Relentlessly Dorky

The title of this post came to me as I was falling asleep the other night. I was thinking about how I’ve been waiting all my life to be an old person who prioritizes my rest and my nonglamorous hobbies. I’ve been middle aged at heart forever. Sure, there’s some things I miss about my twenties. Mostly my health and the state of my body. Today I hurt all over from gardening yesterday.

We’ve had gorgeous weather all week. I wished it was a leetle bit warmer today, when I finally had a moment to go to the pool. The high was only about 80. That was probably my last pool trip of the season. Sniff.

While it wasn’t great for swimming, it’s been great for gardening, and I’ve been in the yard every moment I could all week. I did a lot on Saturday, and my neighbors on both sides were in their yards as well, the three of us all chatting while working. I finally got broccoli and Brussels sprouts seedlings planted. I also heavily pruned the tomatoes, pulled most of the declining marigolds, and planted lettuce seeds again.

I picked one or two reddening tomatoes every day this week and processed some ripe ones. Then this haul today:

The green tomatoes pretty quickly give way to this situation:

At the farmers’ market Saturday morning, I brought the beach cart and was able to get a real haul: a dozen ears of corn, plum tomatoes, green beans, carrots, nectarines, a watermelon, a muffin, and dog treats. Processing allll the tomatoes and corn will keep me busy tomorrow morning (we’ve already eaten all the market and garden green beans). It isn’t the food preservation marathon I talked about in my last post, but it’s something.

Later on Saturday, F and I passed a large white desk on the curb while driving. She’s been wanting a bigger one, so we stopped and loaded it into the Honda. One good reason to have an SUV over a sedan! I’m going to repurpose her old desk.

The big event of the week was of course moving my son into his dorm. Most of my mental energy was focused on that. I just kept thinking of more things that needed to be done, items that needed to be packed. In the end it went pretty smoothly. I wasn’t too emotional, more excited for him. And he’s already been home once, for a few hours today, so… it’s not like we won’t see him. Fingers crossed, he seems to be settling in OK. I felt like I was spending money like crazy on his final items, but when I totaled it up, it wasn’t that bad.

It was surreal, though, to be driving him there while listening to the “Lithium” channel on Sirius, which was of course playing all these songs that were huge when I was moving into college 30 years ago. Nirvana, Counting Crows, “You Oughta Know.”

Meals this week:

Monday: French toast with cut-up bananas for N and F; tuna on sourdough toast for me

Tuesday: Snacky dinner

Wednesday: Tacos

Thursday: pizza at F’s birthday party at Songbird Karaoke

Friday: PJ’s restaurant

Saturday: mashed potatoes and green beans sauteed with garlic (just me and N)

Lunches: I worked from home all week. But I did have Wawa on Thursday en route to college. Aaand I got an iced latte Door Dashed to me on Tuesday morning.

I wanted to go to the beach today, but it just didn’t happen. I slept late and then F and I went shopping for school clothes at the mall. Hoping to get down there next weekend. I definitely did not get enough vitamin sea this summer.

One more day off tomorrow, and then I’ll have to regroup and get back on track with… all the things. At some point soon, I need to clean out the front porch and other areas that have accumulated clutter. I want to start the school year fresh. I also want to work on my plan for adding more planters and improving my seedling/grow light set up.