Boating

I took this series of pictures of my 3 year old grandson as his Dad rowed us to the end of the lake and back. Yes, that is correct. He fell asleep!

A different kind of heaven

I spent several days last week at the lake with a couple of my children and their little ones. Those little ones being my grandchildren.

I recently wrote about my favorite place. This is where I spent at least two weeks every summer growing up and then brought my children to as often as possible. Seeing these little guys (and the big guys too!) experience my heaven was a delight!

There is something about this place that just surrounds you with joy and peace so that every day is a new adventure, even if you do the same thing as the day before.

My brother said of the place once that it is a place ,"...where you go to do nothing".



And so here is the nothing we did...

running on the beach

s'mores

cooking on a wood fire

ice cream

sand castles

snacking at the beach

wearing great-gramma's hats

climbing...and climbing

serious conversations

swinging

...and nothing much.

Thinking on the value of friends and books and humor

Once again, as I do every second Wednesday of the month, I met with my book club. What a joy it is to gather with these intelligent, diverse, and wacky women! Our books range from the ridiculous (Pocahontas,by Paula Gunn Allen...you don't want to read this one!) to the sublime ( "In the Time of Butterflies" Julia Alvarez) to the impossible ("One Hundred Days of Solitude"). All of these books have , in some way, enriched my life. Yes, even the bitter dogs that we have read. This is because of the discussions that they encourage. It is amazing to me that we can go from discussing the affair that Frank Lloyd Wright had with Martha Cheney (the book tonight was "Loving Frank", Nancy Horan) to the spiritual wellbeing of society and then to the multiple dimensions of life forms. We do, occasionally, dally in trivial and silly talk, OK, maybe more than occasionally, but it is mixed with this other intelligent and amazing dialog. So, as usual, this was an evening filled with intellectual stimulation, trivial blather, delicious food, and blessed warm friendship.
Everyone should have a group of friends to gather with on a regular basis for some reason, any reason. It's the gather that is important.