Catching up and calming down

I have a blogging rule for myself.  I  am not allowed to check my own blog or start a new post until I have caught up reading and commenting on the over 30 blogs that I follow.  So needless to say when I returned from my vacation, I had a lot of catching up to do.  I tried to keep up here and there in the late hours while at my Mom’s house, but I just didn’t have a quiet environment during the day and my grandparents were in the void.  I returned on Tuesday night and enjoyed a snugglefest with MrBeep.  It is always so good to come home to your own bed, your own linens, your own pillow, (and especially) your own sweetie. 

********** Begin Bitch Session ***********

The next morning I made my tea, caught up on lots of reading, commented here and there. After a little while I got up to stretch my legs and walked down to my garden to check on things.  Unbeknownst to MrBeep and me, my MIL and FIL stopped by while I was on vacay.  FIL put together our new gas grill (they bought it as a Christmas present in Dec).  While he was working on the grill, MIL swept the back porch, pulled weeds and trimmed hedges.  Nice, right?  Unfortunately she chose to take my boysenberry bush and dump the vines (laden with just ripening fruit) in a big bundle on top of each other and piled on the fence so she could get a couple of weeds under the vines.  I stared at it, my heart sank.  I waited 2 years for that vine to fruit and now during the 2-3 week harvest this happens?  She didn’t even call to ask me if it would be OK.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

********** End Bitch Session **************

I tried to keep calm.  I tried to remember that she was being nice in her own mad-bull-in-a-china-shop sort of way.  I took a deep breath.  I put on my gardening gloves and carefully, gently detangled the boysenberry plant.  I brought down a plastic bowl and gathered the berries ripe for picking or fallen while I rearranged.  I probably lost a couple dozen berries, and some branches have been damaged but in the end I think it won’t be too bad.  A little bit of gardening Zen helped my nerves, calmed my emotions.  I was getting back to my normal self.  Hummingbirds are going crazy right now for some flowers that are blooming in the garden.  I love to watch them zip around like tiny winged magic green faeries. 

After setting the garden in order, I went to our farmer’s market and returned with sacks of deliciousness.  Crisp lettuce, radishes, carrots, rainier cherries, organic grass-fed beef and lamb from a local farm.  I even got veal bones to make demi-glace.  I also scored some fresh shelled peas.  The peas are only good for about 1-2 days so I cooked them up for my dinner party.  I had a few bucks left and I bought a $3 small bag of kettle corn.  It was freshly made and handed to me, still warm.   Mmmmmmm salty and crisp and sweet.  Hooray for the little things that can cheer your day.

---

Thanks for listening to my bitch session.  My stupid rant.  MrBeep was a tad peeved about the intrusion/destruction too, but he is a guy and doesn’t appreciate the therapy of a good bitch session.  It’s out of my system now.  I have a delicious bowl of freshly picked boysenberries to enjoy with a small scoop of vanilla bean ice cream tonight.

Before my dinner party started and I fired up the new grill (pork chops, portabella mushrooms and squash from the market plus shelled fresh English peas).  I finally finished catching up on all my blog reading.  Here are some of the highlights from the week I wanted to share:

I read an excellent post from The Steadfast Warrior.  She wrote eloquently about the need to feel you can “make things happen”.  Her post is called “Finding Peace“ and I highly recommend reading it.  Sprogblogger is back from her vacay and has excellent news about her poppy seed.  I am so happy for her I can’t express it in words. Barefoot has the great news that there will be a new set of toenails to paint in the years to come. MeKate has been posting some truly excellent IF Haiku.  You should check some out and submit some if you are inspired.  I plan to do an ART ART project based on her excellent idea.  In fact, I think I’ll head upstairs and drag out some pencils and get some planning underway.