I read about Canoe in The Insider’s Guide to Atlanta so I was expecting a nice restaurant with good food. I was not prepared for one of the most beautiful settings I’ve been to as well as fabulously good food. We arrived at dusk, and it had been raining and drizzling for a while. Sarah opted to eat on the covered porch which was a great choice. It overlooks the Chattahoochee River and beautifully landscaped gardens and paths along the river. Fog hung over the river giving the whole place an eerie, romantic feel. “J”, our gracious and jovial waiter, gave Sarah a lesson in wine tasting, and great recommendations for both entrees and dessert. The presentation of the food was as lovely as the setting. Very romantic place; worthy of a return trip.

Last summer it was cold (good for summer school) and cloudy. My flowers didn’t do well, and we hardly had any for bouquets. This summer has been very hot (bad for summer school), but great for flowers. Here are a few that are blooming on our patio in pots or in our gardens. We’ve had a pitcher of flowers on the table almost constantly since the Fourth of July.

 

   

   

 

Hibiscus

Gerber Daisy

Day Lily

 

   

   

   

 

Martha Washington Geranium

Desert Rose

Hydrangea

 

   

   

   

 

Geranium

Petunias

Zinnia

I’ve been stuck and uninspired recently. I can’t quite come up with a reason, but it’s been hard to think about writing for the blog, creating a scrapbook page, or doing much creative. I have been keeping up with the journaling, and I’ve made a bunch of cards, but that’s about it.

I was just about ready to get started on the blog again and then my daughter went to the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico and started posting some of the most beautifully written entries I’ve know her to write. She’s a wonderful writer, but the Ghost Ranch inspires her deep reflection and the language she uses is so wonderful. It’s very interesting to be intimidated by your daughter!

Summer school ends tomorrow and then we’re headed south; first to Atlanta to visit with Sarah and Adam both of whom will be home (briefly in Sarah’s case) for a few days. Then we’re off to Beaufort, NC for four days at the Delamar Inn and time to explore the Outer Banks, golf, sightsee, and sit by the sea. I am really ready for a rest. I’m looking forward to the scrapbook shopping at Archiver’s, organizational shopping at The Container Store as well as checking out all the little shops I’ve been reading about in the Insider’s Guide to North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Although summer school takes up half my day there is still time for the pleasures of summer:

• Top on my list is lunch with my friends. During the school year I have about 25 minutes to gulp down my lunch, check e-mail, and go to the bathroom. This summer I have caught up with many of my friends over leisurely lunches. It’s such a treat.
• Sitting on our patio. We have new, and very comfortable, patio furniture, lovely flowers, and a country-like setting in the city. Although it’s been too hot to eat on the patio most days, we have breakfast on the patio and sometimes it cools down enough to sit and read after dinner. One beautiful Sunday I spent two hours reading the papers and a book. Luxury!
• Time to read blogs, the message board at 2Peas, and check out all the layouts in the gallery at 2Peas without feeling guilty about the time it’s taking. Having time to do what you feel like is a real pleasure of summer.
• Traveling. As soon as summer school ends, we’ll be on a road trip. I love driving with my husband (unless he is tailgating!). We’re off to see Sarah in Atlanta and when we leave there we’re going to explore the lakes along the Georgia/Tennessee border and visit Cincinnati and Columbus–two cities from my past. I’m anxious to see how they’ve changed.
• Reading. I’ve actually read two magazines cover-to-cover the day they arrived this week. I’m almost through Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat and I’ve learned a lot. Once again it’s time I just don’t seem to have during the school year.
• Scrapbooking and organizing. Sarah says I have a organizational disease which is probably true. I love to organize and it does help me keep track of all my stuff. Once I got my study all redone, I’ve kept up pretty well with my summer goals for finishing layouts. Now I have to figure out how to be consistently productive when the school year starts.

The pleasures of summer. . . I suppose they are even more appreciated here because our winters can seem so long and dreary. This summer we’ve had almost continuous sunshine — just another pleasure.

