Summertime and the Livin' is Easy

The only difference between an extraordinary life and an ordinary one is the extraordinary pleasures you find in ordinary things.

Veronique Vienne, author of The Art of Doing Nothing and The Art of Imperfection

It's summertime and the porch-sitting is easy. Some of my dear readers may think I've gone AWOL for the past week or so due to the lack of blog posts. The time has been spent in an air-conditioned house sitting in a rocking chair quilting contently; driving along country roads to explore a new-found quilt shop and driving along the lakeshore to a cozy wool shop; taking a stroll with my canine friend Handsome and meandering through the farmers market with Dad early on Saturday mornings; making a rhubarb pie with just a hint of almond and a blueberry-raspberry pie infused with lemon, vanilla and cinnamon; and inhaling at the drama of sudden thunderstorms that brew, boil, crash, and dissipate in minutes, taking the scorching temperatures away with them as they went.

Through it all I thought, "This isn't anything that would interest my readers -- this is all stuff they've seen before." And so the blog sat silent. I've since had an attitude re-adjustment. As a result, un-interestingly ordinary or not, I post one of today's precious, ordinary moments as the afternoon sun sparkled through the patio curtain, warming the family gathered at S-I-L's.

Perhaps my lack of blog activity is due, in part, to the record-setting highs that we've been experiencing for the past week. Louis Armstrong's horn captures perfectly the laid-back, soporific feeling that comes over me with the rising temperatures in his and Ella Fitzgerald's rendition of Gershwin's "Summertime".