January started off with a bang and continued on quickly and seemed to escape from me fast. I was not prolific in the manner I was expecting. I have a small journal I keep with me to jot down to-do’s and ideas as they come to me, and I will just say that I probably gave myself too much to do for this month.
Creatively I only accomplished one big thing, which was finishing up a baby blanket…well, really I restarted it and finished it. I cut my time short because the baby it was intended for came about three weeks early! The crochet took a lot out of me and I felt creatively drained after.
Outdoors-wise it was mostly a big no-go on adventures or physical fitness. I probably averaged two days a week running and a tiny scattering of yoga during that month. I had hoped to do four days a week running but various things kept intruding. I really prefer to run in the mornings because it frees up my evenings, however I also don’t like getting up before it is light. I might have to start braving the dark and getting out there early. Adventures were non-existent because Chris went to work in the field for an extended time (and will probably return after a short break) and weekends were here-there-everywhere. I had contemplated doing some hiking on my own but I ended up doing other things. I’m hoping I can get out more in February.
Writing was very skimpy, maybe 3,000 words within the last week. Because the crochet drained me creatively I was sapped of energy for writing. With that and the fact the last time I had written was on the drive to DFW for Christmas, my mental focus on writing was shot. I have got to get a fire lit under that this month and hit a big fat number. I had anticipated 70,000 words for January, starting at 40K, but I’m going to be aiming that for February instead. Must get this thing written because editing and some research will be taking up time after that.
Art, which is part of the creative aspect, didn’t happen. I did work on some photos, reprocessing photos I already had. My big goal for art this coming month will be to continue organizing and processing older photos that I never did much with in order to update our website later this spring. This is a much bigger process than I thought it would be and has taught me to start keeping better track of potential photos to put into the gallery. I have one drawing I would like to do this month and will probably spend a couple of days doing that.
The biggest thing I suppose is not to overload my plate and to pick and choose which things to tackle first. I tend to get ahead of myself when I start making my lists and then start to panic when I don’t finish what I wanted to do.
How are you doing on your word for 2012?
Posted by mlittle on January 31, 2012 at 7:22 am under Thoughts. 3 Comments.
+Chris pulled all of the beets, roasted them, and then turned them into pickles. Should be an interesting thing to try!
+My parents came to visit this last weekend and brought their dogs. Isabelle, here, enjoyed sunning herself in the doorways when the sun came through. I think she enjoyed seeing me but she’s going blind, deaf and is getting old and I think she would have preferred to stay at home. My cats weren’t so keen on having the dogs back, but at least they were familiar with them and weren’t too upset about them.
+Been wanting some Vibram Five Fingers for awhile. Found some on clearance at REI this weekend and my parents bought them for me. So far I love them. It will take some getting used to, but I do love feeling closer to the ground. I prefer to be barefoot anyway.
+Samson had to have his fill of sunlight…
+Leo preferred the suitcases we had out as Chris has been slightly transient lately, coming back from the field for a few days.
+Bought some broccoli sprout seeds this weekend at a specialty garden center…going to attempt to do my own sprouting and add it into my breakfast smoothies.
+Getting incredibly frustrated with Mexican restaurants when I go out to eat. I feel like my only options are cheese and more cheese. I love cheese, but I’m trying to be a healthy vegetarian.
+The garden kitty has been taken in by someone at the garden to get shots and to be spayed and will be returned to the garden soon. She is incredibly sweet and will follow you around the garden. As much as I hope she gets a home, I do miss seeing her in the garden.
+Tried the sauerkraut yesterday—16 days in—getting tangy but needs more fermentation time. Scooped a few bits of mold off but it seems to take awhile for any mold to even form. After scooping it off it is very difficult for me to try a taste, but I manage. If I eat raw fish (when I take temporary leave of vegetarianism) then I think I can eat slightly rotting/fermenting cabbage.
How was your January? I need to get out more in February.
Posted by mlittle on January 30, 2012 at 7:47 am under Thoughts. 1 Comment.
Over the years Chris and I have experienced a variety of wild places, some remote and others in the frontcountry. While for the most part we encounter lovely places that are in generally good condition, we often come across places that are wretchedly trashed or abused in some manner.
