Plans for the day

By Elizabeth Prata

Ahhh, it's the weekend again. For some reason short work weeks seem longer. Maybe it's the different schedule for the kids, or the fact that they were home a day longer, but short weeks always turn out to feel longer than if we had a five day week in the first place.

Not that I'm complaining. I love three-day weekends. They're great.

Today I'm contemplating going out. Yes, really. I have two library books that will be due on Tuesday so I have to go to the library soon in any case. The Friends of the Library is having their semi-annual book sale this morning so I might drop off my books and check out the sale. If it's not too crowded. I loathe running into people.

Also my favorite vintage store, The Special Store, is having a 75% off art sale and $1 clothes sale. Impossible. To. Resist. Art.

I do need to fill one spot over my bed. I'd had a favorite photo enlarged a few years ago and hung it there. It is a scene from Lubec where I used to vacation at Globe Cove in a little cottage. It's the view from the bay window in the cottage. Lubec is the foggiest place in Maine, the smokey coiled fog bank always hovering just at the horizon, to come in and out like the tide. With the fog and the tide always moving, the scene is dynamic and ever-changing. I snapped this ar full fog and high tide.

I always liked the spot of color from the mooring buoys and the colorful boats popping against the fog and moody pine landscape. However, digital photos, even on archival paper, seem to fade quickly. I've only had the photo enlarged for ten years but by now the colors in my enlarged and framed photo have all faded and the scene is just grey drab. I have 35 mm photos that are nearly 100 years old that aren't as faded.

So...art. 75% off is a good deal, not likely to find anywhere else as good. And it's framed, too.

I have fun in that store because I can get little things I need there, too. I like magnet pads to put on the fridge to remind myself of appointments or to keep a running record of grocery items. I find neat pads there for fifty cents or a dollar. I sometimes find nice stationery and notecards there too. I like notecards. Books and CDs are also 50 cents or a dollar.

Also, I need a cart or some kind of small storage for my room at school. The rolling cart I'd gotten this summer is too small already! I've added notebooks and journals for two book groups, plus ditto sheets, and the books we're reading themselves, I need more room!

I have not been to the Special Store since April or May. The owners had obtained two estates and the store got crammed. It was too jumbled, for me, to see anything or even move. I like a jumble, but when it's too crowded to move, and add excessive heat and a laboring lone air conditioner, the browsing experience palls.

They have purged and reorganized and made the place browsable again with some displays, even! See:

So I might be tempted to go out early when it's still coolish. The weather is supposed to break in mid to late September and I can't wait for crisp mornings and turning the AC off. But with this heat I'll go early and scuttle back home quickly before the afternoon heat makes me so tired and grumpy. When I return home, I'll take a nap. Late afternoon I'll work on two theology lessons: one from Biblical Doctrine/John MacArthur's book, a chapter on Pneumatology. And another chapter video lesson in Derek Thomas's Pilgrim's Progress through Ligonier.

Tonight I plan to make friends with my couch and read more of Bill Bryson's book Summer 1927, and start John Grisham short stories from his book Ford County. It's the plan, anyway.

I hope you have a wonderful fall Saturday.