Next up: August!

I cannot believe that we are in the last week of July 2020. I'm hoping a bit more of the July sky peeks out again soon so I can enjoy it a couple more times. It's been fairly cloudy lately!

It's insane how quickly time passes. I work at a university. The month of August will be filled with the flurry of students moving in, this time under the guidelines and structure of Covid-19 rules and instructions. It'll be different, it'll be a blur, but - hopefully and prayerfully - it'll be good. If we all mind our manners and make sure that we follow the guidelines, I don't see why the impact of the virus can't be minimized.

We are at that point in the garden where it tends to get ahead of us and out of control. Tomatoes are rolling in at top speed and everything is super lush, as you can see below (after my tomato sandwich picture, lol).

    

I'm keeping an eye on the baby butternut squash.

The slight cooldown and rain these past few days have slowed their ripening, which is fine by me. I plan to cut them in half, roast them with just butter and then freeze them to be used later for either sweet or savory dishes. Well, actually freezing them depends on how many we get. We'll eat some as soon as they're ripen. If they are fairly fruitful, the freezer will get a couple batches, as well.

Last weekend, I made homemade skillet cream corn to freeze. This is a variation on the crockpot cream corn that I make, a tad healthier, and freezes well. It'll be good on biscuits with honey right around that drab period of January, after all the holiday festivities have come and gone and I start to crave the tastes of summer. I don't can anything. I only ever freeze produce. I don't have the patience for canning!

We also made oven dried tomatoes; kept it simple - washed and stemmed cherry tomatoes, cut them in half, sprinkled them lightly with salt and set the oven to 225 for six hours. Checked them at the four hour mark and re-set for an additional hour to make sure they have that gentle chew to them. After cooling, they go into freezer bags, another taste of summer in the winter, after the hustle and craziness of a long and drawn-out holiday season.

Speaking of holidays - is it terrible to hope that this year, the holidays are tamer? Maybe, just maybe, this whole virus thing will help us cull back the overkill of the holidays and focus on what we believe, our families, the food and the music. I seriously could love a Christmas where the decorations are sparse but meaningful, the food is top notch, and the music is old-school holiday music. No flurry of present-buying, no stores with crabby people, no almost-four-solid-months of piped-in Christmas music: you get the picture. Just that peace that Christ promised us when He came to earth as a baby. 

My flowers are growing like crazy! It's been so much fun watching the new patches develop and take off! They're just stunning, and each year, I say over and over "I never get tired of looking at these!" You just watch - I'll have my annual breakdown and be in tears around the first part of October when I feel the earth really shifting and I know that my last flower on the stem is part of the very near future. It breaks my heart each year, it's a loss for sure, with the turning of the trees as the consolation prize. Rather than looking to the garden for an eye full of color and beauty, I start to look up at the trees against my October sky (remember, I told you that the October sky was created just for me, but you can enjoy it, too, if you will look up from time to time!). In the meantime, don't forget to enjoy the few days of the July sky between all the recent storms and cloudy days!

This post is all over the place, isn't it? Okay, kitten update. They've had all rounds of shots, including rabies. In August, the girls get spayed and my little boy gets neutered. I broke the news to the two families who were going to adopt Trudy and TC that I simply could not part with them. I also know that their respiratory condition is chronic and contagious to other cats. I just could not get my head around adopting out kittens who could potentially pass what they have to other household cats. We have the ability to keep them separate and safe in their own colony, so that is the plan.

On the positive side of things, as they get older, the flareups should be fewer and farther between. Just have to be vigilant when one crops up and treat it immediately. As their personalities develop, it's easy to see that they are incredibly smart and beyond sweet. These babies love humans, even complete strangers. I think that's part of what makes them so lovable. It's easy to return love that is so freely given. Speaking of kittens, look at my sassy girl-babies in their catio! We let them play outside, as well, in the evenings, but only in our fenced-in area with us right there, watching 

Bunny (mama kitty) is HILARIOUS. This cat talks, she is silly, acts goofy, and plays with her babies! She has the best time and what a lucky kitty. Mama kitties rarely get to keep all their babies, but Bunny is the exception. Their bond will not be broken. Speaking of Bunny - she's been fixed, vaccinated, etc. Little girl is getting chunky, and I mean chunky! Here she is, enjoying being outside, having a bath, while relaxing with her people in her chair (yes, she has a chair). 

