Lazy Summer Daze

What a perfect day it was in Eugene today.  High temp in the low 80’s but with a mild breeze it felt a little cooler than that.  Russ asked what I wanted to do today and I said “nothing”…and that’s about what we did.

Other than fixing a couple of meals and cleaning up, we had a wonderful lazy day.  I had all the windows open and the curtains tied up so that we could take full advantage of the beautiful weather.



My house is old…built somewhere in the late 50s or early 60s and we are only the second owners.   It is a long, rambling  ranch style not too dissimilar to the old style manufactured houses.  The living room is the entire width of the house at that point, and has windows on both the west and east sides.   When we moved here in 1976, the windows were “panel windows”…three in the front and four in the back and NONE of them opened.  Fixing that was one of the first changes I made.  I MUST have fresh air and cannot stand not being able to open the windows.

If you look closely, you can see the windows  on the other side of the room looking out into the back yard

 
I got rid of those old panel windows and put in even more windows and they all open.  On warm days, I can open all those windows and it feels like my living room is an extension of my backyard.  The tied up curtains don’t look very elegant but then I am just a simple person who enjoys fresh air.  Today everything was open including the patio doors and the fresh air was wonderful.  We spent some time outside but when we came inside, we could sit in our recliners and look outside and feel the fresh breeze and it was wonderful.  And that’s how we enjoyed our day!




A couple of night ago, Kate (Cholula Red) recommended a movie on her blog.  It’s a PBS documentary called ‘Horatio’s Drive.’   The movie is all about Horatio Nelson Jackson who, in 1903, made the first successful cross country trip in one of those new fangled automobiles.  We have heard lots about the pioneers who came west on horse back or by wagon train, but I had never heard of this horseless carriage pioneer.  His journey was both amazing and amusing and I highly recommend it to anyone who has the urge to travel our highways.  Someone had to do it first and that man was Horatio. 

What really struck me was that I was alive before this pioneer died…does that make us contemporaries??  I was already a school girl when he passed away in 1955.  I can remember as a child going on road trips for our family vacations.  There were plenty of paved roads, street signs, and maps.  Not so for Horatio.  He made his own way, sometimes crossing on train trestles where there were no bridges.  Sometimes he had roads and sometimes he didn't.  Think about how very rapidly the face of America changed from 1903 to 1955.  What if you had the chance to be the first to cross the USA by car.  Would you do it?  This movie is available on Netflix and I highly recommend it.  Thanks Kate for bringing it to my attention.

CORRECTION:  I think that Lazy summer Daze affected my brain cells.  They were definitely asleep on the job when I wrote this yesterday!  I actually read about the movie 'Horatio's Drive' on Merikay's blog, not Kate's as I stated above.   I read both of these blogs and enjoy these writers very much and I apologize to both.  All I can say was I must have been in a daze...