Strawberry Hunting

Ah, summer. It's possible that I have never loved you more. I love sunny breakfasts on the deck and coaxing to life the flowers I planted in the early morning before it got too humid to breathe. I love sunscreen and the way it protects my whole body, except that one strip of skin on my lower back that I ignorantly assumed was covered by my shirt. I love dusky weekend walks, ice cream cone in hand, and fireflies winking greetings to me.

And I love strawberries. Check out this lovely pile of red beauties. After church yesterday, we participated in the "pick your own" ritual we've tried to embrace over the past few years. I'm getting more serious about it these days, threatening to freeze bags of green beans and can tomatoes. Wild. It turns out that Strawberry picking is not really that fun. But strawberries are really tasty. We actually froze a bunch of these berries--we have six little strawberry plants in our garden, so we'll depend on them for fresh strawberries this summer.

We had a wonderful weekend of...weekend-ness. I miss it already. On Friday we ate puttanesca at a candle-lit table outside in Shirlington (it is the summer of seeing how many times I can eat puttanesca al fresco) and walked around the neighborhood, marveling at how much it has changed since we spent our weekends there with SMC. It was lovely, really. And I engaged in some hard-core weeding on Saturday--who knew that weeding could be, well, almost enjoyable when it is your own flower bed? I certainly would not have believed it 18 years ago when I was pulling pigweed out of my parents' strawberry patch. We ended Saturday night with a low-key viewing of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" in the cool basement, waiting for a batch of brownies to bake. Why, oh why do I have to be at work today?