air conditioned gypsy

we sweat and swelter. henry's hair twists something glorious. with the purchase of seventy five feet of rubber hosing, a medium sized wading pool and a bulk package of tea bags, we brave the heat. we stubbornly refuse to flip on the air-conditioner that sits dark and teasing in the window. "our bodies are meant to sweat!" we say. and sweat they do. henry does not seem to notice as he dons his lined yellow raincoat and coon-skin hat, making my skin crawl at the mere sight of him.

admittedly, when the going gets tough, we, the other-wise tough get going on over to grandmama's 68 degrees cold and frozen house. henry sits on the living room floor wrapped in a blanket, a boy who takes after his mother, who spent her summers home from college wearing turlenecks and wooly socks, velvet jackets and cashmere scarves, holed up in the cold, writing and reading and practicing the solar shine away.

so we've become anti-airconditioning snobs, the nice kind of snob, of course. and although we're completely appreciative of the cold and dark of the artificial summer environment, we are also taking a strange delight in not feeling perfectly dry and cold all of the time. take joy in this season of heat!

two more dreams, fourteen and fifteen, non-descriptive. perhaps it's old hat?





look at these boys at their new table! happy birthday from the pennsylvania relations! jude attempts to climb into his seat himself, unsuccessful and frustrated, so i swing him up onto the seat and all is well. dried black beans are not delicious (as both children soon found out) but they provide a good many minutes of fun while mama does something other than play. and then the fun turns into a frenzy and the beans are flung about the green room with much laughter. another twenty minutes or so of enjoyment at the vacuum and everything is back to normal. it's really a nearly mess-proof activity, as henry enjoys the clean up as much as the mess-making!



here's a little something smart and fun to offset the puzzling belief that college is not for women, from the fingers of four (and soon to be five!) women who promote formal education in the lives of Christian women.



contributors include two women with college degrees, myself with a master's degree, and another with a phd. if you'd like to be a contributor, request! the requirements are as follows:

• you must have a college degree or be actively pursuing one
• you must be a woman!
• you must have a blog, or at the very least, a blogger profile
• you must "celebrate formal education in the life of a Christian girl"

jude sleeps his blues away (teeth yet again!) and henry wraps himself in the newly purchased hose while wearing goggles and singing happy birthday. the morning sneaks away from me and there is much to be done with happy heart and hands. glory in it.