I usually enjoy the summer because of the slower pace, but this week has been busy!  We’ve just had a lot on the schedule.  Things should quiet down next week.  In all of the busyness (and the suffocating heat), I’ve still managed to get some good things done.

Here are my four things – My Jeffersonian period, borrowed light, toning down the crazy

what I’m reading

I’ve been enjoying my book on Monticello’s garden so much (A Rich Spot of Earth) that I pulled out my favorite book on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, to read along with it. It is a gorgeous book with wonderful photography and great information.  If you can’t take a tour of the estate (or you just want to spend more time looking around and learning), this book is excellent.

what I’m watching

I’m currently in my Jeffersonian period, so Jeff and I watched the Thomas Jefferson documentary by Ken Burns over the weekend.  It’s typical for me to go through phases of what I want to watch, read, and learn about.  Sometimes, it’s all about a specific person or a project I’m working on, and then I gobble up everything I can find on the subject that’s of interest.  I guess I’m currently in a Founding Fathers phase, and I find I’m interested in all things late 1700s.

what I’m loving

I’m still listening to the audiobook, Rembrandt is in the Wind by Russ Ramsey, and I added this to my notebook: “Everything we make, in some measure, relies on the help of others.  All of us rely on borrowed light.  Even the blind composer sits at a piano not made in darkness.  There’s only one who can make something from nothing – God.  The rest of us sub-create.  We work with what can be found lying around on the floor of creation and repurposed from the belly of the earth and the salvage heaps of industry.“

It’s something good to chew on as we do creative work.  Every tool and material we work with – fabrics, paints, pigments, brushes, nails, hammers, sketchbooks, pencils… they have all been created and made by at least one other person.  Not just that, but there are the people who pack it, ship it, deliver it, put it on the store shelf, etc.  Everything is a collaboration.

what I’m working on

It was hot as the blazes this week here in Maryland, so working on the outside of the house wasn’t a good option for someone like me who doesn’t do well in the heat.  I wanted to keep the project momentum going, so I decided to work in the basement.  Not only is there still lots of carpet glue left to remove from the floors, but priming and painting down there is long overdue.  In case you haven’t noticed, the basement isn’t a huge project priority, but it would be nice to get that space looking a little less crazy.  The kids do bring friends down there to play ping-pong and hang out, we all exercise down there, and pass through several times a week to do laundry.

So, working in the basement on a 100-degree day seemed like a good idea.

I primed the new drywall that was installed when we moved the staircase for the kitchen renovation, and then painted it in Light Blue.  I put together Ikea bookshelves that had been in boxes for over a year and filled them with books that had been stuffed into a built-in and stacked on the floor.  I was hoping to order a couple more bookshelves, but Ikea has discontinued them!

I was so motivated by my progress that I primed the crazy wallpaper and will work on priming and painting the rest of the basement on hot days.  I may even finally finish removing the carpet glue sometime this year.  (You can read about that super fun adventure HERE.)

While this space will never be beautiful, I am excited about having it feel more like ours and a little less like the remnants of the 1980s.

What have you been reading, watching, loving, and working on this week?