my summer list

Summer is a fantastic time of year...but I can't really think of a time of year that isn't great, each season is in its own way. Autumn is cozy and cool with rich, warm colors and crackling leaves. Winter can be nice when you're wrapped in a blanket with a good book and drinking hot chocolate like you can't survive without it. Spring is beautiful because it's after winter, when you've been inside for what seems like forever, and it's when flowers bloom and the world thaws out once again.

And summer? It means little or no school, swimming at my grandpa's house, the cool feeling of air conditioning in the daytime, only one blanket on your bed at nighttime, hazy colors of pinks and greens, re-reading books for the fourth time. This year it will mean going to camp and doing things I've never done before -- stepping outside my comfort zone. I'm excited for this summer

Every year, in preparation for summertime, my mom, sister, and I always make a list of things we want to do. This year, in addition, I thought I'd make one of my own. This is just the start, I'll add to the list as I think of more things. Here it is.

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M Y  S U M M E R  L I S T  [ t w o  t h o u s a n d  t w e l v e ]

Get a tan
Do the Summer Pursuit
Go to camp
Exercise
Read the Love Comes Softly series (it's a tradition)
Read the Chronicles of Narnia
Finish the Elsie Dinsmore series
Get a large blizzard at Dairy Queen
Lay on a quilt in the yard and read
Go swimming
Make a blueberry pie
Sell things at the farmer's market
Learn the basics of photographing in manual mode
Get strawberries from the strawberry bed
Start a blog series
Make homemade popsicles
Write
Re-do my room

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What are you looking forward to this summer?

good morning | a video

Yesterday was warm weather, messy braids, reading, a freshly mowed yard, getting all the clips and text put together for this video -- then deleting it (oops!), mom's oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies fresh and warm out of the oven, and sitting on the porch swing.

And today I am so excited to share with you all the little video I made. It's bits and pieces of yesterday, morning through early afternoon. Enjoy!

music by needtobreathe, video footage shot with CANON POWERSHOT SD 1300 IS

Happy Thursday!

from my inspiration journal

My inspiration journal is a hodgepodge of quotes, watercolors, glossy catalog pages, pretty masking tape, notebook paper, pencil sketches and pen marks. Whenever I find something I want to write down or want to remember, and when I just feel like doing something artsy, that's when I pull out this journal.

| a book page and watercolors |

| painting and pressed flower |

| watercolors |

| a reminder |

Do you have an inspiration journal?

springtime on the farm.

raspberries are good. really good.

There's four fluffy kittens underneath the floorboards in the hay shed. They're getting curious and have figured out how to get out from their hole. The mulberries on the tree in the front yard are sour right now, but they'll soon be ripe and juicy, staining faces and the bottom of feet with their sweet, purple nectar. There's a strawberry bed in the garden, full of verdant flourishing plants. There's colorful butterflies flitting and hovering over the grass. There's zinnia sprouts in the flower bed. The brome fields are bright green. There's little speckled eggs and two tiny squirmy baby birds in the birdhouse. There's pink and white little wild flowers scattered along the side of the road.

I love springtime on the farm.

And now there's a calf in the east pin. Her name is Dolly -- Dolly Bright. She's a little blonde calf that Addy and I take care of now. We named her Dolly after Anne of Green Gables' cow. It was fitting. Do you know what Anne's cow does? She gets out of her pin -- then they have to chase her. Which is exactly what we did. Oh, the adventures we have. Ha! Dolly ran down our road with strength and speed we didn't know such a skinny, orphaned cow could have. Thankfully, though, Addy flagged down a man who was driving down the road, he happened to be a cowboy. This morning he found Dolly and brought her back.

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Also, do you like the new design? This one is specifically special because this is my first attempt at conquering minima.

Happy Friday!

kittens.

The kittens are around three weeks old. They're awful cute. And that black and white striped one? Well, I probably shouldn't pick a favorite, but it has some personality. Just sayin'. But, then again, they're all adorable. And what's more? There's another, newer litter of kittens somewhere around the farm that we haven't found yet.

Happy weekend!

p.s. thanks for all the sweet comments on my double exposures! so glad you guys liked them. :)