So I could do a whole lot better as a blogger. My last blog post was in 2015. Where does the time go? Writing books. Living life. In the photo above, I’m goofing around with a mermaid at a friend’s house. And now it’s summer. Not just summer but it’s August, my favorite summer month. The true dog days of summer where I strive for life to slow down. I love working on goofing around. Much different from when I was in grade school. Back then, August was the month when I’d become so bored and so hot in our home in Northeast L.A., which had no air conditioning, that I’d drape around the house like Vivian Leigh’s Blanche DuBois. Remember being bored? Seems quaint now.

This was in the days of three-month summer vacations from school. There wasn’t much in the way of organized activities for kids and teens in our downtrodden neighborhood. Kids were told to go outside and play. As I teen I had a curfew and was warned to “mind my P’s and Q’s.” Most days, I’d go swimming in the public pool in the local park with my BFF. We’d eat a burrito at a local stand. Go to the supermarket and see if any new magazines had come in. Check out books from the library. Often we’d go to the fabric store and buy a new pattern and material. At home, I’d lay out my pattern and fabric on the living room floor, use straight pins and pinking sheers, and then sew my new frock on my mom’s Singer sewing machine. I watched movies on the 13 stations that came through the antenna. And I read and read.

I’m spending the month trying to recapture a small part of those slow August days of my youth. Wishing you some slow calm as well.