June in Kansas reminds you that, oh yeah, this place has the potential to get warmer. The ice of March is a long forgotten memory but these are the days of some actual heat. Dewy skin. You get together with your friends over beers and hover around a grill. Turning meat and vegetables while the kids run around in the green grass–shocked by the feeling of the sprinkler on pale skin.
The sunsets are treats to remind you of so many charming parts of this world. The sky will shift to shades of greens and yellow when she’s about to get stormy. She’ll tell you what she’s up to if you’re listening. We might be up all night dozing in and out with the weatherman we’ve known since we were children keeping us calm. He’s reminding us of all of the times he’s kept us safe. In the morning, the tornadoes will have spun all over the land without much warning–rarely hurting anyone but having done enough damage to let you know what they’re capable of.
Or maybe she’ll throw on a shocking fuschia gown in a deliberate, exquisite display of all that she is capable of. The light dances in the clouds as they collide and separate–her skirt will twirl and pivot until she spills behind the horizon, exhausted and spent. And we fall asleep after lives well lived. Errands run and walks taken and children played out in the yard until their energy is gone. Animals and lovers both will run and run without weariness and plop down on the couch butted up next to you in devotion.

By mid-July you’re getting your errands run before 9:00 am or after daybreak. Cookouts with friends have turned to in-home gatherings around platters of whatever is excessive in the garden. We find creative things to do with the dozens of zucchini the neighbor brought over. We eat fat, luscious tomatoes torn apart and sprinkled with salt and pepper. We dance in the sprinkler as means of survival instead of novelty and nostalgia. And since no one feels like feasting–the wine hits a little harder. We dance a little more languished. We smile a smile that spills out from our summer souls but we wonder how the pioneers made it through. How did my grandmother–who could vividly remember the first Model T that her family bought–make it through times like these? I heard her stories of the dust bowl days and I couldn’t believe it but July in Kansas reminds me that a few days could kill us if it wanted to–easily. She’s done it, before.
Sunsets are of little respite at the end of the longest days. The flare loses a little luster after she’s been screaming down your back all day. By nine, you’re just begging her to lie down like a toddler who needs everything at bedtime. Please, you’re asking her, just give me this relief. And in the night the temperature drops to the mid-90’s and you can’t believe this is actually helpful but you’ll take what you can get.
You’re staying as naked as possible for as long as possible. When you do manage to get into the shortest, most flowsome dress you own, you’ll have to change out of it as soon as you get home anyway, on account of the sweat causing it to cling to you and you can’t stand it. You’re going back and forth between wondering if a shower would be helpful or useless–it’s not like you’ll dry off any time in the next 30 days anyway. You’re slick and sour and carrying deodorant in your bag. You’ve stopped wearing makeup and you look better than ever before. Really, you do. Damn near radiant. Regardless, the lovers and the animals are going to keep their distance because if anything other than a cotton/ rayon blend touches this skin, we will all suffer.

August arrives right when you’re certain this is how life will just be from now on. Right when you’re wondering how you’ll make it through, the man with the truck full of peaches that crossed the Colorado border just for you arrives. He parks at the busy intersection. You are pretty sure that you and your partner will be able to eat a whole box and $40 is not too much to ask at all. But you settle on half a box because you don’t want to be greedy.
You’ll go to work and dream of digging into a peach as soon as you get home. They’re so ripe that you can swear it’s sagging just a little bit when you hold it. You have to go outside and eat it in the shade lest you soak the floor, as well as yourself, with sticky juice. And you’re a mess. A sweaty, sticky, natural beauty, sitting under a tree, filled to overflowing at the enormous joy of life–licking up the juice that’s rolling down your arm because you refuse to waste a drop of that which is fueling you for another day in this Kansas summer. You’re a child and a woman all at once. Giddy and long suffering and patient through the heat.
And you see that sunset is back in her familiar glimmering gown and she’s going to be good to us again. And you know you’ll make it through. And this summer, like all the summers, will be gone one day. And one day, you’ll be pining for her familiar heat.

I make my coffee anywhere and it calms me just the same. Home is in my French Press. So even when it still feels like I’m living in a hotel room, I can still know I’m home because of the coffee. And because I signed a lease but that’s beside the point.

Some friends of mine moved their family to a new home the same weekend that we did. She told me that their youngest was saying, “I want to go to my room!” And when she’d take him there, he’d say, “No, my other room!” And I was like, “I get it buddy.” That’s exactly how it’s felt for us, too.

Ryan and I are both introverts. Big time. We need to be able to retreat into our quiet spaces to recharge. But when you move–for a while it doesn’t feel like home yet. I don’t have a quiet space to recharge yet.

At the old house, I loved to sit at the dining room table. Usually with my computer open or with my paints out. Sometimes I’d just sit there with my coffee and simply rest. I don’t have a place like that in my new apartment yet. We got rid of our dining room table because there’s just not room for it. But I do have a desk. That’s where I am right now. But it’s not the same. It’s a dark, wood desk and it feels very moody. It’s just not the same vibe. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely scene. I’m currently facing the big window framed with these fun curtains that my best friend grabbed for us at IKEA last week (pro tip: always have a friend who lives near/ loves to go to IKEA). I have fresh flowers, a cup of coffee and a view of a big tree and an open field. You’d think this would be inspiration central.