It's bizarre to think that by the time I upload a new post, it'll be August. In late August, I really start coming to life. I mean, Autumn goodies and Halloween candy start showing up on the shelves at stores, and soon, you just know that pumpkin everything is going to arrive. But first, before wishing time away, I plan to enjoy the remainder of summer. I was feeling truly sad the other day, and it hit me - this Sunday would have been our County Fair and annual funnel cake day. I have tried not to grieve over the loss of what seems so silly, but it's not really the funnel cake, is it? It's the tradition lost for this year. I know, it'll be back, and with time flying so quickly, next year will roll around quickly. It always does. So today, I'll focus on the weather, which is our last day before storms and heavy rain roll in for three days in a row. I think that calls for Sonic Ocean Water and onion rings. I have not done that in a while, and, frankly, I've missed it. Like most everyone, I've dialed back a lot of things due to the virus outbreak. This will be a huge treat today, because sometimes, the smaller the tradition or gesture, the more comfort it gives us.

Happy late July to you. May August be better than we expect.

Wait, what's the date??

Just like that, over 1/3rd of July is already gone. Isn't that CRAZY? This year just gets faster and faster. There's been no time to breathe at all. I've been working partly from home and partly going into the office, where I'm isolated on a floor by myself at all times. I now always wear a mask if I have to go anywhere on the university campus where I work and, naturally, I wash my hands until there is no skin left on them.

The isolation can get lonely on that floor, so I've changed up my routine a bit. I hung a happy strand of brilliantly-bright lights, and I play our local radio station, where every now and then, you hear the odd, old, best song ever. I have favorite snacks around me, a fridge and a microwave all to myself, and, of course, my own executive bathroom by default, ha ha! (I'm not an executive at all, so, I assure you, that was funny!).

It was cloudy and soft and balmy on Friday, and we needed some rain. Pumpkin patches need rain. Our tomatoes are currently water-logged due to too much rain a while back, so it was a catch-22 wish for rain. I love an afternoon summer storm, as long as it doesn't get crazy violent. What is it about an afternoon summer storm that makes us feel so alive? I don't get it, but it does. I can go stand on the porch right before one starts and, I swear, it just makes me feel like I'm being pulled into something supernatural. I can feel the power of the earth as it revs up to rain down on us. 

Anyway, we got the storm, and it was a tiny bit hairy. Lots of wind, some of the giant zinnias got pushed over, and when I went out later in the afternoon on a quick errand, there was a lot of debris across the roads.Silver lining was quite a heavydown pour and a bonus second downpour that lasted for a while about three hours later. 

We are heating up now. Summer has finally set in, which, ironically, means lots of pictures of autumn harvest items such as pumpkins and butternut squash. We are blessed to still be in the 60s in the mornings. Currently, it's 64 degrees and feels wonderful. We are settling into our summer pattern of high heat and afternoon storms (or all day storms, if Mother Nature decides that way). By the way, if you live in one of those states where your heat is outrageous - like regularly in the 90s and 100s - you're probably laughing at me calling "high heat" 87 degrees. That's okay; I don't know how you do it! You deserve a medal for surviving those kinds of summers!

So, this year, we're growing Baby Butternut Squash. That's a thing! We usually grow the bigger ones. They taste wonderful, but they take forever to get to the point where they can be harvested and eaten. In addition, they are very hard to cut up. This year, we are trying the baby squash instead. I wanted to clarify that because the picture here shows you a baby Baby Butternut Squash. Get it? So now you know, and when I refer later to a mature Baby Butternut Squash, hopefully, it'll be less confusing (or not?).

