i love my garden

No, this picture has nothing to do with the post (except in spirit). I just like it. Baguettes, a great magazine, lots of my favorite color, and onions sizzling on the stove. Happiness.

It's always easier for me to be happy and upbeat when the weather is beautiful and sunny and breezy like this, so that we're practically living outside. Call me crazy, but there are few things as satisfying to me as digging around in the garden while the kids play happily in the grass/on the swingset. I just adore it (except when Abigail squashes a good 18-inch section of peas when she sits down on it in preparation to "help" with weeding).

Some more outdoorsy things that have made me giddy with happiness the past couple of days:

• Eating the thinned carrots and broken-off pieces of broccoli while weeding in the garden (it's like a snack buffet out there)


• Watching everything in the garden explode with the warm weather--the beans are coming up so fast that you can literally watch them pop out of the ground--which unfortunately includes the broccoli, lettuce, and various herbs, which have decided it's just their time to bolt (but which makes Abigail happy because she loves to see all the flowers)


• Going on a bike ride with Abigail last night, just the two of us (as part of the new behavior system we're trying, which revolves around moving marbles from one jar to another based on whether she's earned some for good behavior or lost some for poor--remind you of house points for Hogwarts?--but the reward at the end of the day, if she's earned enough, is a bike ride after Julesie is asleep)


• the strawberries we picked on Saturday which were made into a pie, which was probably my favorite pie ever and you really should go make it!