MISTY'S MORNINGS

And so it happens every year.  Mid-May the lazy days of summer stretch endlessly before me and I wonder how we will fill our aimless days.  Mid-June arrives and time seems to be flying by too quickly.  When I was a teacher I loved the month of June but by the 4th of July my thoughts began turning toward bulletin boards, new students and the need to begin lesson planning for August.  Now that I do not have a classroom to decorate or lessons to plan, I look forward to the month of July as the absolute pinnacle of summertime. Half of June is taken up by learning to settle down (I do have three very active boys) and settle into the new rhythm  of obligation-free days.  I must admit to having had a few fond memories of quiet schooldays during the first week of having all three boys around home.  But then the magic begins to happen.    They start to find their own quiet pastimes and to occupy themselves because they know there is nothing spectacular planned every moment of every day

This past Monday my husband and I were able to sneak away (leaving a babysitter in our stead) to go out for dinner with his boss, a prominent client and their wives.  I tell you this because it so rarely happens and was kind of a big deal. As a stay at home mom for a solid decade now, I found myself across the table from two very elegant and accomplished older women.  One, a beautiful French woman who once owned a home decor shop, organized charity events and now is a Master Gardener; the other a successful businesswoman with no children of her own who has spent years jet-setting to high-profile fashion events and perfecting her admirable career.  Twenty and ten years younger (respectively) than these women, I mostly listened and nodded, smiling at their stories of their favorite island vacation spots, cities in which to go shopping and far-flung summer travel plans. As a former high-school teacher who hasn't held a paying position in eleven years, there was not much I could

Mid-way through my morning coffee yesterday I looked up from the book I was reading on my deck and my gaze fell upon my new potted hibiscus tree.  There were no open blooms but three buds that were clearly beginning to open. I wondered how long that process would take. By the time I finished my coffee (and had a second cup), the blooms were only partially opened, like a vase, flaring gently at the top, a glimpse of invitation to passing pollinators. Later that evening my boys tumbled outside to run through the sprinklers and create a new type of tag ~ water tag. Iced coffee in hand I stepped outside to supervise and prevent the need for (another) trip to the ER. Glancing across to the hibiscus I was rewarded with three wide-open palms of variegated blossoms. And there at the center, like a bumble bee bullseye, was a mini bloom of crimson . sharing with   52 Photos Project

 My first month of using the Project 365 app.  Since I'll never be a scrapbooker this is a fun way to record our days. Listening to The playlists are changing in our family.  During the past school year my boys have begun downloading their own music preferences onto their devices.  Now every time we get in the van, one of them announces that he will be the DJ during the drive and selects his favorite songs to share with the rest of us.  I must say they have greatly broadened my musical horizons and I freely admit to being stuck in a rut between Maroon 5 and Zac Brown Band. Thanks to my boys I have begun listening to some fun new music: The Script, Imagine Dragons, and that hair-bandish song by Fall Out Boy which has become the theme for the Stanley Cup playoffs (go Hawks).   Of course all this downloading has created interesting observations by my boys about how many songs have explicit lyrics (which they cannot download) and they really think musicians should clean up th