So this is a pumpkin hill where, just around two days ago, it was simply a few large leaves growing upwards. Now, those leaves are starting to angle down as the plants begin to vine. There are ten of these hills. Eventually, any pattern of planting or arrangement will go away, and they'll meld into one giant vining mess. 

Pumpkins have large, yellow flowers like most squash. If they do well, the bees will have a field day. Morning hours are particularly spectacular. A morning visit to the pumpkin patch results in quite the choral performance from the bees busy at work and humming away. Also present are large, velvety bumblebees and monarchs and butterflies in all colors. If you are wearing a shirt in certain colors, sometimes, a monarch or butterfly will take a liking to your shirt and hover round you and follow you from garden to garden. I have a pink running shirt. One time, I had a monarch follow alongside me for the run for nearly a quarter of a mile. ❤

Look at mama! Bunny is very naughty these days, wanting to go outside and explore and wander a bit farther than we are comfortable with. She knows that her babies are safe and healthy and finally thriving, so she wants some time for herself. No, no, no. I explained to her that, just because she's healed up nicely from her spay doesn't give her permission to give us heart failure by wandering too far.

Today's weather looks interesting. Humid morning, followed by afternoon thunderstorms. We finally have some decent tomatoes rolling in from the garden. Not a lot, just enough to get a tad excited about. Normally, I would say that anything tomato is on tap for today. But in light of the storms, I may gravitate to popcorn and Dr. Pepper in the afternoon with a good, scary movie. It's hard to find a couple hours of downtime, but maybe I can today. We also have a giant, iced cinnamon roll and two huge glazed donuts. I feel confident those will make their way into today's food forecast!

It's hard to believe that in ten days, we will be just two months away from Autumn. We have all that summer heat to get through, but it'll go fast, mark my words. Nathaniel Hawthorne - "Time flies over us but leaves its shadow behind." One of the truest statements ever made. When we are tired of summer, it will become Autumn and grow cold. On that first truly cold day of Autumn, we'll look back on the shadow of summer and wish to be warm to the bones just one more time, knowing that won't happen until we get past the first part of spring in the new year - which will feel miles and miles away. Enjoy your days as much as possible. 

If nothing else, mark each day with something that brings you some kind of joy or at least quiet contentment. You don't have to go out of your way to do this, but if you focus on the nuances of each day just a bit more than usual, you may surprise yourself at what you find throughout your days that bring you just the tiniest bit of pleasure, and you didn't even realize it! You can build on that over time to create some really beautiful days here and there, days that create shadows in time to look back on and re-live just one more time.

The Uptick in the Pumpkin Saga

We all have our reasons for getting up in the morning. For me, it's multiple things such as the responsibility of my job, my family, and the daily upkeep of my eight rescue babies. Other reasons include those things that mark the passing of time - the change of foods during each season; the first zinnia that pops open; the first drink of summer; the first apple-anything of Autumn; the first snow of winter . . .  that list goes on and on. I'm confident most people have those defining milestones that represent the passing of time for them.

I do a remarkable job of overkill on one particular item - the growing season of pumpkins. So, today, that begins. If you bother to read this blog, brace yourself. It can be an obsession for me. What started out as tiny seeds has turned into several hills of plants growing and spreading at rapid rate. It's odd, too, because these are an autumn harvest food, yet we haven't even picked the first truly ripe tomato! There's the overlap that takes place in September where the pumpkins are getting a hint of orange yet we are still getting some ripe tomatoes. It's a nice transition and sometimes comes with that nearly-perfect, much cooler day, a huge gift after the high heat of summer. Anyway, the plants are doing nicely so far. Nothing has infiltrated their operations, and, as you can see, they're just growing right along!

