Long May She Wave

Our neighbor Harold (who every Christmas puts up the star on our mountain - read about it here), has enriched our July this year.

The morning of the 4th of July

Yes, that's an enormous flag you see there, hanging in one of our canyons. (My understanding is it is hanging on parachute rope, and it was quite a feat to get it up there.) It can be seen for miles. What a thrill it is to look up at the mountain and see it waving in the wind. It makes my heart sing. 

Thank you Harold!

Roses in Moonlight by Lynn Kurland

Light, formulaic romance - completely clean as to language and sex. Lynn's books are a nice break for me.

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

This man can write! I don't know where to start, there are so many things I loved about this book.

I'll just say this: this morning I decided I would read while on the treadmill. Before I knew it, I closed the book (finished) and discovered I was turning the corner on four and a half miles.

Schmidt weaves a great story with consummate skill. He is subtle and just lets the aha! moments slip right in among the rest of the story. He draws the characters by their actions and conversations. All emotions are appealed to without feeling "played" by the author.

I could go on forever. Bottom line: read this book. It's excellent.

Other books I've read by Gary D. Schmidt: The Wednesday Wars, and Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. Both excellent as well.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

My friend Jennifer recommended this book. She said, "It's kind of funny."  She was right on the money.

This is the story of Allan Karlsson. On his 100th birthday, he decides to run away from the Senior rest home he lives in. He climbs out the window and disappears. That happens on the very first page. The rest of the book is about his adventures once he climbs out the window, and the story of the rest of his life up until that time interwoven throughout. Allan led a very unusual and at many times very exciting life.

The story is told in an almost whimsical manner. I giggled through parts of it, and enjoyed the whole book. I would never have chosen to read this book on my own. In fact, I almost returned it to the library without even reading it. I decided to give it a try because of Jennifer's recommendation. I'm glad I read it.

June Report

Oops! June ended and here it is already the 4th of July. Here's how I fared in June:

1. First Things First: I'm trying to step up the exercise and eat fairly clean this summer. We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile this is a "just keep plugging away and trying to be better" category of life.

2. Photo Labeling and Scanning: I have a pile of photos to scan. They've been there for quite a while. They'll be done in the next two weeks.

3. Household organization: I work on this in my head all the time. Somehow that makes me feel like I'm actually doing it, then I look around and realize no, still just in my head. I have kept up on the weeds in my vegetable garden. I organized my downstairs bathroom closet. We had a lot of company coming and going - that's my excuse.

4. Projects: I cleaned out a bunch of files. I did not get the other items done on my list.

Here's my feeling about my June lists: oh well. I was busy with a lot of things, not much of which can easily be cataloged. That's okay! It was a good month for people, which is all important to me. So overall I feel great about things.