Granting oneself a bit of time off now and again is a wonderful thing. I highly recommend it.

You may (or not) be wondering what I've been doing these months. Me, too. Thinking hard about life since March I come up with...not much. A bit of canning (strawberry jam), a bit of sewing (a skirt of pink linen and little embroidered orange dots), a teensy bit of learning to knit (a few rows of variable stitch numbers, alas),*and a spot of gardening (I'm late with the beans!).


Mixed in with these little bits of domesticana, I gave Brainiac a 40th birthday party, read a ton of books the nature of which I'm only a teensy bit embarrassed to share (ahem, cough, paranormal romance), visited with my parents, chatted with friends, pined for a painting from my neighbors' art show, rediscovered the wonder of the rum gimlet, and finally used the guest soap I believed for years to be too pretty to clean my own tired hands. It's a small life, perhaps, but it's mine and I come by it honestly.

Now that my vacation is over, I have much to which I must attend. I've had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Devine from Fresh Preserving and will be posting the results of our delightful conversation later this week. I'm looking to try a few new canning recipes, too, and am hoping to push the boundaries of sane zucchini growing (how many does one garden need?). Then there are the small matters of resolving the window mis-treatments I've got about the premises and expanding my reading beyond amorous vampires. I do hope you'll come back to hear about it all and more.

*I am the living embodiment of the term "late adopter". Now that I have gotten around to learning to knit properly, it's only fair to warn all and sundry that knitting as a trend is likely over. Sorry, Jane Brocket. Truly.