I've been worried about bees lately, but in this zinnia close-up, you can see that they are finally arriving! Whew. There still aren't as many of them as I had hoped for, but the garden flower patches are just now really getting huge, so I think with a bit more time, we'll have us a nice gang of bees hanging out and doing what they do best. All bees are pollinators but, of course, the honey bee is particularly spectacular in its efforts to keep the earth moving along and not dying out. 

I thought about keeping bees at some point, and I still may, but that's going to have to be a retirement thing, I think. Not enough hours in the day as it is. One thing I did not think about when we planted all these huge flower beds was the dead-heading. I'm usually pretty enthusiastic about it in the beginning and have been known to go out in the early hours of the morning before it gets terribly hot and dead head the zinnias, particularly. The giant red zinnia patch is going to be tricky. Once it fills in, how on earth am I going to get to the center of the patch to deadhead??! May not have thought this through very well.

Next up - bee feed. Isn't this beautiful?? Look at those delicate flowers! This is the first year we have put out these seeds. My dad put them in, and they're just gorgeous. They're as delicate as they look, too. That golden yellow-orange is just the BEST. 

Funny thing - the bees prefer my other flowers at the moment. Not sure if they've not discovered this yet? Maybe I should put some signs in the yard with directions pointing them to the row of bee feed. Sadly, I don't speak bee, so my signs would not make sense to them! It would just be human babble!

Here is the bee feed in a row, for perspective. As you can see, it grows out bushy and the flowers are quite small and cupped. This will get a bit taller as it grows. I'm keeping an eye on it to see if the bees finally decide to enjoy it. If not, we may try something else next year, although I do love those little flowers.

Yellow squash is plentiful this year. Now, I cook this stuff old-school - either fried in the skillet with butter, onion, salt and pepper, or smothered in a casserole. It probably does cancel out the health aspects of fresh, steamed squash, but when you grow up in the South, the fried or casserole squash is what appeals to you most. I keep it simple, too. Have you ever noticed how much work a casserole can be?? Lots of chopping sometimes! That's just not for me. However, I gotta say, for summer casseroles, if they aren't topped with bread crumbs or crushed crackers rolled in butter, then forget it! Not worth it.

Speaking of food, I'm still tempted to make a green tomato pie this weekend. I'm not making the pie crust, though. I'll buy that. I make the worst pie crust ever!

My July sky is in full force right now. It's just beautiful (well, yesterday was cloudy all day long, but for the most part, it's been gorgeous). This was taken two days ago. Cannot wait for fresh corn. I do love corn tassels against a rich, blue sky. I can't decide what I'm craving more this year- Corn in a Cup or homemade Cream Corn.

One of my best memories is from when I was a teenager and had spent the night with a friend. It was in North Carolina in the summer, and they lived in an old house out in the country. No A/C, just open windows and fans. We woke up - as teenagers do - around 10 a.m. that Saturday. That house was so balmy and so calm without the cold, artificial air that you get with air conditioning. My friend's mom had made homemade biscuits and homemade cream corn. For breakfast, she served us those biscuits split in half, buttered, topped with cream corn and drizzled with honey. Oh. My. Word. To this day, I still eat my cream corn that way. Every time I do, I'm a teenager again, with that box fan breeze and open windows in July; my bones aren't aching from the artificial air circulating, and my skin feels sooooo good with that touch of summer tan. It's a wonderful memory, and I will always, always be grateful to them for introducing me to the very best way to eat Cream Corn. For them, it was a normal thing - part of the mundane of life, I'm sure. The corn is ripe, so this is what you do - you eat it a million different ways, freeze some of it, and give some of it away. But what a fantastic way to enjoy fresh, tender, milky corn. Nearly 35 years later, and I'm still living that memory.

Looks like we go to 88 today with clouds and sun. I absolutely love a summer day where the sun stays behind the clouds a lot. You get to be warm to the bones without feeling like you're dying in the direct heat! I don't really have a food plan today, but I do have a carton of Frosty Blue Cream Sodas in my fridge. I'm thinking about that, but I'm also thinking about a Sonic cherry limeade. I haven't had one in ages, as I'm addicted to the Ocean Water. But today, I may get that cherry limeade. After all, Sonic also has tater tots . . . . just sayin'.

