Tired on the porch...

 

Busy summer here on my old porch. Kids and dogs, family and friends, wasps and even a snake have kept me hopping! M and kids last night. We all ate Chinese then I slept with the baby and Lila in the pink room. M and I went to the salvage store where she bought a bargain food processor. The baby, she is two now but everyone still calls her baby, is so precious. She is smiley with dimples and so loving. She saw toys in the store but said," I don't need em, Gran, I have toys at home." She studied each toy so intensely but walked away. We shopped too long and Papa burned the chicken...M could not stop laughing when he had no answer to the question, "Why didn't you just turn off the grill?" Funny stuff...
Oh, the snake slithered between my feet while I took several pictures of this old garden chair!

I'm reading The Wolf Gift by Ann Rice upstairs and In One Person by John Irving for book club as my down stairs book. Both books need to get better. Rice's book doesn't have her usual pizzazz...slow and stilted. Irving's book is making me walk in a pair of stilettos. Ouch!

I must set up the tea service on the porch...

K (4year old grand girl) is on her way to visit Granny from Texas. I always have a tea service set up on a wicker table on the old front porch. Candles lit, cloth napkins, crumpets...she will say, "I would like a spot of tea, please." Her entourage includes my middle daughter, her Mom, her Dad and her 9 & 7 years old brothers.

Question # 15. Where could I work less and achieve more?  Martha Beck says that to spend more time practicing your passion, minimize everything else. Get creative to find more time in your life and more life in your time.
I know that if I could get myself organized, make better use of my time, chuck some junk, drop something every day, I could minimize the time I spend taking care of my home, self, family. I take so much time doing the basics that I don't give myself enough time to photog, read, bike, explore, create my art. I start, stop, become distracted by anything that sparkles and never really get things done. It does not help that I was born messy. My girls all left for college and my hubby noticed the house was still a mess, "All this time, it was you!" he said. So I think I need to simplify my stuff so I can create!

Where have I been???

I have been so busy...but that is no excuse for not writing on my porch. I hope I get back to it. I have just, with my other half (really, somehow, I am half of a whole) painted my bedroom, changed up the decor and painted my dinette. Done some cleaning, tried to throw some stuff out, organized a couple of drawers. I do not like to do housework. I was so glad that I worked for those 21 years just so I had an excuse not to keep up the house. The hardest part of this retirement adventure is that I have no excuse for not doing things I never wanted to do...like cleaning and organizing. I could live in a one room house with no storage. My dream house has always been a converted old barn...who knew? Another thing about those working years of mine, it forced me to be social, now nothing pushes me to be social. I think I better work at  socializing...I could hibernate in my one room barn with good books, camera, some paint and canvas, my laptop, flannel pjs, an occasional movie...