Author's Note: I've missed blogging recently. I've missed sharing my vignettes of small living and hearing what's happening for those of you out there having grand adventures with wee footprints. I knew it had been a while, but when I looked back to see when I last posted I was startled that it was late June, which means I skipped summer, an entire season! It's the longest hiatus I've taken from blogging since I started up six years ago. The summer of 2014 I was Doing Life and I took a pause for The Lost Months: September & October 2016. I realized the reason I for this pause was that I did a round of The Artist's Way with my community mates this summer. The time I typically devote to blogging - the blue hour (that snatch of time before dawn when the world is still waking up) - I was writing morning pages instead. Basically the journaling I usually do outloud I was doing in my notebook instead. I imagine that with all the other things to see, do, and hear this summer you probably didn't notice my absence, but I just wanted to say "hi" again and let you know that I'm here and curious to see how journaling outloud fits into my life these days!
Our garden was prolific this summer, much to the delight of this green bean monster!
Hello again! I hope you had a splendid summer! This summer was such a lovely season in my good little life, beginning with my annual business retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs with my college roommate and wrapping up with our wedding! (More on that in Our Sweet, Simple, Co-Created Wedding!)
In June I started up a part-time contract position working with Green Hammer, a local sustainable design-build company, which has been a fascinating experience. I got to know many of the team members when working on The Breathe Building a couple years ago. The project I'm working on will likely continue for several more months, which is a nice anchor for energy and attention. I've particularly enjoyed getting to see how Green Hammer does its design work and I look forward to seeing what they do next!
Meanwhile, since everyone in our community, Going Places, loves gardening we got right to it this spring, which means that this summer we had an incredible veggie and flower garden all around us. We shared most of our community meals - which take place 3 times per week with rotating cooks - on the back deck of the common house.
We took Isha's niece to Oak's Park Amusement park during her visit at the beginning of July and watched he fireworks show from the top of the ferris wheel!
In July Isha's mom and niece came to stay with us for a week and I made My Annual Pilgrimage to the Oregon Country Fair. After spending three birthdays in a row at Yestermorrow teaching a two-week Tiny House Design-Build course, this year I switched to the March-April course, so I was home this year for my 34th bday which was awesome! Isha threw me a surprise party (getting everyone together while I was at what I thought was my bday surprise - a massage! Does he know how to do it right or what?!) It was fabulous to be surrounded by so many great people for a backyard cook out, taking advantage of our new grill! My college pal Alison who lives in Boston managed to make it because she was in town that week and my best friend from high school Kiley and her husband and sister-in-law came down from Seattle. The other time I'd had a surprise party Kiley traveled from out of town to be there and I was seventeen then, so that was literally half a lifetime ago!
This is a shot of the dear friends who gathered up for my surprise 34th birthday party! What a great highlight of a great summer!
At the beginning of August I turned my cottage in Walla Walla over to new tenants. (Oh, The Joys of Homeownership!) A couple weeks later Christian and Alexis from Tiny House Expedition spent the day filming at Going Places. We hope the footage is useful for their next film about community! I visited my fairy godfamily in Corvallis for the solar eclipse and, since they were in the path of totality, we were able to see All The Things. My favorite aspect was seeing the bats flit about for a minute in the middle of the morning! Isha had a conference in Seattle in late August so I tagged along and we added an extra day to visit with old friends.
Throughout all of this, we were wedding planning for our Sweet, Simple, Co-Created Wedding at the end of September, so most of that lovely month is a bit of a happy blur! I'll share more about that in my next post and sign off for now since the blue hour is brightening and breakfast is ready. Time to make it a great day!