Wherever you are today, I hope your weather is calm with a nice breeze. In these days of uncertainty, it's amazing how a perfect weather day can bring us hope and help us feel more centered. At least it does for me, and I'm a firm believer that if you can stay centered, you can handle most of what comes your way. I say most because, let's face it - sometimes stuff comes our way and we need the help and prayers of others to get us through it! Love to you on this eighth day of July 2020. The days are going so quickly. Don't forget to look up at your July sky!

 

Happy Fourth of July (and cherry pie)

Happy Fourth of July to my fellow Americans! I think I'm probably one of very few Americans these days who is careful to keep at the forefront of her thoughts the sacrifices made by so many over the years to fight for our many freedoms. It doesn't stop at an appreciation for just America, though. I acknowledge that many other countries offered those same sacrifices in order to defeat enemies hell-bent on destroying both them and us. If we don't live our lives with an appreciation for them, then I think, probably, we don't deserve the priceless gift they gave us. I am forever and always grateful.

Thanks to Covid-19, lots of celebrations got canceled today. However, if you are missing fireworks productions, fret not. They're all at our neighbor's house this year - for several nights in a row, and who needs to sleep, after all? Sleep. So overrated. Anyway, I was a tad frustrated last night, but then, I got up, walked over, pulled the curtain aside and watched a few explode over the field next to us. The sky was clear - you could see all the stars, the mountains in the background, and the nearly-full moon (full moon is July 5th). It was really beautiful. I'm sure there will be more tonight, and I think I may sit out on the front porch this time- just really embrace the show. It's a good excuse to eat a leftover piece of cherry pie at 10 p.m.!

Speaking of cherry pie - thank you, Peggy Ann Bakery! Their pies are homemade, and I nabbed one yesterday for our Fourth of July picnic. I got to the shop as soon as they opened in the early morning. Isn't this beautiful? They have the BEST crust, and notice that sparkling sugar on top? We have vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce to go with it. God bless America, am I right??!

We have a tiny group getting together for lunch today- a whopping six of us. We will be practicing social distancing and keeping the meal extremely simple. 

Our tomatoes. . . . what can I say? They seem to be taking forever to ripen. I did find one yesterday that appeared to be on a path of turning red. Pictured here, if this beauty will show the rest how it's done, then maybe we'll get a whole mess of them soon.

I have a recipe for a green tomato pie, and I may make that next weekend. I'm thinking that using some the overly-large ones for the pie may be a good idea. Those tend to be the water-logged ones, and, by the time they ripen, the bottom often bursts out from heavy water that has pooled, and you don't get to eat them anyway. The pie has mayonnaise in it. I'm sure you'd never guess what type I would insist on using? 

I had forgotten that I accidentally ordered mult-colored giant zinnias this past spring. Since they grow so much bigger than regular zinnias, I opted to have my dad include them at the front of the giant red zinnia patch. As you can see here, they're thriving very well in the full, hot sun. Zinnias love full sun, and they're drought tolerant. Even with several hot, dry days in a row, my zinnias have always flourished. The only thing you need to know about zinnias is don't plant them in a pot. They store water at a rapid pace (which is probably why they tolerate drought so well??), so you spend a lot of time watering them if they are in pots. If you plant them in the ground, generally, unless you are in a full-on, declared drought, they do just fine with whatever rain nature sends your way.

Critter fix! This is my only senior baby. The rest of our rescue crew is all under the age of three, and yep. That means we've got our hands full, especially since three of them are literally babies at just a few weeks old. This is my Georgie, and she's fuzzy and soft and smells, oh, so good. She's truly my girl and chose me as her person when we adopted her several years ago from a not-so-great home situation. She has flourished with us and is now my little chunky girl. She gets whatever she wants.

