June 08, 2008 - 11:32 PM.

Pull yourself up

OK, breathe, count your blessings, and make a good day happen, and a discontented moment does pass.

After being bitter and bored for a few minutes, I was sick of being in that space, so I hatched a plan at 10 last night to have my family in to breakfast this morning. They were all willing, so they showed up about 10 and we had a very fine time! My parents, my sister, her partner and his/their 6-year-old son. I scrambled 18 eggs, fried up a big bag of shredded potatoes (in bacon grease yeah baby), Foremannned a pound of tiny sausage patties, and put the leaf in the table. My mother brought a big fresh fruit salad (oranges, bananas, strawberries, grapes, and the season's first cherries) and a double batch of gluten-free scones. We set the little table for the boys and crowded around for a really fun morning. I am definitely a morning person, and to have everybody running around setting places and shouting instructions, in between kissing children and stealing tastes, was just heavenly to me. A vigorous, loving start to the day.

We just made the rest of the day happen, despite having wanted to take the boy to his grandparents for part of it and that not working out. Let J. go out to do something fun and alone (he's working on a way to make a tray for ice cubes in the shape of Han Solo frozen in carbonite). Played hard with the boy. And we took a family home-improvement trip to KMart, which I wasn't sure still had a garden dept. but remembered fondly from my childhood. Thirty bucks got me 4 zucchini plants, 3 very large tomato plants (Willamette, Early Girl, and Sweet 100), 2 6-packs of marigolds, 2 of cosmos in 2 heights, a thyme plant and one of dill, and 4 big bags of potting soil for the pots I already have at home (the tomatoes will go in those). Very good deals. Watered everything with Miracle-Gro when we got home -- the yard is actually starting to look like something now, with the herbs and rhubarb and the shade plants along the terrace, and last year's flattening. I am pleased with it.

I forgot to mention that last weekend saw us with TWO free scores. My folks picked up a wonderful older toy kitchen for our son at a church yard sale -- it's made of pressboard, all in one piece, with a hooded range, oven, sink, cupboard, and fridge/freezer. The backsplash is printed in red checked wallpaper with a little window, and the inside of the fridge has 1970s-looking food printed on its sky-blue door interiors. I will be knitting some play food for that, for sure! The other free thing was a big pot of 8-foot-tall bamboo that someone had neglected and put out by the trash at the next-door apartments -- I brought it home, watered and trimmed it, and we'll be dividing it to plant as a screen between our driveway and the apartments' concrete expanse. Score!

So, a trip to the thrift store, a stop for a kid cone after kid meltdown in the thrift store (poor baby could have used a nap), and planting up one tomato later, the boy is down and I am about to go down too. I am proud of myself for getting help, and for pulling the day out despite yesterday's despair.

Oh, and J. and I also made up a list of all the projects we want to do this summer, with sublists of materials needed and steps to take. So far we are already well along on Project Hang The Hammock, Project Garden Betterment, and even Project Emergency Kits (House and Car). So we both feel sharper, more like our lives are moving, rather than stagnating as we had feared (apparently).

previous - next