For New Years weekend we went to Enchanted Rock, one of the most visited state parks in Texas. To add to the crowdedness we of course went on a holiday weekend. The place was crawling with people, most heading to the summit of Enchanted Rock, but others bouncing around Little Rock and some of the other subsidiary rocks nearby. Several ‘backcountry’ campsites are also within the park, all within three miles of a parking lot. These had high use as well though not all of the car camping sites were full.
The first part of our dismay was finding our campsite in a food mess. The picnic table had remanants of that morning’s breakfast still on the table and on the concrete beneath it. In the vegetation to the side were orange peels and egg shells. It was pretty disgusting.
In the backcountry woods, or on trails far a parking lot or camping site, I am all for throwing a banana peel or orange peel off into the woods, though I know more hard-core Leave No Trace people would say otherwise. But in a campground? With a trash can less than 100 yards away? More than ridiculous. We rinsed the table off but I was grossed out all weekend.
An eroded tent pad was set somewhat in the middle of the campsite and we set up our large car camping tent in the middle of a path that led from our campsite to another directly behind us, closer to Little Rock. We thought this would deter folks from using the path as a cut-through. That worked for awhile until the next day when I was sitting at the table eating lunch and Chris was in the tent taking nap. Two men came with a gaggle of children down the path from the distance, turned and then proceeded to walk up to our campsite. They didn’t even attempt to turn around and say ‘oops’, or go around, nor did they stop and ask permission or say they were sorry for using our campsite as their trail to the rocks behind us. Nope they just kept on going, walking between the picnic table, the fire ring and our tent. In the middle of our campsite. Do you walk through someone’s home to get to what is behind their backyard? No. Why would you do that at a campsite? I understand the need to get to the rocks behind the campsite, but there’s a multitude of other paths that lead to it without having to access a campsite.
That didn’t happen once, no it happened yet again with another smaller group, and then another group did it to our campsite neighbors. What the heck, people? Is this just a general rudeness that has seeped through society?
Perhaps our visits to backcountry campsites and less popular campgrounds has spoiled us, and staying a top-visited Texas state park has brought that to our attention. Those other camping areas are nice and quiet! Yeah, we may whine a bit in the winter if we’re in the tent earlier than everyone else but at least most people pipe down at a decent hour. Both nights at Enchanted Rock, and one night can be forgiven because it was New Years Eve, our neighbors stayed up to unearthly hours. The first night it had to be at least 4am before they went to bed. There are quiet hours for a reason! Respect them. If you want to talk, do it more quietly than your normal talking voice. And for crying out loud, do not play your radio!
Out away from the campground we encountered some mild trash on the rock areas, a water bottle tucked underneath a boulder, pieces of litter here and there. It wasn’t terribly bad, but bad enough to roll your eyes and wonder what people were thinking. They weren’t.
Some of this I should have spoken up and said something, particularly the first time someone cut through our campsite. I was grumbling too much at the time and was worried I’d snap something nasty in front of the kids so I kept my mouth shut. But, I should have said something in an effort to teach the kids the right and wrong of camping ethics. Maybe next time dad walked through a campsite one of them would have reminded him not to do that.
So, what do you need to know about outdoor camping ethics?
First, learn Leave No Trace ethics. I think we strive to follow most of their principles, though I will not pack out my toilet paper. I’m sorry but that is just disgusting and if you make a cathole appropriately you shouldn’t have any problems. I will pack out feminine products, though, and you should too.
Pick up after others. If you see a piece of trash on a trail, pick it up and pack it out. Educate others when you can, without being hostile about it. Actions also speak louder than words.
Many campground webpages came up in my search and they even listed out in their guidelines that one shouldn’t cut through other’s campsites!
Camping should be fun and enjoyable for all. Think twice about what you are doing at your campsite and what effects it might have on your camping neighbors. Leave your campsite better than you found it. Educate those who may be oblivious to outdoor ethics guidelines—it is likely many don’t know these things because they don’t often visit state parks or campgrounds, particularly in high impact areas that see a lot of day visitor use.
Now, I’ll step off my soap box. Do you have any outdoor ethics stories?
My word for 2011 was Possible, but somehow it turned more into Adventure. I think this was because I put the tagline “Live Adventurously” into my blog header and from then on it stuck. I wrote a little about that on Messy Canvas in the comments, how adventure butted in and took over. I’m not too disappointed that Possible was moved out of the way, but I think both words tend to go hand in hand.