Today's weather - 90 and dry and sunny with a mountain view and a breeze - calls for eating under the giant shade trees! That's where we'll be at 12:30 p.m. today with burgers (vegan for me and my husband) and fries and cherry pie and ice cream with a tiny handful of family. For now, though, I see through the window that the nearly-full moon and stars need some company. Fireflies are lighting up, too, so I'm going to grab my border collie baby Lacey and we are going to go play out under the stars for a bit. She howls and bunny hops these days, and it's just the very best thing to see. It's in the 60s at the moment. The heat will set in today, so we'll enjoy the next few minutes in the cool together. Just me and Lacey and our night sky, created just for us by a Creator who loves us. It's these moments in time that we truly feel that "we are loved with an everlasting love" - Jeremiah 31:3.

Babies and Where Are the Bees

First of all, because we all know that babies are the cutest, here are mine. They are over three pounds each now and finally thriving and - knock on wood - doing much better! Each weekend, we gut and clean their living space (they're still kittens, and kittens make BIG messes!). It's a challenge with three little ones who think that everything is a game, but I'm just so glad they pulled through that hot mess of infection that I don't care. I'll put up with whatever they're dishing out. Mama is healing nicely from her spay surgery, and I couldn't be happier for her. She's plumping up, and her fur feels like it ought to - clean and soft, and she's no longer shedding like crazy!!

Can we talk about the garden, please?

So, the garden - I've been a bit stressed over it the past few days. I'm not seeing many bees, and I've only spotted a couple honey bees and a few monarchs and butterflies earlier on in the year. Where are they? We don't use pesticides. I've been reading a few articles about how bees really struggled last year and, although they're making a tiny bit of a comeback, hives died in droves. I cried when I was reading some of the articles. People who had invested a lot of love making their multiple hives thrive suffered loss after loss. They love their bees. To them, it's like losing a part of the earth that they've nurtured all alone. I'm wondering if the hives down the road from our house are simply no longer. I've often wondered if our bees these past few years were part of those hives. Apparently, the varroa mite is the deadly killer of the honey bee in many and/or most parts of the word, and it's rampant, or at least has been in recent months. Praying we see some bees very soon. Something is obviously pollinating the garden because we are getting lots of squash. I just cannot figure it out.

Blackberries are starting to turn! The patch is loaded. These are "domesticated" blackberries, in that the branches do not have thorns. Much better and easier to pick. Of course, if you cannot eat seeds, these are not for you! Or at the very least, you'd have to cook them down to a compote or create a jelly and strain out the seeds. Wonderful flavor but very, very seedy.

See those tomatoes? Lovely, aren't they? THEY SHOULD BE TURNING RED BY NOW. Okay, now that I have that out of my system, let me just say that last year, for the Fourth of July, we had garden ripe tomatoes. Not this year. The cold spring kept hanging on this year and then rain. Lotta rain. LOTS of rain. Did I mention rain???

This past week, however, we turned hot, and now we are getting sunny. Y'all. Sit back and wait for it. Because all of our green tomatoes are going to ripen at one time. If you work with me or are a local buddy, please prepare yourself for "do you need some tomatoes? I have seven thousand of them, and I'd be glad to overwhelm you with them."

I've had two people mention their zinnias to me lately. Okay, here's the deal with zinnias - they'll grow just about anywhere. BUT they do love full sun, so I've shown you one of our strips of zinnias in full sun. That's where a full-sun zinnia patch should be in the process of growing them in upper Northeast Tennessee. Now, my multi-colored patch in the shade? Not quite as tall and only one or two blooms right now. BUT do not fret. Yours will most likely eventually bloom, as will my partly-shaded patch. Also, zinnias are cutting flowers, so when they do begin to bloom profusely, cut some to enjoy in your home or office. It really does help promote new blooms. They should flourish through to the first hard frost in Autumn. My zinnias in full sun have even been known to survive the first hard frost, believe it or not! At times, I've said goodbye to the last bloom as late as the first part of November.

