Crossed off of our Summer To-Do list so far: we’ve had sundaes, a trip to the Drive-In, a sprinkler run, pool time, park visits, dinners on the screened-in porch most nights, catching lightening bugs only to let them go, grilling out, and farmer’s market fruits and veggies. In between has been a very busy time at work and a lot of changes at home as we get ready for this baby we have waited so long to meet.

The last of the pre-baby no. 2 Paper Boat Photography shoots are complete. Once those edits are finished, I hope to:

*Make these bangles with my girl featured by Delighted Momma.

*Print a tote bag like the this one from Sweet Paul.

*Document a week in our lives just for us. For inspiration and info on how to do this, there’s no better source than Ali Edwards.

*Read Paul Theroux’s The Tao of Travel which I picked up at The Morris Bookshop after reading Theroux’s essay in the Financial Times.

*Put up a clothesline in the backyard. How can you not after seeing images like these from Tec Petaja or paintings like these from Jonathan Green.

*Update the Paper Boat galleries and goals.

What’s on your Summer To Do List?

I’ve been reading What There Is To Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell edited by Suzanne Marrs {in the photograph above}. I love Maxwell’s letter to Welty about reading the first three pages of Welty’s June Recital despite being interrupted by the chores of the day:

“…I went on reading, stopping once to take the folding chair out into the yard, lay a fire, and get the stepladder and take some things to the attic…and then having done all these things without my mind, rushed back to your book. At one point I was aware that I was holding my breath, a thing I don’t ever remember doing before, while reading, and what I was holding my breath for is lest I might disturb something in nature, a leaf that was about to move, a bird, a wasp, a blade of grass caught between other blades of grass and about to set itself free. And then farther on I said to myself, this writing is corrective, meaning of course for myself and all other writers, and almost at the end I said reverently This is how one feels in the presence of a work of art, and finally, in the last paragraph, when the face came through, there was nothing to say. You had gone as far as there is to go and then taken one step farther.” -William Maxwell to Eudora Welty, August 24, 1949. p. 25

Lots of sorting and organizing, photo editing and {hopefully} writing to be done here. Until then, here are a few photography links I keep returning to visit:
*The coolest, most romantic interactive photo by Jamie Beck called The Kettle Can Wait.
*This gorgeous maternity session from Gabriel Ryan.
*Family session loveliness from Tara Whitney.

Listening:
Adele – 21
Raphael Saadiq – Stone Rollin‘
Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part 2
Matt Duncan – Beacon

I saw this recently and it jumped off the page:

“Arthur Hays Sulzberger was the publisher of The New York Times during the second World War. Because of the world conflict, he found it almost impossible to sleep. He was never able to banish worries from his mind until he adopted as his motto these five words – ‘one step is enough for me’ – taken from the hymn Lead Kindly Light.

…God isn’t going to let you see the distant scene either. So you might as well quit looking for it. He promises a lamp unto your feet, not a crystal ball into the future. We do not need to know what will happen tomorrow. We only need to know he leads us and ‘we will find grace to help us when we need it.’”
-Max Lucado from Traveling Light p. 52.

It is a beautiful book and you don’t need to be a fan of her music or her father’s to enjoy. I wish I could re-do the cover art. It’s a fine photograph, but even the edgy font doesn’t fit the tone of the book which is quiet, thoughtful and contemplative. She had me on the first page when she describes the day she was born.

“My mother only had two dresses that fit her in late pregnancy, she told me, and in her final month, during the most summerlike of the sultry late spring days in East Memphis, she would sit on the steps of the front porch and eat an entire washbasin of cherry tomatoes. It was her one craving.”

She makes really great choices about what to include, which to me is the hallmark of good writing. Highly recommended read.

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

He is new to me thanks to an article in The Believer.

Listening to him read his poems is like sitting on my parents porch in the low country on a summer night.

Click here for his latest collection called Romey’s Order.

Trish Keenan of the band Broadcast passed away this week. I’m sad to have only now discovered their music. I particularly like this song called The Booklovers.

I almost went to undergrad at UGA. I wasn’t attracted to Athens for the football. For me, it was about music. Georgia gave us R.E.M and The Indigo Girls. Now, Athens has given us Modern Skirts. Not bad, dawgs, not bad. Click here for a preview. I hear a lot of influences- Ben Folds, She & Him, The Beach Boys, Nico. Good stuff there.

If you follow my Twitter feed, you know I’ve been enjoying these remixes from Cut Chemist. Each one is about an hour long. It’s great to have on while you clean, edit, sort, etc.

*Love these photo calendars from Minted.com.

*I received one of these personalized desk calendars from Tiny Prints for Christmas and I love it!

*Been wanting to try out Paper Culture.  Love their clean design.

*We’re catching up on missed episodes of No Reservations thanks to Netflix. {We have been cable free for over a year without really noticing much of a difference.} His episodes on Rome, Paris, The Caribbean and Madrid are my favorites.

*Speaking of clear water, one of my favorite photographers, Jose Villa, posted these images from my all-time favorite place in the world, St. John.  The shoot even features a Sunfish.  I’ve wanted a Sunfish since I was 7 years old.  I leave this link here to have a happy place to click on.

*I finished watching Season 1 of Brick City. If every American cared about their community as much as Cory Booker, and was as willing to work for their neighbor as hard as he does, it would be a different day. He’s an inspiration. No one should be allowed to criticize him until they’ve put in the work. He challenges me to be a better American. The question I must ask myself is, “how do I make my community better?”

*Jason Schwartzman and his wife welcomed a baby. He filmed a trip to the record store to pick out albums for the nursery.  {Hat tip to Tara Whitney for this discovery.} He says a few curse words in the video. Sorry. I like this video because it reminded me of how much I dreamed about what it would be like to be a parent 6 years ago.  I bought things while I was pregnant that she is just now enjoying, but I guess that’s part of it…the fantasy of getting to share the things that you love with your child and the reality that they will have some different interests.  It’s very sweet though. I recently heard an NPR interview with Jason talking about his mom that was so endearing to me.  My favorite part:

GROSS: Did your uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, screen movies for you?

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN: Yeah. Well, my mom I’ll just say really quickly, I love her because, you know, people will ask me like did your mom encouraged you to be an actor? Were you forced into it? And the truth is no. But, at a young age, what I really did witness, because she never forced it upon us, but I witnessed how movies and music can be nutritional, I guess, to a person. I would come home from school; she would always be downstairs with an old movie on. Every room in our house had a different book open, face down. There would be music on in one room, even though she wouldn’t be in it, and she would kind of just go from room to room and pick up and read and go and listen and go downstairs and watch. She needs that. It’s still the same way. If you go to my house, the same house I grew up in, she’s there with movies on, music playing and books everywhere. And so I witnessed how important these things can be to you.

*I’m really enjoying Jay-Z’s Decoded. He’s a genius and I love the way he can deconstruct why some music/poetry resonates. I love his attention to design in the book.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Enjoying her book of poems from my brother.