Frankly, I thought about making Adventure my word for next year but decided against it since it seemed to take over this year. Instead the first word after that was Productive. The more I thought about that word the more sterile and bland it became. Productive feels like something that someone at Dunder Mifflin might say. I looked up synonyms and came up with Prolific.
I want to be prolific in 2012.
Part of being prolific has also been ‘focus’, in that I need to specialize in something in each of these categories (except for reading…I just want to read more).
With being prolific and focusing on a particular subject in these arenas, Art, Adventure, and Writing, I want to be really darn good at what I do.
Art
I am meshing together photography and drawing. In both of these I want to work on a series of work, several in fact, and on the art side I have a few that are AT related. I hope that at the end of the year I would have enough within the series to do something with it, either publishing it in a magazine or having a show or just selling it or making prints somehow. I’ll conquer that when that time goes. Need to do the work first!
On the photography side I want to do a series as well, but also start focusing more on the macro side of things since that is where I tend to take most of my photographs. I also like doing landscapes but Chris is much better at that than I am, and I think has the patience to seek out those landscapes. I want to do smaller scenes, either smaller, more compact landscapes but also the tiny macro scenes and shots that get missed. I also want to submit my work to magazines and gallery exhibitions! I have two exhibitions in mind already.
Also in photography I am trying to get this portrait thing off the ground and would certainly like to have at least one client a month! Again, I think it is time to specialize in something instead of being so broad and I am thinking of settling on maternity and children. I have no desire for weddings or other big parties.
Adventures
Since our days of big backpacking adventures are over for now, we’ll be doing smaller backpacking and car camping trips, but I also want to do other adventures that might be overlooked locally. Our friend Speaker just finished the Source to Sea of the Mississippi River and Chris and I joked that we could do the Source to Sea of the San Jacinto River—in about the length of a long weekend. Of course the river might be dry in some spots due to the drought, so theorhetically we could probably walk the length of the river right now. That’s just one thing—doing smaller adventures and being prolific about it. The basic premise is to get out, see and do.
Writing
For years I’ve wanted to write a book but the actual premise never really came to me. I contemplated an AT book (I actually have an idea for one but it doesn’t involve thru-hiking and would take a load of research and interviews…) but realized the market was inundated with thru-hiking memoirs. Instead I am working on a book on our Florida Trail hike. Yes, this is even more specialized and I doubt I will sell enough for me to stop working (I can dream!) but more needs to be written about the Florida Trail. I am hoping to transfer this also to writing articles in various magazines about the FT but also to expand my writing and write about places we visit in Texas too. That and I want to guest blog on a few blogs that I follow…I just want to write! Hopefully at the end of the year I have a book written and some articles, too.
Being prolific is going to require focus and execution of the goals so I will probably be pulling back from blogging some, only writing here a few times a week instead of almost every day…unless I have the time to write posts for a week to schedule, which is what I do sometimes. I will be around but when I catch myself heading for Pinterest, I will know that I am just wasting time and should be doing something else!
I’m going to recap 2011 a little differently than 2010. I always like doing these reviews because it allows me to see what exactly I did without thinking I didn’t do anything at all.
Backpacking
We thru-hiked the Florida Trail in January and February (and a smidge of March).
We hiked theCrosstimbers Trail with my brother and dad. I think we might have started a tradition?
Thanksgiving was spent on top of Texas and the subsequent days were spent hiking throughout Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
While I didn’t go, Chris spent two weeks camping in various places in remote regions of Florida’s swamps. He was trying to do some ghost orchid work but didn’t end up getting what he was after. I’m sure he will try again sometime!
Adventures
I started a series of Local Adventures that I hope to expound upon in the New Year.
Two years ago I spent a week as a vegetarian. We were still living in Florida at that time and Chris had been sent to work in New Jersey for a week. I’d been toying with the idea of being a vegetarian for awhile, mostly because I’d become interested by learning from my friend Eliana who went from being a vegetarians to becoming a vegan, and I wanted to give it a whirl. Chris being gone seemed to make it a perfect time to put it all on trial. The week was spent well and I learned a lot, mostly that I could be a vegetarian and it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought. Around that time Alicia’s Silvertone’s book (insert book) had come out so I purchased that and absorbed all of the information.
Since we were going on our hike it didn’t seem very feasible to jump into this for the long term so I put it on hold. Then we were living with our families and everything was so transient that it seemed too much of a burden to handle at the time.