Next up, the wildflower patch. We did not plant this. This part of the garden gets way too much shade, and we are in the process of letting it go to seed/grass and then simply mow as needed. Well, we we were GOING to let it go to seed, but what we discovered for the past two years is that the wildflowers that we planted three years ago have come back all on their own. So in the spring, we just let this area do its own thing. It's wild and woolly, but it certainly carries its very own beauty without any assistance from us.

July sky! Don't forget to look up a few times this month! July blue is spectacular! It has a rare depth to it. It's truly the best month for hanging clothes out on the line. The heat and warm breezes of July can dry the thickest bath towels in no time. It's crazy how quickly clothes dry in the July sun and heat.

July is also a very good excuse for drinking those nostalgic summer throw-back drinks like orange or grape Nehi sodas. Or an ice cold root beer, or Frosty Blue Cream soda, etc. I swear, nothing tastes better than a highly-sweetened, ice cold soda on a scalding hot day. If it's a fruit flavor, even better. Summer was made for ice cold fruit, coconut, lime, lemon - anything and everything that reminds us of the warmth of the sun. It's something to hang onto in the winter when it's nothing but clouds and rain and mushy snow for weeks on end.

Pumpkin plant! There are several mounds of pumpkin plants that have begun to take off. Pictures next week will look very different, as these babies will begin really spreading out and starting to vine. Any squash plant fascinates me. Once they germinate, it's like their green light to just go crazy! Kind of reminds me of kittens, ha ha.

The red zinnia patch is nearly filled in completely. This is about 1/4th of the patch of 1,000 seeds. I they all germinated, minus any that got washed away in the massive rain we had the day after they got planted (don't get me started on that aggravation).

I'll try to get some aerial views of this. It's the first time I've done a giant flower patch in this area. If it works out well, it'll be a repeater next year, for sure. I also have a Pugster Butterfly Bush by this patch. I need to share that picture with you soon!

And, finally, my beautiful Lacey after running around like crazy and having a good time yesterday morning (before the heat set in). Isn't she gorgeous? Adopted February 1st of this year, and I could not be more proud of her. She's come a looooong way. Lacey had to choose to trust us and to thrive in our hands. She's done so, and I have to say, she's doing more dog-like things lately. I absolutely love it (except for the two times that she has ran off with my bath towel right about the time I finished my shower!). Ah, well, Just get out another one, no big deal. She's also taken over my pillow, so my big goal for this weekend is to go out and buy another one so that she and I don't have to fight over the pillow (she always wins but you already knew that).

Y'all, it's gonna be HAWT today. Not hot. HAWT. I was going to talk about summer heat, wood varnish and basements, but that's for another day. I'm seriously thinking about cooking up a mess of green tomatoes this weekend. I haven't made any this year, and here I am, complaining about them not yet turning red. So, I guess I should embrace that silver lining, because you cannot go wrong with fried foods. So today's food - depending on motivation and all that jazz - will hopefully be fried green tomatoes and an orange Nehi. (Did you know that Nehi dates back to 1924 - true story.)

Lots of love to you if you made it this far into the post! Wherever you are, if it's hot there like it is here, be careful in this heat. Stay dehydrated. Try to turn off the news or stop checking your social media apps today, if you can get yourself to do so. I know that it can be such a huge part of us. But give it a go. If nothing else, set an alarm for a four-hour window where you don't read the news, don't check social media, etc. Then, go get an orange Nehi and enjoy it with me. Summer showed up! Let's celebrate!

The Mundane

Best cream soda ever!

Welcome to my new nest! I'd be glad to have you burrow in with me! I've made a commitment to myself to do two things: 1. To document a weather report twice a week that I will be pairing with just the right food and drink to fit the forecast and 2. To chase after the daily mundane and write it down. 

