sevenpoppies

so much in my head tonight, all a-flutter.

I keep typing it out, and it all seems so ordinary – a basement to organize, tomatoes to replant, dinner plans…things like that. my book to finish. sewing pattern arrived today (quite excited for that). a baby pool to clean and refill. how am I gonna use up our abundance of potatoes (no more salad!) bills to sort and file. heaps of negatives to sleeve. shop updates. a house to go through. ants to spray. a washer to fix.

It will get done, I’m not stressed,  it’s just that I think about it.

These moments creep up on you and you stop and really hear yourself and you realize you really do think about these things now. And it just happens. I found it scary amusing when I realized I was excitedly relaying a sale on charcoal to a friend last week. We do grill a lot.

When we rented this house, we inherited a little barn, four apple trees, a neighboring bramble of black raspberries, and a crazy old garden with it. What we came home to as far as the garden was big a mess of overgrowth, clumps of spreading iris, big swamp wood roots and tiger lilies that threatened to come into the house. There was a big pile of bricks tossed into the center, and a groundhog hole, these water wheel looking things and a ton of fat earth worms.

I wasn’t planning on tackling too much of it this year – almost already too late into the planting/growing season and a whole house to make home, but indoors came together like a snap and so one day I found myself in the garden. I managed to get alot done that first week. Until my father lent us a shovel I was digging up lilies (not my most favorite flower, sorry to say) one by one with a tiny old trowel. I sent what I could over to a friend that happens to love lilies for her to give a new home to. My father lent me a hand one afternoon to unearth huge chunks of quartz and other obviously collected rocks from under the soil. He helped me form a few terraces that I will finish up. Besides all of the worms, there’s good dark earth in there too. Someone had kept it well once.

The heat wave last week slowed me down to the point of a standstill. I left a few of the lilies strategically placed, removed a whole bushel of hidden crocus bulbs to replant, planted salvia and black eyed susans that overran my parents home, and a bit of creeping thyme. Until we get our groundhogs re-located I probably won’t do much more in the way of planting this year. Instead I hope to finish clearing and building up the terraces. One day I hope to work up the courage to ask if we may remove that oddly placed bush. For now I have a few herbs in pots and two tomatoes gifted by friends. This year seems to have already been full of the giving and receiving that goes into making a house a home.

It’s my husbands day to have the car for work. Since we just moved back to the country from near-city life we still only have our one car. It was a quite a freeing thing over a year ago to be able to sell off one of our vehicles. I remember feeling so giddy about it! Here I get our shared car the two days a week when he takes the bus into the city, and I don’t mind not having a car so so much, except for sometimes. We’ll have to get another one soon. Maybe I do wish for one just a tad more then I let on. That’s just the way it is here.

I digress.

It’s rainy, we’re stuck. So I’m doing my best to partake in nothing but lazy, comfortable things today:

wearing: a cotton skirt and bare feet

listening: to traffic on the wet pavement, the hum of the ac

reading: A Shadow of the Wind

eating: plenty of warm food. and a bit of cold chocolate.

watching: The Wizard of Oz

wanting: to take a nap

I wasn’t planning on blabbing about shoes today, but I did.

And then our connection dived out and all became lost, and maybe it’s for the best, since I sure can ramble. But anyway, I got going with my shoe talk, and point being, I would really like to get a pair of Birkenstock sandals. I had a pair once, and between my sister and I we can’t seem to locate them. But what I remember so fondly about them is that they were broken in to the perfect point where the extra strapping was curling up over itself an they were so easy to slip on and muck on away with. I’ve driven my cheap flip flops to their deathbed already, but summer – there’s more to be had.

I have two rolls of film on the way this week, and one more to turn in. And G. finally got a desk for his own private office, and that is what’s happening here.

Too hot today. Waay too hot. I heard it was cooler in Florida today then where we are? We were hotter than LA today in our tri-state region? Indeed. It’s too hot. Even our silly inflatable kiddie pool looked like a cauldron sure to scorch our skin. We’ll be hunkered down again tomorrow with our shades drawn and ac’s strategically breakered. We seem to pop a lot of fuses in this old house. And given to the nature of the books I’ve been reading lately, I can’t help but feel a bit of shame as I grumble to think that such luxuries (popping fuses or not) were not a possibility years ago. Puts me in perspective a bit. So we’ll stay inside, which is alright. I’m almost finished with The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and wondering what to read next….any suggestions?

(I have to point out – we found that dresser left here in the basement. The funky green is growing on me but it needs new knobs and a bit of track alignment… Just saying.)

Today:

slow roasted pulled pork sandwiches with dijon coleslaw

cheeseburgers

local red white and blue potatoes salad

deviled eggs

vine tomato salad with basil

corn fritters

Jenn’s blueberry pie

blackberry cherry crisp

fresh whipped cream

homemade lemonade with a splash of vodka for the older set