On May 1st of this year I decided to go full on with it. we were going to be working in the field and for some dumb reason I thought that since we would be eating out a lot that it would make it easier. I couldn’t have been more wrong on that account. Eating out has to be one of the hardest things to do as a vegetarian.
In August we finally settled down and were able to get better on planning meals and figuring things out. Chris decided he would eat vegetarian with me at home and eat meat when he was out. That helped a lot as I know people who are the only vegetarians at home tend to have a harder time with it, cooking separate meals and issues like that. We borrowed vegetarian coookbooks from the library and scanned our favorites for future use. The internet of course is a vast resource, too.
It is easy to fall into being a cheese and pasta vegetarian. I love both, but it isn’t a very nutrious or healthy way to eat either. Hence the problem with eating out; you are resorted to cheese covered items or lots of pasta. Salads are a good option but most of the time they are covered in meat. Sure you can get them without meat but you are a: paying for the meat even if you get it without, restaurants rarey adjust the price for no meat and b: you are usually losing a protein source and only a few restaurants, typically Asian fare, have tofu on hand as a substitute. You can definitely be a vegetarian and be unhealthy.
As you can tell I still eat cheese and eggs as well as milk products, though not milk itself. For milk I have switched to almond milk, even though for years I drank soy milk. Once I tried almond I never went back to soy. I’ve also found that almond tends to be a bit cheaper than soy milk.
Once we started planning meals I realized there is quite a variety of foods to eat and that for the most part I never feel deprived. It also healthier because we aren’t relying on pasta and rice only, we come up with other ideas to make things interesting. Sure, we add in meatless crumbles into our spaghetti or to use in chili and we’ve also bought faux chicken to spice things up, but we by far do not rely on those for meals.
I’ve had meat, I think four times, during this period. Twice I’ve had fish that Chris caught, something I decided that I will eat if the opportunity arises. I splurged and had sushi on my birthday and I ate meat when I met a friend for dinner because my other options were slim. Of course I still think about meat from time to time, particularly when people talk about it or when I smell something delectable. I’ve decided I don’t really miss chicken or lunch meat. I do miss Chic-Fil-A chicken and I could probably eat a mess of Wing Stop wings, but both are fried and drenched in other stuff. I also miss shredded pork, either bbq or Cuban style. Lately I’ve been wanting meat some and I decided that I’m going to eat meat at Christmas. Ham, turkey and gravy….I can’t pass it up! I could, but you know, I’m alright with not passing it up.
I’m sure some people will think it is sacrilege to eat meat a handful of times a year, but I’ve read many blogs where people are vegetarian but allow themselves meat on special occassions. There’s no reason I can’t make my own rules as I go. Will I eat meat next Christmas? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. I’ll see about that next year.
This vegetarian thing, though, will be sticking around for awhile I think. With enough planning (and it really isn’t that hard to plan for two people) it isn’t difficult to be a vegetarian. Eating out and visiting friends…yes, but you will find that most people are willing to accomodate and will even do it without you asking. I certainly appreciate that and don’t expect my friends to bend to my dietary needs, usually I’ll eat what I can find or try to eat something before I go somewhere. I was ecstatic when I went to a party in August where my friend had considered me the meal planning—something I did not expect!
A few tips:
-Don’t go crazy with buying all sorts of new foods. Try new things out one at a time. For one, if you don’t like what you bought, you are just wasting the food. Two, if you are the only vegetarian in the house it will take awhile to go through it. Want to try quinoa and couscous and all sorts of new grains? Pick one each week or two and try new recipes with each. Master a few recipes so you can have on hand when you buy that product.
-Buy your fresh vegetables every few days. You will be more enticed to eat them when they are fresh. If you see produce on sale, particularly if it is in season, buy extra for out of season times and freeze it. It will be great added to yogurt, oatmeal, or to make smoothies out of later.
-Prepare meals in advance and freeze them or make extra for leftovers. This works with any way of eating, but it eases lunch issues at work and will help you make better choices than ordering unhealthy vegetarian food at lunch. Plus, making your own meals will reduce buying premade items that potentially have unwanted additives in them—even if you buy organic and/or natural premade items they can be more expensive than making it yourself.