I am from many places and absolutely nowhere, with lots and lots of the South thrown in there since the age of eight and beyond. Raised by a southern dad and a mid-western mom, I am an amalgamation of many things! I do not have definitive roots in the sense that I have a hometown. Having moved many times when I was growing up and often being the new kid in school, I found that, looking back, as an adult, I absorbed culture in the sense of food and traditions and the ever-present, ever-interesting weather you get in both the South and the Very Deep South (that is a thing, trust me, and it is stunning). I know this to be the case because as an adult, food and weather are the two things that bring me tremendous comfort. 

Now, if you think that I enjoy a tornado forecast (RUN FOR COVER, there will be zero food pairings for this particular type of disaster), you're very wrong! What I mean by weather being a comfort is that as it changes daily and seasonally, I find myself seeking that gift of the perfect day. On those perfect days, there is nothing that can compare to the feeling of having been handed 24 hours of sheer bliss. There is a genuine feeling of elation I get when I wake up in July in upper Northeast Tennessee to find that we are in the 60s at the moment and only heading toward the upper 70s with lower humidity. Does that happen a lot in July around here? No. But it happens enough that one knows to look for that particular day in July, a gift to not be taken lightly and would you PLEASE eat a warm, garden fresh tomato to celebrate? It wouldn't hurt to chase that tomato with sweet ice tea!

I chose to write about the mundane because when all is said and done, mundane is just another word for the routine of daily life. We find ourselves complaining about eating the same food or being in the same job indefinitely or the monthly trip to the movie theater but nowhere else. Then, when these things are altered because of less-than-welcome circumstances, suddenly, we crave the mundane. 

The cliche of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich comes to mind. It's very boring, if you think about it. It's a tin can of soup eaten with some bread and cheese we fry in a skillet (well, fried food is never really boring, is it?). Yet it ceases to be boring if the perfect weather for it has rolled in unexpectedly. Suddenly, it's the cashmere sweater of foods, the luxury that wasn't a luxury the day before when the weather wasn't 45 degrees with drops of ice cold rain coming down. To call it mundane feels very unfair. I prefer to twist that word around, to reinvent it and to celebrate it.

Moments of feeling alive are built around the mundane, particularly the subtleties of how we grow and change over time. But the mundane can also be hard-wired or "coded" from the relatively bland (or mundane) things of our youth, so to speak. Our past speaks to our present on every level. In my late 20s, I once walked by a candy shop that smelled of cocoa and citrus. I was a very small girl again in that moment, opening a brown paper lunch sack at Christmas. That lunch sack held loose vanilla cremes dipped in chocolate rolling around on the bottom, an apple, an orange, candy canes and loose walnuts and pecans in the shell. When opened, that heavenly smell of chocolate and orange floated up. I was incredibly surprised when my eyes welled up with tears that day so many years later in life. It was a nice moment, but it was an unexpected moment that became this huge gift just for me.

That small bit of my past made that singular moment in my adulthood special. It started out as just a boring walk past a candy shop, but it became a whole new memory born from the 1970s. And so we see how the mundane matters - the casual stroll, an unexpected scent, a comforting, familiar view is all it takes to fling us back in time and make the present suddenly very, very precious. As I roll through this year, I hope to find out what it is that I have loved so very much from my past that lingers and, by doing so, permeates and shapes my present and my future. Let's cheer the mundane, for when it is elusive, it is dearly missed.

Now, not to get you overly-excited, but my next post will probably contain details on wood varnish fumes on a hot, summer day and basements. There ya go! 

Today's weather calls for a celebration of the first day of the second half of the year, and also the day that summer appears to have shown up in this neck of the woods!  For me, nothing but an ice cold Frosty Blue Cream Soda will do! And for heaven's sake, don't forget to look up! The July sky is the second-best bluest sky of the year, outdone only by the October sky!

Happy July 1st to you. Let's see what the second half of 2020 brings to us! I'm going to count the blessings as they come along.