But I think I’m learning that I need a completely different scene. I might need brighter colors. More white. More sun. OR I’m learning about being an introvert in a new house who still feels like she’s on a lame vacation at a C+ Airbnb. It takes time.

We walk in faith knowing that we’re going to feel at home soon. We’ll keep hanging the curtains and stacking books on shelves and making dinner and it’ll feel like home soon enough. I think.

Seriously, though, I really do love our apartment. There’s so much storage and there’s a bunny that hangs out under the tree in front of our apartment just to taunt Fiona. And the flooring is brand new and the electric bill is low. And our landlord sounds like he really wants to make sure things are done the right way. And I think we made a good choice coming here. It’ll be even more comfortable once we get to these last four or five boxes.

XOXO, Lib

I like to pop over once a month to show you a list of sundry things that have caught my eye. Full disclosure, a few of these links are affiliate links and I will receive compensation if you make a purchase if you use them. Thanks for helping to support businesses that help to support me.

June has been an… emotional month to say the least. We found a new apartment, we’ve been packing and getting rid of a lot of our stuff. A new baby nephew was born into our family, and a friend passed away. June 2017 has been a ride on the struggle bus–high highs and low lows. But that happens sometimes, you know? Sometimes you just gotta ride it out.

Here’s an article about Kansas’ beloved Patsy Terrell–who passed away mere hours after the historic tax bill that she’d worked tirelessly on passed. #PatsyForKansas
Patsy and I had plans for an interview to post here on XOXO,Lib but that never ended up happening. I still feel compelled to write about her, though. So I hope I’m able to make that happen. I don’t know, though. It was hard to write even this little blurb so it might be a while.

I read about these gender-neutral schools in Sweden. “Together the results suggest that although gender-neutral pedagogy on its own may not reduce children’s tendency to use gender to categorize people, it reduces their tendency to gender-stereotype and gender-segregate, which could widen the opportunities available to them.”

I really love my current swimsuit. This is the top and here are the bottoms. I’ve never owned a two-piece in my whole life and I have to tell you–that’s thirty three years of totally missing out. I can’t get over how comfortable and functional this suit is! Last week, I tried it on just to see how well it still fit since I bought it last year. And I ended up just wearing it around the house for the rest of the day. Other suits I love: this one (because of the print), and this one (because of the sweet spot between adorableness and functionality).

I’m utterly enchanted with Lorde’s new album, Melodrama. I’ve heard a few interviews with her on the Rookie Mag podcast that got me excited about this album but also on the most surface level, it’s just a damn good pop album that makes me want to get up and dance.

Ryan and I went to see Wonder Woman last week. I didn’t really care much about it before we got there but five minutes in and I was so into it! It helped that we’d read The Secret Life of Wonder Woman earlier in the year for our Virtual Book Club.

I’m excited to get our new house to feel like a home that fits us so well. Ten Thousand Villages is singing to my soul for this. I’m looking for a wall hanging to go over our bed. Maybe something like this? Or, actually, I saw something perfect over in Ryan and Becca’s shop (I think that these colors will go perfectly with our navy and gold bedding, don’t you?)!

I love this article that The Voyageer did about finding the cool spots in new cities–just in time for your summer vacation, right?

As I’ve been following A Simple Alternative on Instagram, I’ve been learning more and more about sustainable living and I feel like as we start life in our new home, it might be a great time to pursue it more and more. One thing I’ve been wondering about is, “what do we do about all the plastic that just incidentally occurs in everyday stuff?” This article on Reading My Tea Leaves has a really great idea about that.

 

Tell me about what June has been like for you!

XOXO, Lib

 

 

 

With our moving project well underway–lots of things have gotten shifted to the back burner. Like, you know, eating healthy food and actually tending to our friendships well. But traditions are important and one of my most favorite personal traditions is to make a Summer Bucket List. So today I scooted piles of stuff of the corner of this dining room table and wrote out my list. Things that we already have planned and other things that I want to make sure are prioritized.

Here’s a quick look at what’s on my bucket list. I hope you write one up, too. If you do, post a photo and tag me in it (on Instagram I’m @realxoxolib). As I go through this list I’m going to post things with #xoxoliblist. If you want to use that, too, that would be cool! We’ll keep tabs on one another’s adventures.

• Read more than just book club books (reading has been so hard this past month).
• MOVE (if this doesn’t happen, something has gone terribly wrong)!
• Meet Fiona The Baby Hippo @ the Cincinnati Zoo.
• Go sleeveless (I bought a top specifically for this yesterday).
• Meet Leo!
• Make homemade ice cream (what’s your favorite kind? My grandma always put a little lemon extract in her vanilla ice cream and I’ve never been able to recreate it).
• Restart my painting practice (I’ve put up all my paints for the past month and I miss it so much).
• Do a fundraiser for the women’s center in McPherson.
• Make a habit of going to the pool regularly.
• Wine nights with girl friends (so excited to relax with my friends).
• Create a porch at the new apartment (I need to find good chairs and a beautiful plant).
• Make the new house feel like a home.

So, what’s on your list? What are some things you need to do and things you want to do?