Morning Walk and Some Sketchy Plans

My friend Ronda and I took a stroll, following our usual route this morning. The sky is so blue and when we went for coffee afterward, it remained cool outside. Most summers are hideously hot in August, but this year I can feel fall sending out the invitation. September isn't that far away (my birthday month and FAVORITE month of all!)

This monster bug was on the path. WHAT is it? Do you know? Ronda gave it a little bump with her shoe and it got all buzzy, but didn't fly away. Jeff thought it was a cicada, but it doesn't match the pictures perfectly. It sort of makes my shoulders shiver and my teeth clench in all it's creepiness.

Birdie came over last night because her parents had dinner guests and wanted to serve them without a lot of interruptions. She had a bad case of the "shys" at church earlier - she's just getting used to non-family/non-neighbor people.

She puttered around in the back yard while Grandpa watered the grass. She ate pop pops and cookies (and two bites of dinner).

She took off her shoes, my shoes, Grandpa's shoes and then she likes to put her toes right by our toes and say, "happy, happy."

She took a wander through the sunflower garden, but my camera isn't fast enough so I caught her just as she emerged. I hope her mother doesn't see this and notice the big bag of cookies. Yikes. I am the kind of grandmother that gives her grandchildren whatever they want. I'm trying to stop and I never blantantly disobey the mothers.

Yesterday, I put my gardening gloves on and reached through the prickles on the leaves and harvested two zucchinis and three or four yellow squash. I am going to eat a few of them for lunch! And that's why I love summer.
Let me tell you about something us girls in this family are going to do on Thursday nights. We are going to have a little get together and a light and lovely supper every week. April chose the bible study. It's called Resting in Him: I need to slow down but I can't! It's one of the studies in the Women of Faith series. We're also going to reference Edith Shaeffer's The Hidden Art of Homemaking AND the book I just ordered called Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life. It had such good reviews on Amazon. We'll do a creative exercise each week - it may be a drawing, frosting cupcakes, writing a prayer, making up a song . . .
Another thing we'll do is keep a log book. That doesn't sound very romantic, does it? It will be. I'll take a lot of photos (the kids are going to be here, too!) and we'll take turns writing down our insights, funny things, a record of what we talked about that night and most importantly, we'll keep track of prayers and answered prayers. It'll be like a big scrap book and I'll put all of our artwork (if it fits) in and menus and details about what the girls made and contributed. I'm hoping it will be a communal journal. There are just the four of us, so it will be intimate and full of love. I'll keep you posted. We're starting this week. With that and Weight Watchers every week I may never get any grading done, but who cares?
One thing I'm doing to inspire myself and get all excited for school to start is watching teacher-y movies. I watched The Hobart Shakespeareans (thanks to Gretchen Joanna!) and Music of the Heart. I'm going to watch Mr. Holland's Opus again and Mona Lisa Smile or is it smiles? Any other ideas? I also LOVE Freedom Writers, so I might watch that again even though I've seen in MANY times. I'm not going to push myself to get a million things done before I go back on the 18th. I'm going to hang curtains in my classroom, clean, and plan THEN. I'll make as many copies as I can, make seating charts, visit with other teachers and take it slow so I can hold on to my joy for as long as possible.
So, sorry I'm so boring as I think right here, plan, organize, and clarify. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't noticing some sad feelings about leaving summer behind and getting on the fast track of teaching again. Who knows? Maybe I'll be better at it this year.