Fruit picking 2016, Wondy?

Yesterday marked my annual outing to Larriland Farm to pick my body weight in fruit. You might recall my original case for thorns and/or my overzealous death by fruit of previous years. Both memorable and delightful; yesterday was no different.

Isn't my Jack a handsome boy?

We brought along our dear neighbor, Jane, and picked peaches, blackberries, beets and raspberries with various degrees of abandon. Last night I froze twenty cups of blackberries and made one pie and four pints of jam (just two ingredients! blackberries and sugar!). Today, I taught Jane how to can and then put up several pints of raspberry jam (just three ingredients! raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice) myself. 

picked and quickly frozen blackberries- beautiful!

Tomorrow I plan to finish dealing with the berries and pray that the peaches don't ripen until Friday. 

Tonight, as soon as Tom walked in, I retreated to the bath. Where I found this.

Is that Wonder Woman? In a rugby hat? With a mean face? What the heck? #summerstillgoing

All the things: Olympics, summer, libraries, hilarity

Did y'all know that (apparently many years ago) the USPS officially decreed that they would no longer put a comma between city and state on address labels? I did not know this, and recently, when a friend and I were drafting invites for a bridal shower we're hosting, I said "Doesn't there need to be a comma between City and State?" and she said, "Honey, the USPS stopped doing that decades ago. Librarians know these things."

And I was and remain appalled because that's just not right-like visually, that's just NUTS. I mean, I adopted the damn Oxford comma, but NO COMMA between City and State? Ain't no way. And so T looked it up for me, and fortunately this nonsense is ONLY a USPS thing, not a worldwide grammar thing, and I am just so grateful I could weep.

I just wanted to share that.

Anyway, tomorrow marks Day 1 of no camp but seemingly infinite time before school resumes, and the boys are sleeping in another fort that uses all of our kitchen table chairs (6) plus two TV trays and 90% of the sheets in our home plus sleeping bags, light sabers, glass water glasses and more.

I would say that this arrangement doesn't bode well for a restful tomorrow, but then again, does it really matter?! We have little planned. At least they fell asleep before I did so that I could tuck a pillow under each of their heads and make sure they weren't suffocating in their sleeping bags. 

Summer is starting to feel long. We've been sweating for a lifetime, and I've set a new record of pizza for dinner in any given week: 4 times. The me of ten years ago is quivering with vexation and perceived failure. The me of today is holding up a gold trophy bestowed upon Self for including multiple fruits and veggies alongside each and every pie.

In my defense, the pizzas came from four different places, including two gold star joints. We are now totally certain about which pizza sucks and which pizza doesn't. A+ in pizza study.

The Olympics were, by and large, delightful, but I cheered the closing ceremony tonight because I simply cannot stay up through the 11pm - 12am hour for even a single additional night. I'm 40 people; that time has passed. 

I believe that other than Ryan D'bag Lochte and his misguided posse, our athletes comported themselves in lovely fashion. Really, the Olympics is such a grand coming together of talent and sportsmanship. I love the Games. Until next time!

Do y'all know that during the past two weeks, a dream of mine has come true? My darling husband agreed that we could turn our formal living room (never used for that purpose) into a library!! As the incredible construction has taken place, Jack and I have been nerding out to beat sixty. We ordered a one million pound Oxford dictionary and were literally chagrined when it was not delivered yesterday as promised.

UNTIL a kindly neighbor who had received said tome walked it over, and we cheered. 

Literally. Look at Jack's face!

"Jack, do you want to look up the first word?" I asked, hoping he'd say no.

"Oh yes, Mom. I will look up.....Indonesia." 

What the hell? Why? I mean, great but where did that come from?

Anyway, if you don't know, Indonesia is part of the Malay archipelago. And so marked our foray into the kazillion page book, a tiny, tidy J eternally ticked by Indonesia. We have all taken a pact to mark our initial, IN THE NEATEST HANDWRITING POSSIBLE, by each and every word we look up forevermore.

I'm so thrilled with and proud of this new room that we will all love but especially Jack and me. Oliver's primary response so far has been, "I don't love the knobs you chose. Why couldn't you have gotten neon green ones?"

OMG, I feel SO lucky. We weren't really supposed to put anything on the shelves until Tuesday, but for the love of patience, we waited five whole days and the paint has simply got to be hard enough by now. It's going to be so much fun to fill these.

I love these little family traditions. They're the glue, really, the threads we weave together over the years that make family durable over time, even when times are tough. Like possibly the coming weeks.

We have also resurrected Pi Guy and Roach and the games we play with them.

Pi Guy, in case you've forgotten, is a wire man clothed in a Pi jumper and trousers that Jack made in art a couple years ago during his preoccupation with Pi. Periodically, he'll put Pi Guy somewhere ridiculous, like suspended from my shower head or from a shirt in my closet, and I'll counter by seating Pi Guy on Jack's toilet or hanging precipitously from his headboard. 

This is an utterly delightful game.

In true Oliver fashion, he plays this game with an entirely too realistic rubber roach that my aunt Renee sent him. She knew exactly how much Oliver would adore this roach, and adore it he does. I awoke recently to find said roach sitting on top of the water glass on my nightstand. I put roach on Ol's bathroom faucet. He tossed it onto my rug. 

revolting and, mercifully, fake

Tonight I made the boys dinner and then T made us dinner, and then he and I watched two episodes of The Americans (we are slightly obsessed), and now we're going to bed, and all is well. 

I cannot tell y'all how much I love okra. And shrimp. 

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.