We spent Saturday with good friends at their cottage on Canandaigua Lake. It’s one of New York’s beautiful Finger Lakes. What a relaxing and enjoyable time we had! Wonderful food, a boat ride, good conversation. When I was growing up we moved several times. The longest I lived in any place was nine years. Now I’ve lived in this house for 20 years and I have friends I’ve known for 32 years. Seems amazing to me, but it’s a good thing.

Rochester hosts several arts festivals each year. One of my favorites is the one in Corn Hill, a wonderful neighborhood of restored homes across the Genesee River from our house. This year Tracy and I decided to walk. It was a picture-perfect day-hot but breezy, low humidity, and lots of glorious sunshine. Walking had several advantages: we had our exercise out of the way first thing, we had to limit any purchases to things we were willing to carry home, and it extended the pleasure of the day.  We ended up buying a bonsai for Matt and the very last poster from the 2004 Corn Hill Arts Festival which I wished I had bought last year. Here are a few photos, including one of the Rochester skyline from the Ford Street Bridge.

       

Two days of summer school have come and gone. I am always glad once things are underway. Summer school is a real change for me, as I am the administrator rather than the teacher. I’m in charge of making sure everyone has what they want and/or need, that parents understand the attendance policy, that buses come and go on time, and children get where they need to go. I enjoy the challenges of the administrative role for the summer, but I would never want to trade it for the teaching job I do during the regular school year. It’s interesting, however, how a title gives you the aura of power. Children respond so differently to me during the summer when I’m the “principal” than during the year when I’m just another teacher. Even the kids who know me first as a teacher during the year, give me a different level of respect during the summer.

Among the many pleasures are the great people I get to work with from other buildings and all the people I’ve come to know in different departments in the rather large school district where I work. I count as friends bus drivers, purchasing experts, administrators, office staff–people I would barely know if not for this summer job. I also like the opportunity to work, but not to plan for instruction and not to have to grade papers and write reports on children’s progress. It’s good to have a change of pace.

Sometimes it is amusing. Yesterday (Tuesday) my secretary called all the parents of the students who didn’t show up. We have a very strict attendance policy where parents agree to have their children present for the five week, half day program. If you go on vacation for a week, the child loses his/her spot to someone on the waiting list. So my secretary talked to a father who said his daughter was in Vietnam this week with her mother visiting relatives. When Deb explained to him that his daughter’s place would be given to someone else next week if she didn’t come this week, he said he’d call and see if he could have her here by Thursday! I’m not expecting her.

I decided to set a goal for scrapbooking this summer:  five one-page
layouts a week. I also decided to try 8 1/2 by 11 layouts for random
photographs that aren’t part of a themed scrapbook. I came too late to
scrapbooking to deal with chronological scrapbooks, so I’ve finished
scrapbooks on our southwest trip, our annual vacations on Kiawah, a
favorites album, a mini-album on an afternoon at the Atlanta Botanical
Gardens during a Dale Chihuly exhibition, and a couple of paperbag
albums.  So here are a few of my first layouts for the summer. I’m
having a bit of trouble taking photos of the layouts. Maybe the scanner
would be better but it’s not hooked up to my iBook. The Faces layout is
a blatant scraplift from Cathy Zielske’s wonderful book Clean and Simple Scrapbooking.
My eyes are drawn to her layouts in every idea book or magazine where
she is featured. Clean and simple is a goal, but I’m finding it doesn’t
necessarily mean easier or faster, although scraplifting does help.
I’ve finished nine layouts this week!

 

 

Sarah was here for four days. She came home to preach her first church sermon at the invitation of the First Presbyterian Church in Honeoye Falls, NY. She worked there for two years as Director of Christian Education before heading off to seminary. It is a wonderful and warm congregation, a great place for a first sermon. As always she was poised and articulate and asked hard questions. She asks no more of her audience than she asks of herself. I am constantly amazed by the depth of thought and questioning she and her friends pose. (Check her side bar for a list of great blogs.) What a pleasure to hear her preach-and how proud we all are!