It was a slower week for me, but sometimes we need those slow weeks.  Life can be a constant flurry of work and activities.  Sometimes I enjoy those slower weeks, but this week of forced rest felt like an interruption.  My body appreciated it, though, and I’m ready to hit the projects again.

My four things this week – Thatched Roofs, pondering, the beautiful idea, and little things.

what I’m reading

I got a new book in the mail last week – The Collected English Cottage.  It is such a sweet book with lots of great ideas to bring the feel of English cottages into your home.  It’s filled with patterns, antiques, collections, and even recipes.

We just booked a thatched cottage in the Cotswolds for our visit to England this fall, and this book is whetting my appetite for the quintessential English countryside.

what I’m watching

I’ve been thinking about what show or movie to share this week (I watched a lot more than usual because I was under the weather), and the one that stuck with me the most is The Shark Whisperer on Netflix.  First of all, it is beautiful to watch.  The photography and cinematography are stunning.  I found myself conflicted throughout the documentary, though.  I admire the passion of Ocean Ramsey and Juan Oliphant to protect sharks from wasteful slaughter, which can push certain species to extinction.  I also appreciate their almost obsessive study of sharks to learn more about their behavior and communication.  They are approaching sharks with a new curiosity and asking questions.

But I also found myself wondering if they are foolish and naive for interacting so intimately with wild animals that can be aggressive and dangerous.  Not only doing it themselves, but bringing tourists along to swim with sharks.  We’re not talking about snorkeling in Typhoon Lagoon’s Shark Reef with small, shy sharks that hang out at the bottom of a tank while you float on the surface.  (I did that in high school, by the way.)  We’re talking about swimming in the open ocean with grown tiger sharks.

The documentary does a good job of telling both sides of the story, though, from people who are supportive of their work and those who are skeptical and critical.  I enjoy learning new things and approaching subjects with healthy curiosity, so I liked this documentary for that reason.  It got me pondering both sides of the debate.

Photo via

what I’m loving

“If I can find the first two lines of a song, then I can write the third, and if I can write the third, the fourth comes without too much effort. These four lines make up a verse, more or less, and if I can write one verse, I can manage two, and then the third verse writes itself – and I have a song…  Within those few words lies the ‘beautiful idea’ and the inception of that idea is fundamentally unstable, unreliable, and deeply mysterious.” – Nick Cave, Red Hand Files

Sometimes I have trouble grabbing hold of the beautiful idea needed for a blog post, for a painting, for a chapter in my book, for a photography series, a design, or a home project.  The elusive nature of the beautiful idea, the fragile start of something, the small first step, is to be expected in creative work.  When that is claimed as a fact, it doesn’t seem as scary when you’re staring it in the face.

what I’m working on

I have been working on a lot of little things, but haven’t made any progress on the big projects like painting the basement walls and finishing the landscaping on the left side of the house.  Not that I ever need to justify it here, but I did have a good reason.  On Wednesday, I started to feel a pain in my throat when I swallowed.  On Thursday, that pain became more noticeable, and it was paired with a lack of energy.  Friday, I was in bed all day, and we had to cancel our Fourth of July festivities.  I don’t recall ever being sick on July 4th, and I have to say, it is a total bummer.  I was looking forward to an afternoon in the pool, corn on the cob, burgers, and hanging out with family.  Instead, I had soup and watched all four of the movies in the Hunger Games series.

I’m feeling better, but still not 100% back to full health, so I’ve been working on small projects like moving more books downstairs now that I have more shelf space, cleaning up after we had wallpaper stripped in our bathroom and the guest bedroom, and doing some basic weeding and yard maintenance.  I’ve also continued working on commissioned pet paintings and some photography for my book.

I hope to be donning my overalls and breaking out the roller again this weekend.

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