-Know that you will probably have to make weird food choices in a pinch at a restaurant. Ask the waiter questions about how the food is prepared. If you are flexible (some vegetarians are not) you may have to accept a bowl of French onion soup that has beef broth in it. Yes, don’t forget how your soups are prepared. Rice could easily be prepared in chicken broth. If you are willing to bypass that, eating out might be easier—if not, there’s always salad! I still forget and order sides of beans and they come with tiny bits of meat. My choice is either to share it with a meat eater, eat it myself because wasting food is stupid, or not eat it. Usually it gets eaten.
-Also. be prepared for weird looks by the waitstaff, comments that appear to be funny but are actually snide, and for your meal to come out wrong despite ordering it without meat. While there is plethora of vegetarians these days, and the lifestyle is much more prevalent than in previous decades, we live in a omnivorous society and folks love their meat. That said, be polite, slowly educate and spread the word without being militant about it. Actions always speak louder than words.
That’s just a few. A Google search or a trip to the bookstore will allow you to find tons of information out there. There is definitely a lot of research that has gone into the vegetarian lifestyle.
I’ll probably do another self review again when it has been a year, see how I feel and write about it again. Until then, eat a few more veggies (you too dad! ) next time you have a meal.
I’ve started and re-started this post multiple times, fumbling for the right words to use. The first draft felt too self involved, the second aimless, and the rest were drafts in my head.
Living Adventurously.
It is more than just taking off, quitting your job and vagabonding around the world. Of course, it is that too, but there are all sorts of smaller, side adventures as well.
Part of the draft writing has lead me to realize that while I might not have felt I was adventurous pre-Appalachian Trail, upon closer inspection of my life, I/we had been fairly adventurous. Perhaps I hadn’t taken as full advantage that I could, and I probably still don’t, but that’s where I’m going with this little essay.
Are you doing what you want to do?
That question can be asked in your career, your hobbies, your personal life. Are you going through life just ‘being there’ and not participating? Of course it is easy to fade into the background when stress becomes rampant, life careens a little off course, we get sick, things like that; but, did you get yourself back in line with what makes you happy? Usually we don’t immediately get to it, or it will take weeks or months, sometimes years to get realigned and back on course with life and your goals.
What do you want to do?
Are you following a career or job path that you are only comfortable in and not necessarily happy with? Find a way to make a change. No, don’t completely quit without planning, that would only make you more miserable by upsetting anyone you provide for, but also potentially dig you deep into debt. We took a full year to plan for the Appalachian Trail, saving up money for not only the trail but for life after. We were leaving good, well paying jobs in the beginning of the financial crisis and knew quite possibly we might not find a permanent position when we returned. While our folks were nice enough to let us crash with them during our transient stage, the last thing we wanted was to be bumming money to pay bills. Planning was vital to doing what we did and if switching careers or taking a break from a job to explore the world is on your list of things to do, plan, plan, plan!
Are you doing things you don’t even like or want to do?
Have you been holding onto dreams or hobbies that you once loved but don’t exactly fit in with your life now? We all change, our interests change and what you may have loved last year or 10 years ago might be different than you want now. Case in point, I used to love scrapbooking. Thought for awhile I’d try to get ‘in’ it, submitting to magazines and such. I later realized I was only doing it because others were doing it and it wasn’t something I loved. While I do love scrapbooking it has definitely taken a back seat to my other creative adventures and so I began to phase it out when we moved, getting rid of products I never used, deciding that if I wanted to continue doing the hobby I would do it in a different form.
Another example is that for years and years I have wished on the first star at night I see, when I am out to see the stars, for the same thing I started wishing back in college. However, that wish is unfeasible unless I made a gigantic life course change. Why do I hold onto it? Because it is that little childhood dream of mine that was never fully realized. If I let go does that mean it will never happen? Probably, but maybe it shouldn’t. I’ve changed courses and followed a different path, not that the previous path wasn’t something I loved, but along the way I realized it wasn’t going to fit with all the other combinations of activities in my life. It is a give and take, if you really want something you may have to give up something else in your life.
So, instead of continuing in the same fashion of feeling like you have to keep up a hobby or something else in your life, stop it. It is very freeing not to have the burden of continuing to repeat something you don’t like to do.
Decide what you want
What is it you really want? Do you want to travel? Do you want to try a new hobby? Is there something you’ve always wanted to do but never did, like stopping in a shop you always drive past but never go in because you think you are too busy? Is it not spending time reading a book or researching how to remodel something in your house? Write it down. This is the so-called Bucket List, but there are varying types of Bucket Lists, the long term and short term, plus the serious and frivolous. Separate them out or put them into one big list, but write them down! Have you been afraid to try a new food? Go with someone you know who has been to a good restaurant and can tell you what is good to try. If you don’t enjoy it, at least you know! Sometimes we have to mull over the things on our list, garnering up the strength and wits to do them. Write the list and revisit it often, every few weeks or months, crossing things off as you go.
