Late but Lovely

This is a quilt I made several years ago -- and about the last photo of me in a bathing suit I'm about to show anyone. [OMG, I'm looking at this picture and realize that's the bathing suit I had on yesterday, so that's good news in the weight department, right? And what a frugalista I am! I do have a newer bathing suit but I still like this one best.]

This is the only appropriate photo I have. We are now at the very last of "summer" -- only two more weeks of August -- and finally it is summer. Hot, humid, but turning pleasantly cool in the evening -- actually I find I have chosen a very lucky place to live. I've been told about the 3 o'clock cool sea breeze phenomenon and it seems to be true. Yesterday Rachel and I went to the beach for an hour about 4:00, it was breezy and beautiful. She even enticed me into the water which was refreshing and delightful. That means it IS summer!

A sign of our times: Very near where we sat on the sand was a family with five boy children, all apparently under 6 [maybe some were nephews? or maybe there was a set or two of twins] plus the father was carrying around a little girl who was no more than six months. Whatever the relationships that woman has spent a lot of time pregnant in the last few years. That is not what I'm writing about. She had a digital camera and at one point decided to photograph each kid. As the boys were playing in the sand -- very amiably, mostly ignoring one another -- she positioned herself with the camera and then spoke the boy's name. He briefly stopped what he was doing, gave her a smile, she took the photo and moved to the next. They were clearly well trained to pose upon request. She even got into position and snapped the baby as the father tilted the child's face toward the camera. I have never seen kids so nonchalantly just take a second at a parent's bidding to post for a picture.

This nice weather might well last into September, I hope so. And, after Labor Day I will have a choice of when to take my walk on the beach. For now I try to be out of the parking lot not long after 9:00 since I do not have a beach parking sticker. But it won't be required in three weeks so if I decide to write early in the morning and then walk -- which may well become the rhythm -- I won't be in danger of getting a fine. Early morning is peaceful but I then usually have a sedentary day. A mid-day walk is good.