How I spent (the first part of) my summer vacation

Go to Sleep, Gecko! a Balinese folktale retold by Margaret Read MacDonald, has a message that is oft-quoted in our house: "Some things you just have to put up with." I heard geckos for the first time this past week when I was in the Florida Keys for a wedding. I smiled when I heard them. However, I was not smiling when I attempted my daily walk, only to come home with scores of mosquito bites. Geckos eat mosquitoes, but the mosquitoes ate me. I got some relief when we sailed out on a pontoon to arrive at a sandbar:



What you don't see in this photo: dolphins, tiny starfish, intricate coral, stingrays, herons, and fish that dive out of the water.

While we were in the Keys, we visited the Hemingway Home and Museum. Bede, Lucia, and I enjoyed exploring the grounds of Ernest Hemingway's last residence. Bede and I were comforted to learn that this was the only residence where Hemingway had his own separate writing space (in other words: No Whining about our lack of writing space!). I read a lot of Hemingway between college and graduate school, and while I didn't care for his novels besides For Whom the Bell Tolls (The Old Man and the Sea was a novella, and well worth the fuss), I enjoyed many of his short stories. A Movable Feast is a favorite too, though one has to keep in mind that Hemingway did not write that memoir with a critical eye. It's fun to read for all of the name-dropping.

A piece of mosaic at the Hemingway house:



I have jetlag. Like Gecko, I'm going to Go to Sleep.

My Life in Felts and Flowers

Greetings! Tomorrow is the last day of Lucia's school, and I am incredulous. There are times when I just want to catch her and hold her. Other times, I've cheerfully scooted her out the door so I could get some work done.

In May, we attended The Magic Flute as a family, and I was inspired to create Papageno and Papagena dolls for the shop:



I decided I wanted a series of dolls at lower price points, too, so I created six flower-box babies. You can see them here, attended by Strawberry Girl:


In case you're wondering, Strawberry Girl is singing The Garden Song to them.

Any requests for what to make next?

Speaking of gardens, I am trying to put my weeds and stones in order. In among the proliferation of dandelions, however, a new plant showed up. I decided to let it be, and today, found that it was a pinkish-purple foxglove.

I'm pleased that the trillium have doubled. Here are two toad trillium: