Summer?

From heat wave to four days of rain, chill and wind (and counting). The plants are confused and so am I. I’m very glad to get the rain since we are short on it, but this Memorial Day Weekend weather punctured my happy bubble of summer excitement.

Yesterday (Saturday) I sort of enjoyed the rain. I felt sick so I didn’t mind just laying around, getting up now and then to switch the wash. I also did some chauffeuring of the kids and worked on my flowerpot mosaic.

Today, however, I started to get antsy. Luckily the rain stopped in the afternoon and I was able to spend some time in the garden. I worked on protecting the strawberries using netting. There was a nice fat strawberry that was almost ripe yesterday — today, it was gone, the green net bag and all. Just completely gone. I have gotten exactly one strawberry for myself so far. (It was tasty.)

It may not be enough — I may have to get chicken wire. But we’ll see. The netting is pretty taut across the top, and high off the ground. I have been reusing this same netting for years and years now!

I also moved the basil seedlings into pots, moved the zinnia seedling to the front corner and did some general weeding and mulching. I pressed some oregano that I removed from the strawberry patch on my neighbor H. Finally, I identified some plants I was curious about with the PlantNet app (and they were Northern catalpa, mugwort, feverfew, and pokeweed, if it can be believed).

I’m excited about the potential of this gate entrance area. Hope to have tomatoes and beans climbing the fence.

Earlier, I baked cookies and worked on the mosaic again.

Meals this week:

Monday: scrounge: garden salad with chicken strips

Tuesday: Legacy Diner, meh. Won’t go back.

Wednesday: fried chicken from Shop Rite, corn on the cob and garden salad

Thursday: pancakes

Friday: scrounge: F and I went to Sprouts before dinner and I bought mushroom ravioli and vodka sauce to make.

Saturday: scrounge: garden salad with chicken strips and leftover ravioli

Sunday: Oasis takeout (Mexican). My very favorite Mexican place.

Lunches:

Monday: leftover taco salad at home. Tuesday: packed tuna. Wednesday: bought. Thursday: Stella Pizza slice at home. Friday, bought grilled chicken for $2 and added it to garden salad.

Lots of salad… There will be a lull in salad though, while the next batch of lettuce gets going (assuming we don’t have another heat wave).

I continue to try to avoid spending money but some expenses have been unavoidable. Here’s what I have spent on lately:

A gift for the softball JV coach (but used a card I had on hand)

A haircut for N.

2 bathing suits and flipflops for F (at Marshall’s for very good prices)

A wedding gift (cash)

School lunches

A small donation at work to a worthy cause

A donation to my nephews’ school

A big delicious iced caramel latte at work

I continue to use Fetch (scanning in any and all receipts, including ones found on the ground, and playing games) and just cashed in for a $50 Target card.

Coming up is N’s birthday, T’s girlfriend’s high school graduation, Tom’s birthday, and Father’s Day. F also wants to host a summer solstice party, jointly with her friend who lives next door. And my parents’ 50th anniversary party, next weekend. And Rocco is due to go to the vet.

We agreed to foster puppies again, and should be getting some on June 7. That, luckily, doesn’t usually cost us anything (except time and sanity LOL).

Tomorrow, Memorial Day, I hope to make more progress transplanting the beans, tomatoes, remaining lettuce seedlings, and everything I got from the swap. And to finish adding glass to the flowerpot, so that I can grout it next weekend. Now I’m off to play Scrabble with F.