ON THE WAY TO JULY

I crafted my April/May goals list a couple weeks late, but it will do just as well to serve as a "Last Six Weeks of School" list.

There are not many things in life I enjoy more than organizing the scattered thoughts in my mind into a list that feels accomplishable. New Year's Day is an especially good time, as is the day or two after Easter. Starts of seasons are good, and so are birthdays, for making a fresh start. Actually, you can just give me any random Tuesday or Thursday, a few minutes of silence to gather my thoughts, and that welling in my heart of hope for all that my little life can purpose to do and to be, and I'll make a mad list to guide me for the next few weeks or months. There is never a bad time to set new goals.

Off we go this time, to transition to a new blog format, to post recipes, to take Bauer bowling, to keep writing letters, to pick summer reads and baskets to put them in, to select new pieces for memory play, and to finally get some art on our walls.

The yellow sticky sticks the question to me that the brilliant, yet humble, Sally Lloyd-Jones asked on a Read Aloud Revival podcast I listened to a couple days ago. She is my new guide for what matters most in our read-aloud time.

I've cut into sleep time lately in order to increase my time for personal reading. Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place and John McWhorter's Words on the Move have not disappointed. The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer has been my daytime reading, along with Isaiah and Psalms (slowly but surely). I'm saving the new Alexander McCall Smith book and the new Anne Lamott book for the beach trip we won't take this summer. These two latest by my two favorite authors will be much-anticipated lake reads instead.

Other much-anticipated, yet unlisted, hopes for this season:

-Finish watching "Back to Eden"
-Buy a cast iron skillet (or two)
-Buy a Demarle muffin pan (or two)
-Keep pursuing freedom with exercise
-Invite my counselor and her family to the lake
-Invite our friends Dan and Emily for dinner
-Go to Tandem a bunch of times
-Go to GB&D a bunch of times too
-Move our chicks to the coop and weed out the roosters
-Spend quality time with my sister, niece, and nephew during their May visit
-Pull any weeds in the garden as I see them making their appearance
-Keep my eyes peeled for the first figs making their appearance

And soon it will be time for waterskiing, watermelon, ribs, Mike's hard lemonade, all-you-can-eat figs, dirty kids, piles of wet towels, warm nights, fans as we sleep, and all things summer. Thank you, Jesus, for July.