BlogHer '16 is a wrap: a few reflections

In the best way, I am bushed. So.flipping.tired. I head home tomorrow and will be glad to be back, but it's been a really special week, and I'm enormously grateful for time with dear friends, for myself, to learn, to reconnect with and get to know better some blogger pals, and to enjoy a needed break from motherhood. How much fun was I having in these pics?!

Since arriving in LA on Thursday, I've been inspired and moved and energized repeatedly.

I can tell you that Mayim Bialik is a seriously cool, intelligent, grounded, thoughtful, and funny woman. Check out her new website, GrokNation, which is about all the things that move and interest her. As someone who has been encouraged to narrow the focus of Em-i-lis but who has chafed at that idea, it was refreshing to hear Mayim say, "Yeah, from a marketing perspective, my site isn't easy, but I love a lot of things so why can't I write about them?"

Amen.

Mayim!

I can tell you that this country is a more exciting, honest, funny, good place because of women, writers and activists like Jenny Yang, Luvvie Ajayi, Taz Ahmed, Lucy McBath (Mothers of the Movement, Everytown for Gun Safety), and Sallie Krawcheck.

"When you stop being afraid of what failure looks like, some really cool stuff happens." -Luvvie

"'We' is not just your family." -Jenny Yang

"Use any privilege you have to amplify less-privileged voices." -Luvvie

"I had to get past the grief, the 'never will haves' and get up each day and do what I had been teaching Jordan to do." -Lucy McBath (mother of Jordan Davis who was shot and killed in 2012 by a Jacksonville man angry at Davis for playing the music in his car too loudly)

Yep, that's me and Luvvie, and there's Tig on the right.

I can tell you that Michelle Dockery is going to be terrific in Good Behavior, and I look forward to the show starting in November. I can also tell you that I continue to love Tig Notaro, saw a sneak of her new show, One Mississippi, today and got to sit 20 feet from her in the Q&A afterwards. It was great, and when the whole of season 1 becomes available on Amazon on September 9, I'm watching!

I can tell you that when you meet someone who blows you away, who intrigues you, who makes you think "I want to know her/him." you should do what you can do to make that happen. Two or three years ago, at a food writing conference in Richmond, VA, Denise Vivaldo led a session on food styling. She is talented, hilarious, irreverent, and she lives big and joyfully. 

I had to get to know her. And, thanks to Facebook, I've been able to. On Friday night, she had me over, and we sat in her backyard, drank champagne, talked and cracked up repeatedly. What an absolute and totally cool few hours. It never hurts to reach out, y'all. Never hurts to ask and try.

And I can tell you that investing in yourself -with time, self care, education, rest, welcoming good people into your life- is something most of us, including me, don't do nearly enough but need to do much more. We deserve and require self-investment and so should not feel guilty about doing it. I struggle mightily with this but will continue to work to better balance my life and make my Self a priority more often. This week away has reminded me of all the value and happiness and lightness that come from doing so.

Friendships, lost posts, BlogHer day 1

Yesterday, in the midst of a stunning Santa Barbara afternoon, I spent a lazy hour on the patio of our rental house. Trisha was driving home, Paige had just left for a work event, and Amy was across the coffee table from me, tapping away on her laptop.

I wrote a long post about deep friendships and taking time for self and friends. It was a good piece, well-structured and reflective. I hit "save" and the screen froze. I tried everything but to no avail, and it was with real sadness and disappointment that I shut my computer and accepted the loss of the thoughts and memories I'd just spent so long lovingly recording.

I'd hoped to try again tonight, but I'm too tired and so will wait for a slower day. After a last breakfast together, a walk on the beach, a saunter through an outlet mall, more laughs and lunch, Amy dropped me off at the LA hotel where BlogHer '16 is being hosted.

I've spent the past few hours catching up with a great pal I met last year at BlogHer in NYC -and going to Wine & GYN together, a delightful kick-off to BlogHer '16- and am now ready to hit the sack. Instead of my thoughts on old friends and the restorative value of taking time for self, I'll leave you with some pictures and plan to check back in soon. I hope you're all well!

California produce is just absurdly good.

Bougainvillea

a mid-afternoon coffee

Santa Barbara

Montecito

Summer in my yard

Today I want to keep it light. This world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket, so let's take a break and talk about wonderful food, gardens and sweet animals instead, yes?

I am going to tell y'all that even my mad love for gardening has been tested the past two weeks. It "feels like" 107 degrees in DC right now, and really, that is just not right. Yesterday I ventured out to trim, went nuts with my lopping shears until the sweat ran rivers into my eyes. Burning eyeballs urged me inside; I left a huge mound of yard waste strewn in my wake.

This morning, I soldiered out to clean everything up and then had to come in and shower in freezing water to restore my sanity. I like to be hot, but this is too much. No deodorant is any match for this. I'm wearing as little as possible, and I haven't a clue about the next time my hair won't be tied back in a ponytail.

That said, I love my yard. Love that loving it yields flowers and food and so much promise. The birds and squirrels have realized that I refill their feeders at the regular, and the wide variety of feathered and furry beings that come visit on a daily basis makes me very happy.

One little squirrel appears to have a cataract. We have come to a truce, that pip squeak and I. I don't shoo him away anymore, and he doesn't run when I walk outside. He's cute, and the squirrels really are incredibly creative, successful problem solvers. They're pigs but they work for the food they get.

A gorgeous pattypan squash!

The birds range from the tiniest finch to the reddest cardinal, from the cocky blue jays to the dopey-looking doves. They are all beautiful, and each has a different personality. The finches share nicely, some of the larger birds flap their wings dramatically to scare others into fleeing. I always marvel at the color of the female cardinal's beak. If she has to be brown, at least she gets that fiery orange bill.

somewhat blurry because i had to be stealth, but you can a squirrel, cardinal and a finch. That bowl is full of water- do you think anything will jump in or drink from it?

Never before have we had enough sun to really grow tomatoes. Tom has long half-joked that my efforts to grow them in pots our deck made the few I got worth roughly $12 each. Not so, now! We're rolling in i pomodori, and I feel gleeful.

Whole bunch o' toms; cold tomato soup (bottom left); caprese salad (bottom right)

Despite the heat, it is prime canning season, so I'm forging ahead a few days each week to turn summer fruit stars into jars of brightly-hued jam. Strawberries, meet cardamom. Shiro plums, meet basil. Rhubarb, meet bing cherries and hibiscus flowers. Peaches, meet lots of things.

Shiro plums, basil and sugar

The finished product.

No matter how sweaty I get, I'm never sorry I put up jars upon jars of summer's best. Before I know it, Jack will have started 5th grade and Oliver 2nd, the weather will become chilly, and fresh plums and tomatoes will be distant memories. Except on my pantry shelves where the ones I snatched fresh are frozen in time.