forever gone) and am contenting myself with much smaller bites. It irks me to walk away, however slowly,  from projects (like rooms or floors) and leave it till "later." And yet, that is exactly what I am doing, day after day. This week we finished the master bedroom closet and got 3 coats of paint on it (dryboard is thirsty stuff). I doing the woohoo dance, even though there are more closets, and more rooms and more drywalling and painting and sanding and staining and etc. left to do. It's good enough for right now.

*2*

Ana has more fun and fabulous pictures of Shakespeare Camp posted over at her blog. They look like they are having a blast. How could they not be? It is a combination of intellectual challenge, drama and fun with friends. Winning combo!

*3*

The notsolittles started on their nature journals this week, beginning by creating illustrations featuring beavers, one of our many critter neighbors. KB's dog has actually swam with the beavers that live in our river and we saw beaver kits this spring. It is so romantic and yet they have destroyed an entire stand of young trees, which is just down right irritating. I'm checking out books on North American Wildlife so that they can write a paragraph to go along with their drawings. We are using the Draw Write Now books as inspiration.

*4*

The only other schoolish thing we've done this week is to go over a brief synopsis of Macbeth so that the kids aren't totally lost during the performance tomorrow. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

*5*

I've read little but Science News and Ranger Rick articles lately. Did you know that scientists have already created and implanted computer chips in the brains of paralyzed patients? Or that ancient pre-hominid type females moved away from home as adults, whereas males did not? My theory is that the shopping was probably better somewhere else.

*6*

4th of July at our house is a holiday. Viking Man loves fireworks and his little tribe of 5 have caught the fever. Flower has been doing the "can't wait till June is over so we can spend big bucks on explosives" countdown for about 2 weeks now. Sunday we are going to blow things up. Monday we'll go to a community event and watch more things explode and in between we'll eat cole-slaw (KFC copycat recipe here!), water melon and shrimp ka-bobs. George Grant writes about An Experiment in Liberty. 

*7*

A beautiful blog post by my friend Lydia on gratitude. I've written enough this year about working on holding more than one thought at a time in my mind. Grief and loss along with thanksgiving. The realization that things are gone and gratitude for what it's been replaced with. Forgiveness and release along with recognition of what was or wasn't. It's been a difficult balancing act and I have failed more than not. My husband keeps telling me, preaching to me really, that we are not made for this world. That we are heavenly bent and so our hopes and dreams will always ring shallow and hollow here.

Little wins. Little by little, one travels far.