Where has July gone? I spent yesterday tootling around with my Mom, it was GREAT!
We had breakfast with Maisy, while she kept guard over us. Met my Dad for lunch and stopped by Carmela’s Bakery on our way home for some delicious sweet treats! MMMM! I won’t tell you how many cookies are actually still left in the box, because that would be giving away too many secrets!
My Mom is a beautiful calligrapher. Her teacher was running a painted canvas class today, where you would paint, using a variety of techniques, onto canvas that you will later go back and work on top of by placing calligraphy on it.
These were two pieces that we had worked on, drying in her teacher’s backyard. What a great way to spend a Saturday. Taking an art class with your Mom, what could be better? And, since my Mom is the calligrapher and not me, I am planning on commissioning her to put a couple of quotes on my pieces. So, I will have a piece of art to treasure!
By the time you read this today, I will be up in the air, winging my way home. I ended my day yesterday with a quiet moment in the cupboard, surveying my home of 3 years, before I silently turned off the lights and locked my door for the very last time.
I handed over my keys, had a mini send-off in the hallway with farewell hugs and waves and walked down the stairs and into the sunshine. It feels surreal. A good surreal though. I feel as if I had run through an emotional gauntlet and somehow managed to come out the other side, there was a heady mix of highs and lows.
After a full day of traveling, I will be home in time for dinner with my parents. What could be better?
I might be radio silent for a few days while I enjoy being home and taking a little time to breath! I’ll catch up with you soon!
Jennifer x
On the last day of school we always have a celebration, there is still a 1/2 day to go, but I won’t be there, I will have said my goodbyes, packed up my things, left the cupboard in better shape then I found it and walked away. Not, my last time through those school gates, I am sure, as I will still drop by to see Mr. Michie.
I won’t be there tomorrow because my two weeks notice will have run its course and I will be on an early morning flight heading home. A rare chance to see my family. A few short weeks with them and then I am back home to Mr. Michie and off to work. I will now be walking through a different set of gates in the morning and I will be relishing in this opportunity that I have been given.
Although, they have yearbooks at our school it is not the type of yearbook that I grew up with. There are no individual photos of staff members or students, instead it is all done by group staff photos and class photos.
But, as I am American and this is my last day of school, I thought that the above image was befitting. Dale Irby, a Gym Teacher in Texas took a staff photo in 1973 and by accident wore the same outfit to his school photo the following year. His wife dared him to do it again and just like a guy, he took that dare. Forty years later, he has worn the same outfit in every yearbook picture.
So, here’s to the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another. And here’s to teachers who even after 40 years still have a sense of humor!
Two days. That is all I have left! Two days and I walk away from the cupboard. It is bittersweet. I am looking forward to my new adventure, I am ready for this challenge. I am more than ready!
But, the cupboard has been my home now for over 3 years. It will be odd to not be walking through that door again in September. But as one door closes, another one opens and those new doors hold a hell of a lot of potential!
So, here’s to new doors, going the distance and the final bell!
Summer not only brings with it Wimbledon, but also, cricket matches. Mr. Michie, truly enjoys watching cricket. Over the years he has watched numerous matches and throughout those many matches he has attempted to explain it to me and I have done my best to understand it in return. Maybe I need to be trying harder.
Don’t ask me why, but I just don’t get cricket. Now, give me a good game of baseball and we’ll be talking. Now, for all the avid cricket fans that might read my blog, I am sure that you are cringing right now and screaming at your computer screens. Maybe it is the way he explains it, or maybe I need a “Cricket for Dummies” book? I don’t know! For whatever reason most times he has ended up explaining the rules to me, we are sitting in a pub, weirdly enough, it is usually this one particular pub in Covent Garden and inevitably he starts to draw everything out for me on a napkin and the more he sketches it out, the bigger the hand gestures get and the more passionate he gets over trying to make me understand it and somewhere in the middle my head is filled with creases and wickets and stumps and bowls and I just start laughing and we don’t get anywhere.
We watched a match being played at Lord’s Cricket Ground last night and heaven knows why but as I watched it all I could think of was The Fantastic Mr. Fox film. There is this wonderful scene where the coach explains the rules to “Whack-bat”. I think Mr. Michie might be explaining Whack-bat to me when we are discussing cricket. If he starts telling me they are bowling a flaming pinecone then I will know for sure, I’ve lost it!
This was my calendar page today:
It made me smile. When we first started dating, Mr. Michie danced with me in the moonlight in the middle of a Charleston street and we have had many more moonlit dances since. I hope we keep dancing under the moonlight until we are old and grey.
Have a wonderful weekend. The heat wave is continuing, so we are going to do our best to stay cool and I think eating lots of ice cream will be the perfect antidote to all this sweltering weather!
I found this short film to be thought provoking, as I have often watched the students with their sketchbooks. They are very precious with them. They don’t want to make a mistake; they want everything to look perfect. But, that is not what a sketchbook is for. The very essence of “sketch” is not about perfection. Your sketchbook exists to get it out, to rough it out, hash it out, and rip it out, to see your idea evolve.
I am guilty of it as well. Oh, the power of a blank page. Sometimes it is simply that, a blank page waiting to be filled and at other times it is a mine field. I am nervous to take my first step in case it goes wrong.
So, the very idea of creating something in a sense that is ethereal, appealed to me. It takes the edge away, you make a mistake you erase it, you don’t worry about perfection, because it won’t be there forever, it is just about the process and that is just if not more at times as important as the final piece.
I first read this article on Colossal
Learn more about Peter Han
It is the little things that make me really happy and I love being able to capture and savour those fleeting moments of beauty in the everyday world around me.
These are a few things I have been pinning to my Beauty in the Everyday Board on Pinterest.
Enjoy!
1. Storehouse Laden with Snow
2. Emerson Merrick
3. Ciara Richardson
4. We Heart It
5. Furkl
6. That Kind of Woman
It is getting hotter and hotter here! Yesterday it was almost 90F. That is a little too hot for me, when I work in a cupboard with no windows and my fan was just circulating a mix of sickeningly hot air around.
I closed my eyes at one point and dreamed of being some place else. Mr. Michie and I play a game, where we ask each other, “if you could be anywhere, where would you be?”
If he had asked me that yesterday I would have told him, listening to good beach music, driving to Jack’s Cosmic Dogs for lunch, where I would have my usual, The Cosmic Dog and then head to the beach to cool off in the water. Then, home for cold beer and boiled shrimp on the back porch, where we watch the sunset over the water and pray for the first cool breeze of the evening to waft over us.
Now, that would have been a good day to me! A girl can dream….