A moment of girliness

Please allow this moment of girliness (yeah, because a blog about cats, knitting, and my love of the BBC has been so butch up until this point).

I don't really enjoy summer as much as the general population seems to. I really, really love fall, so I look at summer as sort of a fall prep-time. The hotter it gets I think, "Oh, this is going to make those cool fall nights feel so refreshing!" The blue skies and white puffy clouds and green trees are beautiful but they make me think, "How great are grey skies and orange leaves going to look in a few months?!" But the one thing I unabashedly love about this time of year are peonies. There are some planted on campus by where I park my car and my coworker usually brings some in for our service desk and my neighbor has some in her yard. And every time I walk by a peony I sniff it and tell it it's beautiful. Because it is! Peonies are beautiful!




 
They are also perfect wedding flowers. I have always imagined my perfect wedding as a Tuesday afternoon at the courthouse just me, my fiance, our parents, siblings, and 1-2 best friends each. I think that sounds lovely. But the weather has been so beautiful and so June-y and the peonies are so pretty that I've come up with a new dream wedding. It's actually based on a night I had last summer where I went to hear a friend's band play. We were outside, under the night sky, crickets were chirping, the band was playing under a little tent with twinkle lights hanging up. I was walking around barefoot through the grass in a sundress with a cup of keg beer in my hand and I remember thinking, "This is summer. This is as good as summer gets." So if I ever get married (dudes, I'm not even dating anybody right now) and if my fiance objects to my Tuesday courthouse plan (for the record, my mother definitely objects to that plan) this is my backup plan: Summer evening in a big field of grass under a white tent with twinkle lights, crickets chirping, a bluegrass band, kegs of beer, bottles of wine, and loads of peonies everywhere. I'll be barefoot in a white sundress and I'll be thinking, "This is my summer wedding. How much fun is it going to be thinking back on this while I'm wearing a sweater in the fall!"

Just a happy little daydream for a Friday.

Vacation Dreaming

I. am. busy. I am not complaining, because truly wonderful, amazing, thought-they'd-never-happen, things are happening to me and I love it. But my body and mind are weary and I just tried to pour instant coffee into my travel mug without removing the lid. Dumb

(Side note: I don't like instant coffee usually, but via is actually pretty damn good and has saved me on more than one sleepy afternoon.)

And as I work steadily away and run errands and exercise and get up too early and work too late into the night and can't sleep once I get into bed I find my mind wondering to a happy place. And if I can't go there right now, at least I can indulge myself and take myself on a short, written vacation.

To a place

Where I can leisurely drink mug after mug of coffee in my pj's on a deck with a book and my journal near by.

Where the air is cool in the morning and cool in the evening and warm and breezy in the middle of the day.

Where I can relax and drink a smoothie on a sunny porch and talk with friends.

Where I can take a mid-day snooze in my bathing suit next to Lake Michigan.



Where I can cook outside and laugh with my family.

Where we can sip beer with limes in it late into the night.


Where I can curl up with my book and listen to the bugs and animals of Northern Michigan through an open window and fall asleep whenever I get drowsy.


I swear to you I can hear the waves of the lake and they are saying, "Soon.Sooooon. Soon."

(none of these images are mine (sadly) and are all linked to their source)