A few years ago I wrote a 28 for 28 list and while I didn’t get to all of them on my list, I did cross a lot of them off. Maybe your list is only five items, maybe it is 101 like the 101 in 1001 project.
The point is, start doing things instead of dreaming about them. Sometimes writing them down doesn’t mean they will be accomplished for awhile. I wrote down to hike the Appalachian Trail (and CDT and PCT and other things) many years ago but I also didn’t think they would ever happen or fully understand the process of it. I also wrote that I wanted to write and publish a book, but didn’t know what, and here I am now 30,000 words into a book about our Florida Trail hike. The idea is there but sometimes it takes while to figure out the what and how of it all.
Have the simple adventures but make room for the big ones too. The big ones take more time and planning but are so very worth it. I don’t think on either of our thru-hikes did we encounter anyone who said that they didn’t wish they could either do the hike or something like it. Maybe now isn’t the right time, but get started on those dreams!
The thing is, the internet is full of people who have created their own adventures. People who’ve adventured and returned to life, others who have made a long term event of adventure, and people doing smaller things like running marathons for charity or visiting all of the 50 U.S. high points (hi Patrice and Justin!). The resources are out there and you won’t be alone in finding out how to go about it.
I am really inspired by National Geographic Adventurer of the Year nominee Alastair Humphreys and his year of micro-adventures. He says it best: “Adventure is only a state of mind. Adventure is stretching yourself; mentally, physically or culturally. It is about doing what you do not normally do, pushing yourself hard and doing it to the best of your ability.”
Look outside your own town—what hasn’t been done? What adventure do you want to do? What are you driving by day in and day out that you are ignoring or looking over?
It’s time to do something different.
Get on that list! Start marking things off and coming up with ideas to replace those…
Posted by mlittle on December 5, 2011 at 6:16 am under Thoughts. 3 Comments.
Currently playing either via YouTube, Pandora or KXT.org.
Give ‘em a whirl. What are you listening to?
Reformatting my computer tomorrow so I’m looking forward to starting clean and will return with the rest of our Guadalupe Mountains trip later this weekend!
Posted by mlittle on December 1, 2011 at 10:56 pm under Thoughts. 1 Comment.
It’s been a busy few weekends and before that I was in PA so I really haven’t had a weekend to decompress in awhile. This weekend I had absolutely nothing planned.
My poor cats have been sick the last two weeks. First Samson came down with a cold, sneezing and all, and then I took him to the vet. I told the vet that Leo was fine. The next day Leo proved me wrong by sneezing.
He was promptly fed the same medicine Samson was getting. Though he appeared to be worse off than Sam ever was. I went to the field for work for a few days and when I returned he was all stuffy and his eyes were watering. It made my eyes want to water, I felt bad for the poor boy.
Soft treats are the way to go for tricking pets into eating their medicine. Shoving it down their throat—not so much a good idea.
Spending this weekend with them has been nice, cuddling up with them. Chris is returning from PA on Tuesday so I’m sure they will be happy to spend some time with them. My cats are more like dogs and really enjoy attention. Of course they have their moments of solitude but for the most part they like being around us.
I had to pop into the dollar store to get treats for them and found my favorite Christmas candy. It reminds me of my grandmother, my mom’s mom, and they are just plain delicious. I prefer them over regular candy canes, plus they make coffee taste so good!
I also popped into a Starbucks for my first peppermint mocha of the year. I had a love affair with it many years ago but then I kept getting poorly made ones so I switched to regular lattes and caramel macchiatos. This one turned out to be great and I’m so glad I got it. The nearest S’bucks is 20 minutes away so they are not a regular habit of mine. Probably a good idea for my waist line!
The community garden is looking beautiful with the mums out!
And the 4-o’clocks provide a heady aroma in the evenings. They have perked up from their leggy looking status this summer.
A very good weekend. Looking forward to seeing my husband this Tuesday after a month away! Having gone from living with each other day in and day out for a year and a half to not seeing each other much for six weeks—kind of strange!
) next time you have a meal. 
