Journal Pages

Not everything I choose to write is appropriate for public consumption.  I know! Some of what I write here, in public, isn't appropriate, either. So kind of you to notice!!! You can just imagine how: choose those that apply; boring, TMI (too much info, think Dr Oz poop) or too personal, the written stuff is, if I find it inappropriate to share.

The pages pictured have index pictures pasted to the outside edges.  After cleaning the dining room, I had a large pile of many years of a favorite magazine, now discontinued.  The content index had small pictures from feature stories.  Little vignette of charming rooms, gardens, artists.  I liked them and am very pleased to have them on my journal pages so I can enjoy looking at them for years to come.  The pictures frame my written additions and the narrowed width of the page, suits my writing style.

 I wonder sometimes who will read these many journals in the next 50 years?  Or will the journals simply be added to the recycling container after my death?  I DO see myself reading them in my old (older) age.  And perhaps I will be the one putting them in the recycling container after I read them.  The journals contain so many plans and ideas.  Little sketches.  Drawings of chairs.

I finished a "less than interesting" new book last night.  I have many, many of the romances written by this author and the ones from the past 10 years have been VERY disappointing.  Authors now think nothing of publishing what I consider to be an outline of the story.  Underdeveloped characters, dialogue and plot.  They are skipping the novel and going directly to the Cliff Notes version.  I tend to choose the first novel of new authors now.  They, at least, try to give the reader a good read.

G is out cutting the grass trying to get done before 10:30.  Today is going to be a scorcher.  We don't have central air.  So when it's hot outside, it's generally hot inside.  I use all the skills learned as a child. Open windows at night to cool the house.  Close all windows in the morning and close blinds and curtains to keep the house as dark as possible.  Open one window on the coolest side of the house to work as a drafting device.  Open and close doors as little as possible.  Use fans to circulate air.

We have one small window A/C unit and it is in the kitchen area or great room.  We eat, use the computer, read the paper here and this is where the dog spends the majority of his time.  We use the AC unit to remove humidity from the house which makes life much more comfortable around here. It also makes it possible for us to have home cooked meals in the summer.

 When I was a child we had a deep, cold basement.  That was where we played in the heat of the afternoon, watched television when it was invented and worked.  It's where I ironed all the family clothing every summer afternoon as a teenager.  It's also where the deep wash sinks and the extra stove was located in my grandmother's house.  The sinks and the stove were used when we canned food.  My grandmother would fill the deep zinc sinks with bushels of peaches and can so many jars of fruit for the winter months.  Cherries were picked off the neighbor's tree and canned. At the far back of the basement the cold cellar was located.  It was usually damp and musty.  Filled with glass canning jars and wooden crates of stored root vegetables and spiders.  The canned cherries looked like jars full of fish eyes to young, imaginative, children.  Lots of screaming.  Good times.

I purchased 3 small winterberry shrubs yesterday and a nice sized purple smokebush.  I have to go move them to a cooler location and water them until we have time to plant.  I don't think today is a good planting day.