Five on Friday: Wrapping Up August

"Summer should get a speeding ticket."

UNKNOWN

Well, I would like to know where the summer has gone. We're already at the September long-weekend. With kids at the start of a new school year in their new school clothes, gripping pencils and clean-paged scribblers (I suppose they're in their backpacks these days) as they climb into the bus. To this day, I still get that little surge of adrenalin as we move from summer to September. As a girl, it was always a little nerve-wracking to start a new school year: Would I be smart enough to make it through without too much embarrassment? Who would I find to be playmates in this new year?

The surge of adrenalin that comes now is more of anticipating what projects I might want to work on. As the light slants differently and evenings draw a little closer, one's thoughts turn more towards the home and being indoors. I think about what writing projects I might want to focus on, what home projects I want to tackle.

Here, with my latest Five on Friday, is a glimpse of what's been on my mind this week.

 One. A week of 'dog days of summer'

Our summer weather has been decent. Many warm days, alongside cool, rainy, and windy ones. This week it has been hot and sultry in the true summer fashion. And we've been reveling in the heat. Sipping frosted glasses of sparkling water—especially the Maison Perrier non-alcoholic Mojito (citrus and mint) beverage. Refreshing! Sitting in the mornings with our coffees and listening to the chickadees busy with their chattering and fluttering off with sunflower seeds.

This afternoon we've got plans to visit the Italian Centre for affogatos—the Italian dessert where shots of espresso are served over gelato. Someone described it as "buttery notes of vanilla ice cream and bold accents of espresso". Yes, that describes them. And they are yum!

Two. A doily detail

This little doily under my pretty green thrift store vase is now more than 50 years old now. I was in high school when I crocheted it. I'd asked my grandma if she would teach me to crochet. She told me to select a pattern, so I browsed through her collection of pattern books. My heart was smitten with one I really loved – the biggest and most complicated in the book, if you want to know. She gently suggested that I might want to start with something simpler. And smaller. No, no, I was determined. I could do this. I can see her giving a gentle shrug. I started it enthusiastically and got as far as you see in the photo. When I graduated from high school, I packed my bags for college, deciding not to take the doily project with me as I probably wouldn’t have time to work on it. (I wonder now where Grandma found it stashed and forgotten in the excitement...)

I came back at Christmas time, I don’t recall if it was my first Christmas away or the following year, but under the Christmas tree I found a little package wrapped and tagged with my name on it in Grandma’s handwriting. Inside was my little doily, at the stage where I had left it, except it had now had a simple edging to finish it off. Which meant I could use it. She must have sensed that I would never come back to finish this overly ambitious project, I think she would have been right. I was so overcome with emotion... love, I think it was, that she would do this for me. I have treasured this little doily ever since. It's still in use, even though doilies might be a little out of fashion.

Three. Musing about my old journals

Musing about my old journals, I wonder what I should do with them. One question that keeps coming up is as I think about getting rid of them, is why am I loathe to destroy them. The answer, simply said, it's because so much of my life is entwined in these words on hundreds upon hundreds of pages. To destroy them would feel like I'm destroying something of my soul. As you can see, it's a struggle, but as I get closer to my 70s there is a sense of urgency not to put it off too much longer. 

I started keeping a journal nearly forty years ago (January 1987) the year I would turn 30. Up to that point, I'd written bits and pieces in scraps of notebooks. I came to realize I wanted something more stable, and more formal, I guess (L.M. Montgomery certainly was influential in this area of my writing). Since then I have filled nearly 200 'blank' notebooks in varying shapes, sizes, and styles. The books were always chosen for their appealing covers—they had to be pretty to look at, cute, or whimsical. They are mostly all tidily stacked in storage boxes in the closet of my study. The boxes are already worded (in the event of my untimely demise) with "To be destroyed on my death", with the sincere hope that I won't kick the bucket before I have a chance to create something from them for 'posterity', and not leave the mess of all those boxes for my family to deal with.

I think about what other people have done with their old journals. Susan Branch used her old diaries as research references for her now published memoirs (The Fairy Tale Girl, Martha's Vineyard: Isle of Dreams, and A Fine Romance). More recently, I read a biography about Louisa May Alcott. Did you know that she annotated her old journals? When re-reading them, she added little notes to explain things, to say how she later saw those events or experiences as she looked back. L.M. Montgomery knew her journals would be of literary interest down the road, since she was an author. Her editors published those volumes years later. From her notes penned in the first published journal, LMM had kept diaries since she was nine; she later burned them—she said they were "so silly" and "very dull". She began her "new kind of diary" in 1889 when she was 14. Eventually she re-wrote the earliest journals (written between 1889 and 1918 in various shapes and sizes) into ledger books, with the goal to rewrite them "careful[ly] to copy it exactly as it is written", and that she would "illustrate it" as she went along, with photos to describe scenes and people she had mentioned. Her journals are now published, and I am glad to own the five volumes of  "Selected Journals" from 1889-1942.

Dealing with my old journals feels right to begin in the autumn season. It matches my own autumn season of life, where, although it can still be filled with colour, brightness, and fruitfulness, there is also a sense of waning... and winding up of many things.

I will try to keep you posted as I ponder more and begin the process. And I wouldn't mind hearing what plans you might have for your old journals, if you are a journaling person. Have you figured it out? 

Four. Waiting for Miranda's book

For anyone who follows Miranda Mills on YouTube, you will know that she has her first book coming out this September. Like many of us, she loves collecting quotations, and The Country Commonplace Book is filled with her own favourite seasonal-themed passages. I've pre-ordered my copy and can't wait for its arrival later this autumn.

Five. Favourite quotes

Here are a few quotes I found in my 5-year quotes diary this morning which I enjoyed reading all over again. (I am surprised that I'm in the last quarter of year four already. At the end of 2026, I'll have five years' worth of quotes in one tiny diary. It's been a fun project.)

"You might not be a morning person or a night owl,

but with the right amount of coffee and snacks, you can

be an enjoyable afternoon person."

UNKNOWN, seen on Instagram

"If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your

face like sunbeams, and you will always look lovely."

ROALD DAHL, The Twits

"Just a heads up, I've decided to live my life like

everything is working out in my favor."

JACOB NORDBY, seen on Instagram

"What is it you want to write [do]

with the time remaining?"

SHAWNA LEMAY, The Flower Can Always Be Changing

"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air,

drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign

yourself to the influence of the earth."

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

❦

On that note, I'm wishing you a beautiful week ahead,

Brenda

Photo credits:

(Top) Sunflowers by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

(Drinking glasses) Image by Biella Biella from Pixabay

(Vase) Brenda Leyland @ It's A Beautiful Life

(Journals) Brenda Leyland @ It's A Beautiful Life

(Miranda's book cover) Amazon

(Hansa Rose) Brenda Leyland @ It's A Beautiful Life

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