love, friday

• Love my garden.

• Love going from this on May 17:

to this on June 1:

to this on June 11:

• Love that the pole bean seeds that Jackson and I planted

are this big now:

• Love my front stoop filled with lobelia, pulmonaria and coral bells. And peace.

• Absolutely cannot get over how much I love the smell of tomato leaves in the garden when I brush against them or help a newly grown branch reach up to the next level of the support.

• Love having too much lettuce for our family already and sharing with friends who are not afraid to come over and harvest it themselves.

• Love volunteer scallions and onions who show up in the garden wherever they please from last year's plants gone to seed.

• Love our first CSA box of veggies and herbs from Turnip Rock Farm. Love that Dan brought all of it home from work on his bike in honor of Bike Walk Week yesterday.

• Love this clip promoting Bike Walk Week. (Anyone recognize that hottie on the retro bike?)

• Love 10:30 a.m. tomorrow--the time that we get to drop off the kids at Grama & Grampa's for an overnighter. Love that it's been six years since our wedding and that we get to celebrate by...oops...can't say yet. The "bride" is surprising the "groom" with a 24-hour getaway!

• Love that I got to see Temple Grandin and Carol Gray at an Autism/Asperger's conference today.

• Still wondering when the other shoe is going to drop and someone is going to tell me that this is all actually a joke, but LOVE Jackson's new schedule boards. Are you kidding me? Is it seriously possible that all this visually-motivated kid needed to brush his teeth/go to the bathroom/willingly put shoes on and walk out the door for (XYZ) errand was a simple schedule with removable 2-inch cards showing pictures of what he needs to do, in the order that he needs to do them? Was it really my child who said "well, I guess we better start from the beginning and just dive in" (while shrugging) when faced with the prospect of the cards "clip fingernails" and "clip toenails" when we've NEVER been able to manage these tasks without extreme resistance--including, but not limited to tears--in his entire little life? Oh my god, love does not even begin to touch on how I feel about these schedule boards. I might actually love them more than I love my garden...

love, friday

P.S. Sorry for the unintended hiatus from the blog, folks. I've been in the garden.