Growing up my parents always had some good sayings from my Great Oma (my father's maternal grandmother), the main one was "we are too poor to buy cheap things" and another was "you don't want to be a musician because then you are working while everyone else is having fun". I firmly believe in the former statement, I only want to buy things once and as a result I have nice equipment but I don't feel the need to replace it frequently. As to the latter, this summer has been a great example of this. Living and working in a place where people go on vacation is both fun and frustrating.
The fun comes from the fact that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world (at least according to National Geographic).
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The frustration is more around trying to accomplish things when everyone else just wants to be at the cottage and far away from computers and cell phones.
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So on Saturday I ended up on a magical mystery tour, which is what my mom would call it when we would go off to an adventure to find some specific spot that was outside our usual stomping ground, or when we would get lost. Magical mystery tours would often start with a goal and then have a moment of "hey, I wonder where this goes". When I was in university I would do this on the bus and on foot in Kingston (Ontario) and always had a good time. This time I needed to go to the Village of Rosseau and instead of heading straight back I decided to take the twisty road that runs between Lake Rosseau and Lake Joseph. Then I saw the sign for Abbey's Bake House, which is a bit of a local landmark, and I'm so glad I stopped. Not only was it beautiful (as you have seen above) they have AMAZING butter tarts. No raisins or nuts and all butter tart goodness.
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While sitting there, watching the lake, eating a butter tart and knitting I overheard a grandfather mention to his grandson that there had already been "seven weeks of summer" and asked if he had enjoyed them.
At that moment I realized that there had been seven weeks of summer and I haven't gone swimming yet, or really done any summery things. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this, but all I know is that according to calculations there are only about two weeks left of summer left and I want to get out and enjoy them.
And for those keeping track, I finished Carla's shawl a week or so ago and I still haven't picked a final pattern for mine as the one I wanted to make has a stupid cast on and I'm not burdened with an over-abundance of patience these days.