First Day of Summer (as per the calendar)

I feel like it has been summer for a couple of months now, but my desktop calendar begs to differ with me.
It says that TODAY is the first day of summer.
I am not going to argue with that chronological grid.
Instead I'm just going to post a few pictures to mark the official start of this season.

The main thoroughfare in my town: Those trees behind the traffic signals are crape myrtle in bloom.
Enormous aren't they?
Check out how big the trees are compared to the car on the road.
The myrtle leaves turn a vivid butternut blaze orange in autumn, then have lovely bare skin colored limbs in winter.
Then they pull out all the stops to dazzle us with pink,rose, purple, magenta and white blossoms in the summer.
It is interesting to think how much one would regret each passing seasonal phase if one didn't know more wonderfulness was soon to be expected!

Last night I went out to water some of our patio plants. Inside of one pot were two tiny mushrooms, about the size of the last digit of my baby finger. You can see the stem of the second mushroom at the top of the picture.
I had transplanted volunteer tomato seedlings in that pot; at the time I wasn't expecting the makings of tomato and mushroom salad to appear.

They were not the most amazing mushrooms I've ever seen.
(I frequently stop to take mushroom pictures.)

But the pebbly caps caught my interest.

They were kind of cute, being so small and all.

Imagine my surprise when I went outside this morning and discoverer my tiny photo subjects of yesterday had BLOOMED!
I had never thought of mushrooms blooming before.

I was able to get a shot of the mushrooms from the underside as well.
Another magical garden view available to be seen only when kneeling down.

Bernie flagged me that we have a new resident in our garden this morning.
One of the large yellow forest spiders has chosen to settle in along our back fence.
She is practicing her web building skills, creating various web structures in the holly bushes and amidst our crape myrtle tree's branches.

Ms. Spider (I'm thinking of calling her either "Golda" or "Summer") has made one beautiful web, but currently she is hunkered down in a more boxy shaped web effort.

She is still quite young, and maybe going through an experimental/modern phase of home design.

I think it won't be long until she will settle back into the traditional time honored rounded web shaped design.

I am so happy to have her right outside the window above our garden tub where I can watch her at work spinning webs without stepping out into the heat.

While Ms. Spider is tinkering with her home design, I am doing likewise.
This morning we ordered new carpeting. The eggshell colored carpet sample in corner is our choice, not too different than the color of the wool berber that we have lived with since we bought the place.

We ordered paint for the kitchen and the sun room yesterday.
The dots are the color of the accent walls in our house; I was trying to see which color would work best with that.
In the end I flipped a coin...and went with Relaxed Khaki.



When we moved into our house seven and a half years ago, we thought we would replace the then six year old kitchen wall paper.
It was in perfect condition, but seemed rather dark.
(It is a dark green, if your monitor is iffy on color exactness.)
The real estate agent at the time told us that the few people who had seen the house before us were turned off by the all-over-the-kitchen blast of color and pattern.



I loved the house and garden.
I knew I wanted this house the moment I stepped through the front door.
After looking at over a hundred houses, the wall paper in this kitchen didn't bother me at all at the time.
Plus I was too tired from moving and finishing grad school to want to go to the hassle of selecting new paper or painting.
I sure as heck didn't want to strip all that paper myself!

But it is now the six year old wall paper is thirteen year old wall paper.
New eyes seeing it will probably be even more turned off by the dark green color.
Say good bye to the vines, they will be textured and painted over with a nice neutral Relaxed Khaki next week.

Our sun room had wall paper that just THRILLED me the first moment I saw it.
I loved the woven grass cloth design, and how organic and restful it felt in the room with many tall windows and plantation shutters that opened to the view of our garden.

Our *bleep* cats thought it looked restful and organic too.

Just perfect for using to buff their natural organic nails.

I am actually a bit thankful that the paper has faded around the pictures on the wall.

Even if the cats had behaved, the paper would have needed to be replaced anyway.

Next week the room will be painted a soft buttery yellow called Jersey cream.

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So it is here with us on the first official day of Summer, in the year of our Lord 2008.

It will be our last summer in Texas.

Our house will be going on the market the first week in July and we hope to move to either Salt Lake City or San Diego by autumn.

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Both Bernie and I are searching for positions in those areas; his position with his company ends August 3rd.

There are a lot of changes ahead for us and the need for positive expectations and prayerful supplications is great.

We are excited that God has a plan for us even if it is not yet fully apparent.

Like the mushrooms, such plans are generated out of view, then appear as tiny things, and then suddenly, become apparent to all who would see.

We kneel to see the wonders, and rise to take on the challenges in faith.

And make preparations for those changes that lie ahead.