Dad Memories

Today was Father's Day, and I miss my dad. He's been dead for over two years now--damn! time really does fly.

Tonight, I was catching up on some of my online reading and came across this episode of You Must Read This. It is about father-daughter bonding that begins with a shared movie experience. It reminded me of all the times that I spent watching movies with my dad and how those movies often led me to books. (My dad and I never really shared books: he wasn't a reader.) I figured out at a very young age that one way to get my dad all to myself, away from my mom and my four siblings, was to stay up late and watch movies with him. I love that I grew up in a large family, but sometimes, it was hard to have one-on-one time with my parents. Movie watching gave me that time with my dad.

In addition to movies, I also like to watch professional golf, especially the major tournaments, because my dad LOVED golf! When he wasn't playing golf on the weekends, he was watching golf. The US Open was supposed to be decided today. As I watched Tiger Woods make a birdie putt on the 18th hole this evening, I thought about how excited my dad would have been to see the US Open end in an 18-hole playoff, especially with the way Tiger played the whole tournament--he was a Tiger fan. Dad would have arranged his work on Monday to accommodate watching the playoff. He would have gone to work early and come for lunch and stayed until it was over or it was obvious who would win, then he would have either gone back to work for a while or gone and played golf himself. No doubt.

Fond memories of my dad make missing him a little easier to take. Happy Father's Day!

It's so quiet this morning!

I love to get up early on a Sunday morning and bask in the quiet. Usually, on morning's like this, I read, but I finished Christine Falls rather late last night, and I am not in the mood this morning for either of the other books I am reading or ready to start the next book club selection. I should be doing something in preparation for a vacation road trip, but I'm not ready to do that yet either. Instead I am enjoying a cup of fair trade coffee, scoring 54 points! in Scrabulous on Facebook, and surfing the Internet.

Speaking of vacation, Valerie & I are leaving Tuesday on a road trip to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, NM, and Mesa Verde, CO. I have never traveled west of Texas, so I am excited about this trip. I told Valerie yesterday that it was kind of weird to be going some places where I really have no preconceived ideas about what to do/see. I think the only other place that I have been like that is Big Bend, which is my favorite nature place to go now. I know that Santa Fe is popular with artists and art lovers but nothing else really. Valerie went to grad school in Albuquerque, so she knows much about it. I can't remember now how we found out about Mesa Verde, but the idea of seeing cliff dwellings appeals to me.

Now I have to figure what books to take. I will not take War & Peace. It is just too big. I thought that I would be finished with Hero, and still might be, but I probably won't take it if I'm not because it is signed by the author. I should take the current book club selection, Eleven Minutes, which I am not looking forward to reading. Hmmm, how many should I take? I know that I won't read all that I take, but I like to be prepared for reading emergencies. ;-) I think that I will take three books, preferably paperbacks because they are lighter and easier to fit into a purse/backpack. I think I'll get a second cup of coffee now and browse our bookshelves now.

Enjoy your Sunday! Later.

My summer of leisure

In May, I finished my master's degree. I am free this summer--no work and no school. What am I going to do with all my free time?

• Read as many books as possible. Right now, I'm reading three--see the sidebar.
• Blog more than once per month.
  
• Write something other than a boring blog post, maybe some poems or an essay.
  
• Walk for at least one hour at least five days per week. So far, I have walked three days, but today was the first one that I walked for an hour.
• Clean house one day a week. I did laundry today. Does that count as cleaning house?
• Swim.
• Get my stuff in the office weeded, recycled, and organized.
• Add books to my LibraryThing library.
  
• Try out the watercolors that I bought about two years ago.
• Find a new quote for my blog.
  

I'm sure there are other things that I could do. Any suggestions?