Summah, Summah, Summah

Can someone please explain why it takes seven years to crawl through January but summer races by in seven days?

We’ve never been much for taking trips or camping, but it’s been a lovely summer here at home.

The Love Shack

I am blessed with a cozy and colourful writing space in my home, but it’s hard to focus when every time you walk away from your desk, you see jobs to be done. Right? So I carved out a two-day writing retreat for myself in my sister and brother-in-law’s “Love Shack.” It’s a gorgeous screened-in log hut they built beneath the trees in their park-like yard in the country. Wendy and Dale are incredibly hospitable. They cooked for me and pampered me, took me to the beach when it became too hot to work, and helped me try kayaking for the first time. (I am certifiably as athletic as a doorknob, so the fact that I didn’t capsize tells me I should quit while ahead.)

They ran power to the Love Shack so I could work on my laptop, mosquito-free and with a serene view of the birds and their feeders. When I returned home, my second novel was 10,000 words longer than when I arrived. And you can’t beat the price!

I told Dale and Wendy they should go into business as a bed and breakfast for authors and that I may want to repeat this every summer.

The Replacements

I’ve been relaxing on our deck(beneath the fake flowers) reading the script for “Arsenic and Old Lace” in which I’ll play “Elaine” with the Prairie Players in November. Our director called to inform me she recast the leading man (who plays my character’s love interest) because he’s being transferred out of town. 

The next day, I received an email from the Femfest producer in Winnipeg letting me know one of the actors in my play, “Irony: A Tragic Comedy about Life and Death,” has been recast as well.

“This does not bode well for you,” I told my husband. “All the leading men in my life are being replaced.”

He was not amused.

Why don’t our family members find us funny? Our kids used to roll their eyes at my attempted humour. When they matured, they generously began allotting me about one “Good one, Mom” per month. But laughter? Forget it. That’s a prize my husband reserves for the truly hysterical, like Garfield. Sometimes when he’s reading the Herald Leader and I hear him chuckling, I look over his shoulder to see if he’s enjoying my column.

But no. He’s on the comics page. Sigh.

The Flowers

Well, it’s official. I am an old lady.

I always said I’d know I was old when I put fake flowers in my yard, and that day has arrived. But doggone it, what choice did I have? In spite of all my religious watering and dead-heading of petunias all summer, most of them looked spindly and ugly by mid-August. What’s up with that? After I pulled them out, one pot was left with nothing but bright green sweet potato vine, which still looked great. So I threw in some fake purple and orange daisies for color. 

Next step: saving scraps of used Saran Wrap.

An Excellent Western Carnival

Many thanks to Portage Evangelical Church for another terrific carnival on Saturday. Our grandsons loved it! God bless you for giving this free gift of family fun to your community. I wouldn’t want to add up the man-hours involved!

I hope your summer has been perfectly delightful and that you’ve been able to do some of the things you enjoy with people you love at a price you can afford.