An Open Door

"Summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. For those few months, you're not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don't have the rest of the year. You can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. Summer just opens the door and lets you out."
―Deb Caletti, Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

Summer Gifts

 Photo courtesy of Colleen K.
 
"The beauty of that June day was almost staggering. After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing."
―Dan Simmons, Drood

Simply The Best

"Summertime is always 
the best of what might be." -Charles Bowden

Nothing of Importance

"At these times, the things that troubled her seemed far away and unimportant: all that mattered was the hum of the bees and the chirp of birdsong, the way the sun gleamed on the edge of a blue wildflower, the distant bleat and clink of grazing goats."
―Alison Croggon, The Naming

Rapture Enough

 

"It was rapture enough just to sit there beside him in silence, alone in the summer night in the white splendor of moonshine, with the wind blowing down on them ..."
―L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

By The Sea, By The Sea

"It's a sure sign of summer when
the chair gets up when you do."

Perfection

"The Summer night is like a perfection of thought." - Wallace Stevens, "The House Was Quiet and The World Was Calm"

On Vacation

"When people went on vacation, they shed their home skins, thought they could be a new person."
―Aimee Friedman, Sea Change

Summer Always

 

"If it could only be like this always – always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper..."
―Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

Why We Travel

Waiting

"In the long dusks of summer we walked the suburban streets through scents of maple and cut grass, waiting for something to happen."
―Steven Millhauser, Dangerous Laughter

All Summer Long

 

"In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible."
―Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride

Life Unfolding

"Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil."
―Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

Happy Father's Day to Every Wonderful Dad

Summer

Hair gets lighter.
Skin gets darker.
Water gets warmer.
Drinks get colder.
Music gets louder.
Nights get longer.
Life gets better.

Musings of a 3 year old

Funny gramma moment: since Sofia and I are sleeping together we share a bed. After we talk about the day we both fall asleep. At one point I hear her say "Gramma Gramma what are you doing?" And I whisper "I'm sleeping, go back to sleep" then some moments later she asks the same question and I say again "I'm sleeping!" She says softly "Gramma you're not sleeping...you're snoring!""
That was my awakening! Poor thing what she has to put up with!

Like A Butterfly

 

"Green was the silence, wet was the light,
the month of June trembled like a butterfly."
―Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

Sunsets in June

"In early June the world of
leaf and blade and flowers explodes,
and every sunset is different." -  John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

June

"It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside."
―Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy and Tib

Coolness and Wine

"Now the windows, blinded by the glare of the empty square, had fallen asleep. The balconies declared their emptiness to heaven; the open doorways smelt of coolness and wine."
―Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles

More Light

Teacher's Pet

Magical Months of Summer

"Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August."
—Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty

Palazzo San Gervasio Summer 2018

We are in Daniele's  hometown now. Staying at a nice apartment 5 minutes walk from his parents house. Sofia is having so much fun with her cousins who are showering her with hugs and kisses.

 

 

 

 


 


 


 


 

 


 


 

 



 

Summer Beginnings

 "And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer."

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

 

At Ease

"No quality is more attractive than poise-that deep sense of being at ease with yourself and the world." -Good Housekeeping, September 1947

Take Me To The Sea

 "She loved the sea.
She liked the sharp
salty smell of the air,
and the vastness
of the horizons
bounded only by a vault
of azure sky above.

It made her feel small,
but free as well.

Happy 3rd Birthday Sofia

Happy Birthday Sofia!

We're so happy to celebrate your birthday with you. Since you like badges so much Grandpa Mike made you two special ones. 

 Can't wait to see which one works the best for you!  Happy Year ahead!

 

Great Idea!

And so I will.
 Off to Italy today! 
Yippee!

Summer Nights

 

"The summer night is like a
perfection of thought." - Wallace Stevens

The Best Day Of The Year

Hello Summer

"The castle grounds were gleaming in the sunlight as though freshly painted; the cloudless sky smiled at itself in the smoothly sparkling lake, the satin-green lawns rippled occasionally in a gentle breeze: June had arrived."
―J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix