Daybook: June 27, 2009

Outside my window...
My neighbors next door are having a yard sale, which is bringing extra foot and car traffic to our normally quiet street, but good people-watching.

I have been thinking about...
Food.  Where mine comes from, what choices I'm making about what I put in my mouth and what path it took to get to me.  I watched the movie Food, Inc. this week, which gives one a lot to think about.  I'm also thinking about how to cook more in my limited amounts of time, and about canning, now that we are in the season of plenty in my corner of the world, and about making strawberry jam.

I am grateful for...
A quiet day today with only loose plans (I have been so busy for so many weeks).  Time to clean up my house that had become cluttered and messy in my lack of time.  A party tonight where there will be friends and good food and sitting outside under the stars listening to live bluegrass music.

From the kitchen...

Not enough.

In the garden...
I built raised beds in my back yard this spring and they are filled with yummies.  Tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, shizo, peppers, tomatillos, beans, peas, chard, kale, dill.  I go out and water in the early mornings before work and I'm so much enjoying watching things grow and fill in.  A friend has been calling it my "award-winning garden" (to be) and I feel as proud of it as if it did have a ribbon on it.

Elsewhere in the garden I am pulling weeds, slowly getting it back under control.  Planning to lay weed cloth down and spread shredded bark where there used to be lawn.  Well, never lawn since I've lived here, but once there was a lawn there. It has only been an expanse of ugly since I have lived here and I'm tired of it.  I have flowers that need to be planted in the flower bed, and containers that need tidying and re-filling with new plants, and gaps that need filling between the volunteer zinnias running along the front of my porch where the resident gopher colony have been disappearing them in the middle of the night.

I am wearing...
Jeans, rather more tight than I'm comfortable with.  A favorite black tee-shirt with a glow-in-the-dark Mac power symbol on it.  My joy bracelets.  A silver necklace with my word on it: Create. No shoes.  Summer red toenails.

I am making...
Plans.  Starting new journals.  Making room in my life for more rest, more creativity, more cooking, more making.

I am reading...
One more story to go in Flights of Love, by Bernhard Schlink before I take it back to the library.  Next up: Drowning Ruth, which I just renewed so I didn't have to return it yet. I have been savoring Plant Seed, Pull Weed by Geri Larkin, and will be sad when it is done.  I have also been slogging through two books that I started a while back and am either not in the mood for or really just not enjoying: Suite Franciaise and Unconfessed. I had been really looking forward to both of them, which is all that's keeping them from the "sell these to fund more books" pile. This morning with my coffee, I read cookbooks:  The Breakaway Cook and The Farm to Table Cookbook.

I am dreaming...
Of travel, and the life I am slowing moving toward, and more time to myself, and paintings I want to paint.

The best thing...
Basil from the market last week that was so fresh it started growing roots when I put it in a jar of water.  Some will be pesto on pizza this week, and some will be planted in the aforementioned garden.

A few plans for the rest of the week...
A menu of good things to cook and eat throughout the week.  Lunch with a friend and then Pilates class with my sister on Monday.  A massage and a haircut.  Ani DiFranco out under the stars (I like outside music best, it seems).  A day off on Friday for the holiday to make for an even longer and lazier weekend to look forward to.

A picture or two to share...

Comments

[Clare B]

This post makes my heart sing. I love that you feel about your garden the same way I feel about mine. If only I could win lotto so I could spend a couple of hours in my garden every day. A beautiful post. Thank you.

[jo marks]

this was worth waiting SO long for! you have a wonderful way about you miss D - thanks for letting us far-away folk peek into your life again. i've missed it.

[April]

what a great post. wish you wrote more often.

[Kirse]

Yah! She's back -
Way too much to comment on in this and the next blog.
great shots, esp the garden one,
love the weed analogy - and I can see through this lens why I am annoyed at the seemingly small undone tasks at my place. They represent bigger things.
Thanks for the thanks on our friendship - it has been a treasure (as in rich, colorful, unexpectedly delightful, and new) for me.