...and we're out...

Last night of summer vacay. Am I ready to go back to school? 

 Well. I love being on vacation as much as the next librarian, but I've just had so much summer, it's been so rich, we've been so lucky, had so much time together as a family and with a lot of people we love. It would be greedy of me to say no.

 The answer is yes, I'm ready to head into my new adventure.

  I'm full of summer.

It's been enough; perfect, really.

I've seen my share of discarded silver sandals and plenty of flipflops at the various ponds, beaches, docks, and parties we've frequented. And taken portraits of them when I could.

And I have one more Artist Profile for you in the works. But Urchin Goddess needs her etsy site set up first. Now she has the photos to do it! In the above photo, I am modeling one of her gorgeous necklaces. In fact we did a partial trade for it, for the pics. I can't wait to show you more.

~Lucky, lucky me~

~snail racing~

Two snails were racing as the tide went out the other day.

According to The Week-End Book, snails travel at 1.916 feet per hour. Does this figure reflect the speed of snails at leisure? Or an average of sauntering snails and snail athletes? Because these two contestants here appeared to be hustling.

I don't know if they made it to the water before the tide went all the way out. Maybe you'd have to calculate the rate that the tide was going out, and this might involve calculating the slope of the beach, and I'm more content to have born witness to the moment that these snails and I shared. Even if I don't know the outcome. Life is uncertain, after all.

Sand forms. This is part of the Waldorf curriculum: making amazing beautiful free-hand forms, sometimes mirrored, or not, and the idea is that you don't lift your crayon (or stone, in this case) once you have begun the form. You are committed. Being there in the moment helps, trusting your hand and eyes to work together. I asked Sylvan to make me one to copy and this was what he made.

Some of our party balanced stones as per usual. Though the Stillmans were notably absent on this day, it was really otherwise perfect. (We felt you with us in spirit! Note to S: The water was actually delightfully swimmable, really pleasant even, and not at all ankle-numbing.)

ah, summer

 mr. twinkle eyes

The baseball season wound up with success. The main success in my mind is kind coaches and good spirit of the game, plenty of runs, catches, surprise double-play unassisted (!), even a rainbow. A very dear young fellow who was sometimes kicking flowers and dirt and other times making some awesome plays, best smile on the team! And my very own sweet guy was a team leader, praised by his coaches for his sportsmanship and manners.

We spent the day as a family on Mount Desert Island to celebrate 13 years of marriage. We hit all the high points (ha!): Pirate's Cove mini-golf (I got a hole-in-one!), then lunch at our favorite beach with plenty of rocks to skip and balance, then one of our favorite hikes up Parkman Mountain, catching up with friends, ice cream, dinner, and a surprise chance meeting with a dear, dear friend on the street!

 these two beauties were collected, then lovingly grudgingly tossed back 

when informed of the "remove no rocks policy" of the park

 he listens to the rocks

 kiss sandwich!!!

And now, summer vacation. I made it through my first teaching year! WooHoo! And as it turns out, I have a new adventure coming for the fall... I will be the school librarian at a school for 8th/9th graders in the same district as last year. This is thrilling on a couple of counts. 

 red leather chairs for reading: 

yes please.

First, middle school (early high school) students are my favorite age group. They are prickly and interesting and hilarious and it's sort of a precious time in their lives, one that can be awkward and awful sometimes. (And I love reading YA literature.) There is so much that is possible in middle-ish school that becomes harder with older high schoolers.

Second: ONE SCHOOL instead of five! One learning community that I can be part of on a day-to-day basis! Hoorah! This is quite exciting, to think of the possibilities for spur of the moment exchanges and developing relationships with teachers and students that I will see every day. I feel so lucky. And am devouring a lot of YA books this summer, which is awesome.

I visited a very venerable library in Boston this past weekend and I wasn't supposed to take pictures, but I took some before I knew... It was a librarian's geek-out holiday.

And finally, because we've had a lot of rain and gray already this summer, I wanted to show you something blue and summery. Rafter's delight and lots of silliness and the water was warm enough so I could even stay in and play and be part of the shenanigans. This was a rare moment of calm...

what happened to June: Part 2

Back in the land of cool mist and fog...

the flowers were wearing a delicate mantle of dewsparkled spider webs

so we knew for sure

it was enchanted there

A vacation in two parts. First, at Fiddlehead, a little cottage designed to look like several lobster huts put together. With a secret loft room for two scrambling boys.

Reading, rocks, and beach clean-up, listening to waves break from my bed. The crescent moon over the water. Every room looks out on the ocean. Totally relaxing.

you can tell mr. crafty was here

Summer Studio Tour :: 5

knitted scrubbies for the sink:

simple garden twine, cast on 12 and knit until it's sponge-sized

The annual rock-balancing playdate was had on our favorite beach, between Mr. CraftingMama and our dear friend Matthew from StillmanSays. It's a family past-time and we spread the joys of rock-balancing at any beach we visit that features rocks. They get started and pretty soon other beach-goers are inspired also. Summer studio is everywhere...

"silence!"

Another great production by Terra Diddle Collective, "The Phoenix Awakening," featuring our own thespian Jonas. Who plays an evil king just fabulously! He had some great choreography and I always delight in seeing him enter new roles with his zest for the dramatic.
Kathryn's sets were incredible, as always, and the natural lighting was a joy to photograph.
This is the summer studio post about what everyone else has been doing. I am still, boringly, working on that sweater sleeve. Less boringly, totally all-consuming recently, but not quite ready to photograph is the space transformation you are probably sick to death of hearing me go on about here. It's close. Very close. And it's taken most of my creative juices to produce.

Here's what's thrilling: my studio-corner-to-be has been unearthed from behind boxes of all of our books (now on bookshelves again!--librarian's heart goes pitterpat). I even saw my sewing machine back behind all those books! This idea of the corner of my own came from this post by the Yellow Door Paperie and I just fell in love with the possibility of something small and mine, even if I couldn't have a dreamy studio space. My Corner will need some work: more lighting, perhaps a small wall of a light colored paint behind it, maybe a bulletin board. I put the table in and set my sewing machine on top. It feels exciting, like new shoes. Will post pictures soon, promise.

::thanks to BeautyThatMoves for providing the space for connection through the summer studio tour!::