Summer has been sweet and full. We’ve traveled to new and familiar places, stretched our creative muscles in new ways, and reaped the rewards of gardening and old house projects. We’ve tried new recipes, read new books, and took time to rest and unwind.

This is life lately:

Life Lately: Summer Edition

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• Flying south

• Walking along the beach 🌊

• Attending our first concert at Tanglewood (having a picnic on the lawn)

• Reconnecting with old friends

• Cutting armfuls of Mock Orange to bring inside

• Taking a trip to the lake (savoring the simple life, water lapping against the shore, and slow sunsets)

• Making plum-cream cheese breakfast pastries

• Picking tomatoes from the garden (making sauce and a tomato pie) 🍅

• Worshipping, learning, reflecting, growing

• Picking blueberries (making cobbler)

• Learning about boundaries that become barriers

• Learning a new email marketing tool

• Wine-tasting in the Finger Lakes

• Making homemade pesto

• Learning how to weave a rocking chair seat 🙌

• Sitting down at the piano (writing music)

• Practicing Bach (uncovering something I thought was lost)

• Playing with a wind ensemble for a reading

• Building a porch (fulfilling a 4-year house dream)

• Farmer’s market dates (with breakfast sandwiches)

• Reading How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why it Happens (Benedict Carey), The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (Gabrielle Zevin), Tell Me Three Things (Julie Buxbaum), Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity (Keith Sawyer), and A Simplified Life (Emily Ley)

• Researching old door hardware, oil-based primer, new piano method books, folk songs, and Airbnbs

What about you? What does your life look like lately?