Yes, it is really hot outside. The egg-frying part is debatable.
No, these photos were not taken recently. But they do seem fitting for a hot summer afternoon.
Yes, it is really hard to avoid looking at Facebook.
Yes, I might blog a lot more until I get Facebook out of my system.
Yes, I do miss reading about the minutiae of everyone’s lives.
No, I am not giving in already.
Yes, I am loving Summer 2011, hot weather and all.

Question #1: Do you like hot weather or cold better?
Question #2: How often do you check your email or Facebook or Yahoo News each day? Are you as obsessive as I am? Is this a problem for you, too, or is your level of online activity totally fine for you? Just curious.

I was once accused of being a social butterfly. Seriously, my friend said it in a mean voice—Oh, you’re always the social butterfly, aren’t you—so I knew she didn’t consider it a good thing in that moment. But it’s true, I really like people and I like knowing lots of people and I want to know those lots of people really well. Clearly, this is an impossibility. But I think Facebook was made for people like me.

While I luxuriate in knowing facts about my friends and my acquaintances and my old high school classmates and the wives of my husband’s old high school classmates (see how ridiculous this is?), it’s just too much. Too much knowing. Too much potential for gossip and slander and idiocy and hurt feelings and jealousy. Too much life crammed into this online social platform. Too much time given to the brainchild of whiz kid Mark Zuckerberg.

It’s not only Facebook that sucks my time and energies. Email is just as bad for me. I’m obsessive about checking both web pages to see if anyone is communicating with me. What is it with the constant connection? Why do I crave it? Why is it hard to let it go? There is definitely an element of addiction here that I want to be free from for a time. I want to use my computer to edit photos, write worthwhile blog posts and articles, and keep contact with beloved friends and family. And then I want to close the lid of my laptop and put it away. I want to live fully and richly, away from all things world wide web when I’m in the real wide world.

Facebook is a great resource. I’m sure I’ll be back on it in due time. I love making stronger connections via Facebook and I consider it a huge blessing when it comes to marketing myself as a photographer.

But for now, goodbye. Adios to short statuses that crush my creative spirit. Au revoir to images of gatherings that I’m not invited to which make me envious of other friends. I’m off to enjoy my summer.

Livia Day involved our second salamander hunt of the summer. And while Liv has found snails and flowers and exercise and fresh air, she and Jeremy haven’t yet located salamanders. I don’t know that anyone’s devastated by that fact, however. The reward seems to be in the adventures had together. On Sunday we waded through wet grasses, crossed over railroad tracks and back again, went under bridges and over them, and worked up an appetite for a hardy lunch at a nearby diner.

It was a good day.

Pull on some shoes, grab a net and get hunting because it’s Livia Day!

Seven years ago today Livia Raine came into our lives and thus today is a day of celebration.

Thank you, God, for your grace in our lives. You have made us a family and you’ve blessed us beyond telling. May Livia never know a day she doesn’t trust in and rely upon Jesus. May you draw us closer to you and closer as a family. We are so grateful, Lord! Thank you for Livia.

From the first moment you held her in your arms to the way you play tickle-wrestle, from the sweet baby cuddles to the sweet big girl cuddles, from the soda parties to the lava games to the yard work by daddy’s side, you are the best daddy to Livia Raine.

I love parenting alongside you. Today is just another day where I tell God how grateful I am for Jeremy Tredway.

Happy Father’s Day to the men in our lives! To Jeremy, to my dad David Lawton, my father-in-law Bill Tredway and my brother Adam Lawton. We are so grateful for you!

It’s a dark and rainy morning and my newborn photo shoot is officially on a rain delay. Mumford is blaring over the speakers while I catch up on email, Facebook, online life as it is. The dog rests behind me, ears flattened a bit—I don’t think he appreciates Roll Away Your Stone as much as I do. I’m finally finally finally easing back into a normal existence after having elbow surgery five weeks ago. Being down and out for that long was both depressing and enlightening. Apparently I’m not much of a patient patient. Back to Mumford & Sons. They played in Council Bluffs two days ago and I. wasn’t. there. Can’t tell you how unfair that seemed. I heard that show sold out in minutes. Ah well, good for them.

