summerlicious

you know what was good? this dinner.

tomatoes, beet greens and poached salmon! there was corn-on-the-cob too which i ate before i could pick up the camera because loving corn-on-the-cob and eating corn-on-the-cob very quickly are two of my super powers.

fly me to the moon

when the sky is clear and the moon is full we walk to the park to have a look. i bring my binoculars, jer brings the camera, and the moon brings its glorious, bright shining face.

the moon was once a part of the earth, did you know? or at least that's the rumour around the science cooler. i like to imagine what part of the earth the moon was like the armpit or the knee or the section of the brain concerned with abstract thought.

fall? i saw it kiss the summer leaf. i watched it waiting, waiting, for its time to paint the forest.

love actually is, all around.

i've been giving a lot of thought to love lately. specifically how our concept of love changes as we go through life.

when i was little i loved joey mcintyre and kermit the frog when he dressed up as michael jackson in the bad video.

in grade eight, i loved scott jackson.

when i was sixteen i loved a tanned shouldered boy with long dark hair who never wore shoes, drove a brown pick up truck, and listened to led zeppelin.

for five years i loved my highschool boyfriend, duane rushton.

all of these early loves had something in common. the love i felt for them was very personal, highly analyzed and communicated in very boastful ways. like issuing a statement. like announcing i'd achieved something. like missing some sort of point.

i loved cameron but really more as a friend. i loved matt, but we barely knew each other.

and then i loved jeremy.

love is poems and pancakes and saying vows to each other in fancy clothing but it's also real and present and starting and ending each day looking at each other and not being able to imagine that the world, your world, could be any other way.

love isn't only in the clouds, you see. it's doing jeremy's laundry, it's folding his dress shirts, it's making his tea with just the right amount of milk. it's looking around at our house, the home that we've made, and having shared stories for everything in it.

it's knowing that when i ask him to be somewhere, he always will be.

there are so many different kinds of love in the world. love for a book, love for a song, love for franks hot sauce on just about everything. love for the ocean and it's strong, primal allure.

but all those loves, through the lens of the love i share with jeremy, are amplified, multiplied, boost-i-fied in the incredible way love is when sharing it with that one person who understands you completely.

aren't we all such lucky ducks? aren't we all just slaves to love.

let's see here

one day i'll get more topics than 'jeremy, camping, and clouds shaped like hearts' but for now! that's what you're stuck with! maybe you knew that going in? i hope so.

last weekend we were camping at balsam lake. it's about a two hour drive from toronto, heading towards the kawarthas, so even though you're on a highway it's a one-laner, passing chip wagons and drive-in theatres.

our site was a hike-in spot. it was quite secluded actually, if it wasn't for a trailhead close by and some trips to the beach when the sun demanded, we wouldn't have seen a soul.

we took pictures of mushrooms.



we took pictures of clouds.




we pulled all the nails out of this beautiful, silently suffering tree.


we spent a lot of time in the dining tent, safe from bugs and rain and the rest of the world.

we cooked over the fire, we read our books, we ate mel's cherry preserves with crackers and brie.

if you built a time machine and set it randomly to any one of our many camping trips you'd find it hard to determine in which one you'd landed. the changes limited to the length of my hair and the number of layers we have on, those key components, (the food, the set up, the close relationship with dirt), remain unchanged.

like my love for jeremy, my love for trees, and my love for peeing in the woods like a wild animal.

anyhooters

we heard this guy when we were camping! well maybe not this exact guy but his very close relative was very close by when we were sitting in the dining tent, drinking a beer and thinking nature's most definately where it's at.

i recognized it was a barred owl by his distinct call and if that weren't enough excitement for a year and a half, another one answered and we sat with our mouths agape catching flies and inhaling wonder through our nostrils.

we contemplated taking off through the woods to see if we could spy him but as an owler you know, hearing them is just as good.

owls, man. owls.

sunny jar of pickled carrots (and the dill is caught napping).

you don't make pickles in the bed

PICKLES! i love pickles. i also love making pickles and mini breaks that start in the middle of week and nachos. just now, (real time update!) jeremy walked out of the kitchen with nachos and some fresh salsa he'd just thrown together and you know what i'm thinking? i'm thinking i'm the luckiest meerkat in the manor.

life is good. and not just if you're a jar of pickles in a hot tub.

pickles are actually really easy to make you just have to keep everything clean and hot and it's more of a study in assembly, than cooking. and i adore assembly. and jeremy. not equally though i love jeremy more.

and now we wait for three months for them to be ready so we can finally have our grilled cheese party.

good day to you! and good rest of your week, you're almost there.

x

just desserts

a tisket, a tasket, a fruit and veggie basket.

mel borrowed our tent for a camping adventure and in thanks, she brought us a basket of produce. with the farm share we're doing this year and my proximity through work to people like mel, i can say my knowledge of fruits and vegetables has grown like the sprouts we jar at home, quickly and with enthusiasm!

i don't even know if i've ever done anything with eggplant before this summer? it's so delicious and versatile. also if i eat any more leafy greens i might turn into a leafy green. (i hope i'm kale, i hope i'm kale.)

we're still eating chicken and fish only and honestly an ever decreasing amount of both, too. i don't think i'll ever cut those out completely, i love sushi and chicken wings too much but in large part, we eat vegetarian. loads of vegetables like i mentioned but also beans, (good thing jeremy loves me), nuts, small grains like quinoi and lots of delicious soups and pastas. also wraps.

i know how to make my own hummus and jeremy makes black bean corn cakes and i mentioned it already but tomorrow we're going to make pickles. my dream is one day to have a cold cellar for our preserves like the one we had when i was little. and to make my mom's pickled carrots.

and to rescue a horse from a circus diving act.

all dressed up (with nowhere to go).

my wedding dress has been living in a bag in a closet for the last two years. it's just so special and pretty i wanted to preserve it, like the wedding, someplace neatly tucked.

but i wonder if maybe it's silly to keep something of such beauty in a closet in a bag where it's most likely having trouble breathing.

so i took it out for a spin.

i missed you, dress! i'm sorry i though it was more important to preserve you than to twirl you through the livingroom.

it won't happen again.

i'm right here, where you left me.

we like to move the coffee table out of the sunroom and pull the nest chair up to the window. we take turns sitting and reading in it.

i think tomorrow we're going to make pickles.

what is that wonderful something about this time of year? summer so long and lazy? it's gosh darn rejuvenating, i tell you.

but trust me on the sunscreen.

i used to think that sunscreen song was for me. you know that one that’s called everybody is free and then in brackets it says (to wear sunscreen)?

based on an article in the chicago tribune, the song version came out in 1999 and was addressed to the graduating class (me), read by a father type figure (to this gal who didn’t have one), belabering some worn out messages (dance, sing, floss) and driving home some personally important ones (wear sunscreen).

so many of the lines in the article/song are still staples i reflect back on. gems like ‘the race is long and only with yourself’ and 'your choices are half chance, so are everybody elses' are the kinds of things you hear and yell out YES to, pumping your fists in the air or nodding your head in the loudest, non-verbal way possible. even though it isn’t really my song and even though you’re probably familiar, i share it here for you to read and pick through, taking bits of gospel with you, as i have.