As most people who read this know, I'm married to a man almost twice my age. One of the funny quirks about this relationship is that he has two children who are older than me. Stepmom? I don't think so! More like little sister. (You hear about Phil's gorgeous daughter fairly often, since she's awesome and she lives right here in Homer.) Even funnier (in terms of imponderable relationship titles), Phil's son has kids! So, our first set of visitors are Phil's son (on the left), his wife (on the far right) and their four kids!
The center of activities is up at their mom/'real' grandma's (much bigger) house: most people who read this also know that Phil's first wife also lives in town and is one of our very favorite people, and that her house is the center for many activities in our life.
This is about the most fun, good natured, positive, cheerful crowd of visitors one could wish for. They've gone fishing, and maintained interest and engagement all the way through the process. We've hiked the beach picking up rocks, collecting the most beautiful ones and practicing skipping the rest, or throwing them down hard to try and break out geodes. We've hiked around in woods and meadows gathering wild flowers, bird egg shells, and even a road-killed baby snipe, flattened in the dust like a pressed flower.
She wasn't really going to eat that jellyfish we found on the beach! But she's such a good sport, she posed as if she would.
I'm finding ways to take a few hours out of the melee here and there in order to get some work done and have some quiet time and space, which allows me to be fully present the rest of the time. It feels good. Some of those 'time outs' have gotten engulfed by food-prep and garden projects rather than reading/writing/working, however.
And what that chocolate-orange raw not-cheesecake has to do with all that beautiful freshly harvested kale will have to wait for my next check-in!
I hope you're having a beautiful weekend.
What's growing in your garden?
Wow, what a joyous thing to have such a fun and loving group of people show up to hang out with you. Wonderful. So happy to hear this news.
ReplyDeleteMy garden is all in pots and mostly herbs: several varieties of basils and mints, lemon balm, lemongrass, rosemary. I also have a few varieties of peppers growing. Recently acquired some malabar spinach plants (one green-stemmed and one purple-stemmed): not real spinach, but taste and texture of leaves are similar, and unlike true spinach, which only does well in cool weather (something we don't experience much here) the malabar spinach thrives in the heat. Only thing is, it's a fast growing vine. So I'm contemplating transplanting to a very large pot and creating a trellis or support poles of some sort for it to twine around. Need to do something before it races down the length of the driveway. Will be easier to harvest, too.
Hope you are out enjoying yourself right now...Mindy
Your family adventures sound like so much fun! I love that you all get along so well, especially with Phil's ex-wife. That's the way it should be.
ReplyDeleteI don't have anything growing in my garden this summer. :( Last year I grew broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, kale, zucchini, strawberries, herbs, and tomatoes. We have been absent too much this summer to warrant a garden. I will be visiting farmers' markets on my return to AK!
Lusting after that cheesecake...
Mindy, thanks so much! I _love_ malabar spinach--we grew it in HI quite a lot and it definitely thrives in hot, humid places (I had it in CA too and it was smaller there). Oh, but it's yummy.
ReplyDeleteI actually saw some in _Fairbanks_ last summer, of all places, at the university botanical garden. Their season is super-short, but because they're interior, their summers are much hotter too.
I hope you enjoy it!
love
Ela
kt--I'm really grateful for our family situation too. It's a blessing.
ReplyDeleteZucchini and tomatoes last year--wow! We couldn't do that without serious greenhouse action. I understand the difficulty of choosing between outdoor adventure and gardening--we always try to have our cake and eat it too a little bit--this year, the adventure is somewhat curtailed by all the visitors and other things, two years ago, our garden was definitely smaller.
love
Ela