Jeremy, Liv and I planted some vincas and impatiens and begonias and lobelias the other day. We’ve got more work to do, but we made a good start using some amazing dirt from our compost pile. Livia loves planting. It wasn’t until later that day when she was contentedly watching tv and I was finishing the potting that I realized, Wow, planting by myself is much easier than doing it with her around! Always, a mama needs to slow down to adjust for younger fingers on a task. As silly as it sounds, I think sometimes we expect Liv to act like an adult. But it takes a long time to nurture this little soul–what a job we’ve been given to train up this child.

Enough with my Thursday ramblings. I’m off to conquer a few piles of laundry.

Livia, sweetly reading a book on the artist Matisse to our dog Shiloh:
Sometimes I like art. [page turn]
Sometimes I like little villages. [page turn]
Sometimes I like naked men. [page turn]

Mommy:
Um, what? [pause] Show me that page. [checks out the sexless nude figures] Ahhhh. Now, read it to me again… [busily types, mutters under breath] so I can share it with the world wide web…

Today we finally got around to joining our library’s summer reading program. One of the activities a child can do for credit is read to a pet. So tonight Livia picked up some books on famous artists, sat down with Shiloh nearby, and began to read aloud in words a simpleton like the dog could understand. After she saw me recording our previous conversation, she asked me to write down the book in it’s entirety. Here is the book on Matisse, according to Livia, thoroughly enjoyed by Shiloh.

**************

I like this antique picture.
Oooh, this one’s pretty. I like this village, too.
I like this picture of naked men, too. Playing music. (Un-propriate!)
Sometimes I like to look at this picture of fish.
Sometimes I like to look at these men again, which is swirling around and is an old painting, too.
I like this old antique house.
Sometimes I like to have feasts with all sorts of kind of food, even fish, and the fish are dead. And also it’s an old painting.
I also like this bowl of fruit painting. It’s nice.
And I like this picture of a lady playing a piano and boys playing checkers.
And I like this picture of a lady sleeping in a pretty dress.
The end.

I just deleted an entire post on gardening. It seemed boring and I’m not sure anyone else is interested in the topic. So if you actually read my posts on gardening, let me know.

Is anyone blogging any more?

I love that, after we told you that you may not ask to hang out with our neighbor friend (a male approximately 22 years old), that you later sobbed to me, “It’s just that I’m so attracted to him!”

I love that you bring me flowers multiple times a day and that you delight in giving them to me.

I love that you asked if my throat hurt tonight—because if it did, you would only ask for one song. But since it felt okay, you requested two.

I love that, when I guessed the next plot point on tonight’s tv show, you turned to me with amazement and asked in awe, “How did you know that?” I felt like a genius in those few seconds.

I love that you call your daddy a genius and that you didn’t listen to me that one time I tried to tell you otherwise. Without fully meaning to, I was being a jerk. But you forgot what I said and you still call him a genius. And I’m starting to believe you’re right. He is a genius, our genius, and we love him to death.

I love that you wanted to see what I bought at the mall today. And that you oohed and ahhed and commented on the absolute cuteness of each article of clothing, even though one was a pretty basic white shirt. I think you noticed the subtle details that made it so cute in the first place.

I love that you slept in longer than me and your dad this morning and that, when I came to wake you up, you stretched out, long and lean, then curled up tight again and went back to sleep again. For a moment I could imagine teenage Livia doing that very thing. But then you stuck your fingers in your mouth, and that darned bad habit was briefly welcomed because it broke my vision of the future, a vision that had you getting big way too fast.

Oh Livia Raine, our lives would be so boring, so mundane, so colorless without you. We thank God for creating you because you have filled our hearts with more love than we thought possible. You, dear sweet kiddo, are amazing. And you are loved.