The school term is almost over, and I’m taking July and August off, so hel-lo summer!

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this one. Last year I planned to read a lot of Madeleine L’Engle (done), and practice my harp (not done). Really, I think the harp is a lost cause. Kind of like the singing. It’s no good unless you have somewhere to do it, and I live in Claremont.

I do know that we plan to go strawberry picking, and I’m going to try canning some jam. I’m pretty excited about this. We’re also picking away at constructing our first garden this summer, so that next spring all we’ll have to do is plant. It’s going to start small, but we’ll add new sections each season for use the following year. This will keep costs manageable - our yard slopes dramatically, so we have to build retaining walls.

Of course I’m going to do a lot of reading, but I don’t have an author picked out this time. Over the course of the last twelve months I’ve read a bunch of James Fenimore Cooper, Madeleine L’Engle, and Pearl Buck, with the usual smattering of CS Lewis, two months’ worth of the awful Terry Goodkind (I am never taking a book recommendation from Jeremy ever again), and some random others interspersed throughout. That’s pretty respectable, considering I also threw a gigantic party, had two surgeries, went to Singapore, worked full time, and took four classes. So yeah, I’m pretty proud of myself. Reading is something I manage to keep up with no matter what. Now if only it paid. . .

I just finished Heart of Darkness (not sure I totally got it, I’m more of a pre-twentieth century gal), and right now I’m working on Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year. The rest of my summer is open, any suggestions?

We have a few projects and goals for the summer, other than strawberries and jam. A few weeks ago we transplanted a tree to a new home in front of the garage; we’re not sure yet if it’s going to make it, though. Last weekend we erected a post at the end of the driveway, hung two flower baskets off it, and pinned up some house numbers. It looks beautiful, but so suburban. I’m not sure whether to puff out my chest, or laugh at us pretentious snobs! It’s nice to work on little two-hour projects and get some immediate results, instead of projects that take a year or more. Ahhhhh.

We also have three sungold tomato plants in planters in front of the garage. Jeremy tried to kill them last weekend, but it looks like they triumphed, and we’re hoping for a bumper crop. Those things taste like candy, man.

In a couple of weeks, we’re going to Maine for a cookout. We’ll probably spend Independence Day here and go to the Freedom Fest Jeremy’s church puts on in the town square every year. Feel free to join us! Come for a visit, I have time to cook now. A couple of weeks after that, Jeremy is going white water rafting with my family in NY, don’t know if I’ll tag along to visit. I won’t go in the water with my pump after the brief nightmare in Singapore, and rafting is a pretty lengthy event, so it isn’t really an option for me. Of course, the pump is also a convenient excuse - I don’t have to worry about deciding if I have the guts to do such a thing!

Oh, and we’re going to try living without air conditioning this summer, as much as we possibly can (except when we have guests, don’t be afraid to visit!). We have new blinds with a 4.6 R-value, which should help. The crawlspace under the new half of the house also seems to be keeping us significantly cooler than we’ve been with the full basement in previous years. Of course, it’s on the shady side of the house. And, we have casement windows in the new bedroom, which almost rules out an air conditioner entirely. We’ll see how it goes.