During summers I wake up earlier. That's a good thing. Some days it gets too hot to go out after mid day, the sun can get strong. Then hang out in the arm chairs in shady corners of the house instead, with all the windows to the north wide open, and the wooden shades pulled down to the south. One can still see out through them.

I read. News, blogs, books, bits and pieces. And I look at pictures. Some I save for later. Some I use in my work. Blogs often irritate me. I seldom follow any. Except my old student Hilla's. Her's was special. She was dying if cancer and reported very honestly about what was happening to her. One day she wrote about how unfair life is, and asked herself why she hadn't taught her sons more about how to deal with that.

We recently had a young woman, succesful, staying here. I checked her blog out. She wrote about what make-up to pack for trips, how yoga makes you healthier, about being proud over taking the bus to Malaga on her own, about the lunches she cooked... Her blog has so many followers that a publishing house had asked her to write a cook book, and actually published it. "They knew it would sell since I have a big audience", she remarked insightfully. 24 years old. She makes a living this way. Good for her.

I just made my own cook book. I don't really cook, but my daughter had asked me to write down some of my 'fast' recipes for her (when I cook I want it to go fast). I made her a book for her birthday. These days one can just put one together sitting in an armchair in a cool corner of the house. If one does it digitally it's easy to just upload it to a site like vistaprint or blurb, and they will print it and sent it out. One copy.