SUMMER DAY

After yesterday's post with its Faulkner-solemn tones, I thought we needed something Happy, something Light---Friday Frivols and the beginning to a good weekend. I went to my Journal for some of the quotes I've enjoyed and picked up recently---they're all about comfort and Summer and Home:

The hum of bees is the Voice of the Garden. Elizabeth Lawrence

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. Annie Dillard


What a ripping little house this---everything so handy.Dear Friend Ratty, Wind in the Willows




And in the same vein, Mole’s just-before-slumber thoughts on his cozy old house:

It was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.---Wind in the Willows

Nothing in the world matches sundried bedding for a good night's sleep. My Friend Sparrowgrass

My friend Kim is a Constant Reader, and does a lot of book reviews. Hers are not of the stern sort, and though she’s VERY smart, they are never, like so many, phrased more to show her knowledge and wit rather than the worth of the book. Instead, they let you know her take on the tome in a gentle, guiding way, and she’s never steered me wrong.

Miss Julia is funny and smart and the other characters are wonderful. I love that Miss Julia has standards and values, but that she doesn't let them get in the way of loving good folks. Kim, in GoodReads


Tea-drinking is a cheerful habit to cultivate, as each cup gently shifts fatigue, lifts the spirits and brightens the brainbox. Helen Simpson in The Ritz Book of Afternoon Tea.

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living evey minute with love, grace, and gratitude.
Denis Waitley

I dust a bit...I am at this moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.Ignatius J. Riley---John Kennedy Toole---A Confederacy of Dunces

Those sowing seed with tears will reap even with a joyful cry. The one who without fail goes forth, even weeping, carrying along a bagful of seed, will without fail come in with a joyful cry, carrying along his sheaves---Psalm 126:5,6

Lucy Vanel, of Lucy’s Kitchen Notebook, on her Alpengarten---her potager:

Wind blows across the pasture and seed from unruly weeds try to reclaim their old home each week. When we arrive on Friday night the feeling is usually a little bit like facing the sink full of dirty dishes after a raucous dinner party. Will the weeding ever end? Then we set to work, and in short time, tugging up this and that, prying the spiraling fingers of savage wild growth away, we are satisfied.

On the dying of the day in a Seattle Summer:With each day, the light stays a bit longer, as though too lazy to leave at anything but a slow crawl.Molly Wizenberg of Orangette

I wish you all a sun-drenched, satisfying day, of bee-hum, happiness, grace, with a quiet moment for a cup of tea, a friend, a good book.

And may the light linger, linger, til you slumber in your comfortable bed, hushed with the quiet end of a good day.

rachel