Day Off

Last week was a looooooooong and exhausting week in the Simpson office. I won't go into detail, but let's just say that this is NOT a good time for our chief of staff to begin a five week stint on jury duty. Can't the District of Columbia see that we are already doing our civic duty? Apparently not. So, seeing as Congress is in recess this week, I took the day off.

Days off used to be so fun, but ever since we bought a house (happy one year anniversary, house!), they end up filled with all the spill-over projects that we didn't get done over the weekend. Today, for example, I had to go buy new, larger tomato cages, as our garden looks like a tomato jungle. (By the way, re-caging tomato plants is so not fun.) It turns out that the combination of a lot of sunshine and a lot of rain makes tomatoes grow. A lot. Remember when the tomato plants looked like this? Well, check out the 'maters now:

For the record, I'm excited about the whole garden (well, except the arugula, which we cannot eat fast enough. Note to self: Do NOT plant arugula next year, it is NOT good for every meal.). The zucchini is lovely and overtaking the yard (it's so gargantuan, Jason is starting to get nervous), little bell peppers are hanging on the plant, and the beans are thriving. But the truth is that I'm really in it for the tomatoes. We had our first tomato harvest (of one) last night, and it was deelish. I'm pretty excited to be buried in tomatoes in August.

In other news, Jason returned Saturday from China. I will pester him until he blogs, but for now here are some pictures. And, after nagging my mom via email for five days, there are adorable new pictures of Troy up as well. This is my favorite. Dad, who had a run in with the mules and had to have surgery on his bicep last week, is getting pretty good at the one-armed baby rocking.