Happy fourth!

Today is a lazy lake day.

After all the excitement of the picnic yesterday, today's rain storms and overall humidity have made it a very quiet Fourth of July. Not that my family really does anything special for the Fourth, but I wouldn't know that today were a holiday if my calendar didn't tell me so. My brother is off visiting with a best friend from college, whose family often summers here after living the rest of the year in Alaska, but my mother and I have basically just spent the entire day napping. Even my cat knew it was a lazy day. See? This is his 'get the hell away from me, I'm sleeping' face.

And it just began to rain again.

The rains here are beautiful, somewhat different than the cold spring rains or the intense thunderstorms of the East Coast. They are often warm rains, and though they can harbor ferocious winds and strong downfalls, they seem to bring a new life to the surrounding meadows and lake, in a way that cosmopolitan suburbia can't accept. If you can imagine a rainforest, where the rain smells as soft and welcoming as it feels on your skin, then you get the idea of what it's like here.

But in between naps, today has been a day of accomplishment. Instead of lounging by the lake and reading for the bulk of the day, I finally got out my sewing machine to work on a long overdue project. I didn't actually get to sewing anything, but I did some pinning on darts and pleats, so that the minute I plug in my Singer, I can zip along quite nicely. And though I'm taking a break to blog now, I've been stewing over the outline to my Peace Corps application essays.

Tonight will be another night of playing cards with my maman, brother, gramma and aunt, and tomorrow we'll start it all over again. It just won't be the Fourth of July anymore.

-K