Summer Winds Down

HERE COMES

by Shel Silverstein 

 

Here comes summer,

Here comes summer,

Chirping robin, budding rose.

Here comes summer,

Here comes summer,

Gentle showers, summer clothes.

Here comes summer,

Here comes summer—

Whoosh—shiver—there it goes.

I love this Shel Silverstein poem. It's sometimes how summer feels to me, but also....not. It seems like there needs to be a companion poem about the oppressive heat and dragging days that go on for a decade. Wouldn't be quite as nice a poem, I expect. But it would be the truth.

Here are some things from the last bits of our summer - 

We try to invite the missionaries over pretty regularly. One of them has been serving in our area for several months, and he really loves Chase's lizard, Omnom. On this particular visit, his companion was Elder Hingano, a large and sweet Tongan man, who screamed like a child when the lizard made a move in his direction. Also he hid behind a pillow during the lizard time. It was extremely comical.

I kept up the work on my giant list of to-do goals. Once I finished The Red Quilt, I started a second project meant for Troy's and my bed. I had given him a quilt for Christmas the year we got married. It was made of many plaid fabrics, some purchased and some reclaimed from old button-downs and a night-shirt I had, among other things. The back was nothing more than a giant red flannel sheet. It was very cozy and we loved it for years. However, it was literally disintegrating. The fabric was dissolving into little more than a loose collection of threads. It was time. 

Well, my dear friend Becca gave me the cutest handmade pillow cover a few years ago, meant to match our plaid quilt, but it was far higher in quality and design and I love it. I decided to choose fabrics for our new quilt that would match up with her creation. I tried my very best. And in all honesty, when I looked at the stack of my fabrics next to her pillowcase, I LOVED the combinations.

Here's the pillowcase:

Isn't it so lovely? Well, I picked out the fabric, picked out a pattern (from one of Becca's books even!) that I thought would compliment the pillow, and got to work. Considering how long the last quilt took me, this one took no time at all. I was a woman possessed! Could not think about anything else. By the end of the summer, I had the top all pieced. As I was working on each square I just loved it more and more. The denim and apricot squares looked to me like overalls and a flowery shirt that a little gal on a farm would wear. Like Fern in Charlotte's Web. So I started to think of the quilt as The Farmer Girl.

 

Then I put it all together.....why do quilts never look the way your brain thinks they are going to look? Maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm a terrible visualizer. Suddenly the nice apricot color just looked like flabby silly putty color. But I didn't throw it in the garbage. I knew I'd like it better once I got to quilting it. 

 

So this post is supposed to be about the end of summer but since I'm writing this in October maybe I'll just spoil the ending? I quilted it all September and into October, and I was right, I do like it better quilted. It's very big and I especially love the border. It does not match the pillowcase as well as I had hoped at all. But that's ok. I feel happy with the extreme patchiness of this quilt - it has a HUGE selection of colors and patterns, like a farm girl's quilt would be. It's so nice to have something fresh on the bed.

Okay back to summer. Here's a funny moment. Romney had some friends over, and one of them was admiring the growing pile of squash I had on the table. I really was trying to cook my way through them, but it was a losing battle. Once I saw Fran's admiration, I felt inspired to send a squash home with them. Sweet! Another one gone! But....like the proverbial cat, the very next day, it came back. Attached was a "Return to Sender" note. Oh we laughed so hard.

Speaking of garden vegetables, we did pretty well in the tomato department this year. Quite an abundant harvest, though the fruits were smaller than I expected. At least I didn't have any splitting tomatoes or big brown dry spots on their undersides. Good year. I ate a LOT of tomatoes. Thought of my dad with each and every bite. 

Here's a very happy day - our friends Rashaun and Emily were sealed in the Draper temple in August. This day was incredibly special, one of the most tender experiences I've had in the temple. I'm so happy for them, and you can see the pure joy on their faces.

Happy happy day. 

One sad day was the day that Emma had her last sewing class with our beloved Ms. Jane! Emma took sewing from the time she was in about 3rd grade, and made many wonderful creations. But with high school starting for Emma, she knew she was ready to move on from sewing, especially knowing that her after-school time was most likely going to be taken up with play rehearsals. I hope to take an adult class from her someday. She is the essence of kindness and patience. 

We celebrated the last week of summer by going to see Newsies, all four of us. This version that Hale put on had a different style of dancing - more modern and almost krump-ish, if that makes any sense. I enjoyed it a lot, but kind of missed that old-school Broadway, Fosse-esque dancing. I did especially love, as always, being with my family.

Not As Funny

This post was supposed to be called Emma's Getaway #5 or something like that, but that series is getting old! She was just gone so much. And I don't think I even have any photos of her final summer trip, which was with our ward youth group to Bear Lake. I'll ask her if she has photos.

The other thing that happened at the end of August was that my daughter Romney got her butt kicked. Figuratively. In reality, she had her wisdom teeth removed. And you know, we truly did not think it was going to be a very big deal. Chase had his out two years ago, and it barely seemed to affect him at all. We did what everyone does now and filmed him all the way home. He provided us with enough footage to create a rather hilarious 4 minute video of highlights. And by that evening he was sure he was ready for solid foods. I assured Romney that it wasn't going to be that bad.

Sorry, honey.

Here she is, the last photo of her in any state of happiness for about a week, just as she was being taken back.

Here she is, about 24 minutes later. (Man they have that system down pat.) 

She was slightly groggy but not too out of it. Emma and I had our phones all set up and recording, ready to capture whatever hilarity might be on its way. At first Romney didn't do much but hum along to music and mumble a little. Still, we waited for anything remotely comical. It wasn't until she started throwing up that we decided the videoing could probably stop.

This is what poor Romney did for several days in a row. I fed her yogurt, hummus, ice cream, and anything else I could find that required zero chewing. 

Finally we were able to get some smiles out of our sad sad girl, even if those smiles came from us laughing how how silly she looked with her ice pack system. Her cute little cheeks just stayed puffed up forever!

Hopefully when Emma's turn rolls around she will take after her brother more than her sister. I think we all would prefer his style of the ordeal. One hour of total delirium complete with very funny ramblings and no puking at all. Then sleep, then feel better. But at least I know now to not promise anything.

Oh, and I asked Emma if she had any photos from youth conference. She said she might have a couple. Then she sent me 94. Almost all of them were some version of this:

So...not going to include any others at this time. You're welcome.