From the Northeast corner of the country, watching summer wind down, the kids go back to school and the tourists return to their home states. Some believe it is the most beautiful time of year, for me I find it the time to at least THINK about cleaning out "stuff." So, in the throes of that inspiration I decided to start on books. Four book stations - two filled with nothing but music - are just too many for my age. SO, starting with one, I began reading William Safire's ON LANGUAGE and spent a half hour chuckling over such things as finding a female word for "macho"; and "literally Illiterate".
I put that book into the keep to read more of pile. Then there's Caroline Myss, PH.D. book, "Why People Don't Heal and How THey Can." Lot's of interesting chapter headings like "Chakras, Astrological ages, and Forms of Power." WOW! Maybe I should read more of that. Keep pile.
"The Needlework Book": Coffee table sized::Chapter One: The Pleasures of Needlework. Well, I do knit and I can embroider, maybe the other pile. NOTE: I only have two piles: Keep and Don't Keep.
Sock Doll Workshop. Adorable little dolls made from basic sock patterns. I have lots of scrap yarn, maybe I'll keep that one for winter projects. Hope Hanley's Needlepoint: Maybe if I learn to do that I can finish the "Little Biscuit Girl" piece my son brought home from France. I started it about three years ago and put it away in favor sitting at the organ and playing some "40's and 50's music.
Well, Depak Chopra. I thought he was the smartest man I ever knew and attended two of his local lectures. Bought his 12 part lecture series on cassette tapes, and two of his books (one was a novel).
Don't keep. Oh, another craft book or two. One has a yellowed drawing of a clown clock that I think my sister must have created. Was she going to make a clock? Hmm. Cute children's creations, very simple things. Some patterns I might use for kids' pillow cases or something. Keep that one, but the other one, Country Fabric Crafts, that can go. But here's a four leaf clover pressed between pages 102 and 103 in a sheet of waxed paper. Maybe today will be my lucky day. Or does it only work on the day you find it? Well, most of the morning has gone by, and here I am with seven books, only a couple in the 'DK" pile. Here's a collection of Robert Frost's poems. I really should read more of him, even though he is not my favorite poet. I like simple rhyming things like Mary,Mary quite contrary. Oh, and just now I see the old nursery rhyme book from my father's childhood. Now that's a keeper. And so it goes, and now the sun has come out, and I am no longer interested in staying indoors working on uncluttering. There'll be a rainy day someday for that.
Maine in late summer is so lovely. The air is lighter, the evergreens have matured to a rich deep green;
the summer flowers are giving us their last effort with hibiscus blooms as big as saucers and hydrangeas with varying colors from deep lavender to dry rusty rose. The geese are moving south, and the little black birds are gathering by the hundreds and fly as one. I think I'll go enjoy the moment.
