Breakfast on the Porch

Today I don’t need to be in to work until 10:00, which makes the morning a little more relaxed.  My daughter had two friends stay the night, so the living room contained three sleeping girls when I came downstairs.  I made a cup of tea and fixed myself a bowl of yogurt, black raspberry sauce and granola, and headed out to the porch for breakfast.  It’s not quite 8:30 as I write this and it is already 73 degrees– the low last night was 70, I believe.  We are 2 days into a stretch of hot, humid weather, my least favorite kind.  I gave in yesterday morning, after a sleepless night, and turned on the air-conditioner.  I hate to do that, because it means closing the windows, and it makes me feel almost claustrophobic.

So sitting out on the porch is a lovely treat and I’m enjoying the fresh air.  The black raspberries for the sauce were picked on Monday evening.  I was struggling Monday with an issue that affects my future plans.   What to do?  Monday I was going crazy thinking about it and finally decided to get out of the house for a while.  I headed to a nearby park that I used to take the dog to, back when he was still alive.  I brought along a container in case their were berries, and there were!  I wore shorts, unfortunately, but refused to let the thorns stop me.  I came home with very scratched-up legs and about 3 cups of berries– not enough for jam, so I made sauce instead. Delicious and totally worth the torn flesh.  To me black raspberries taste like summer.  They are early this year, usually hey are ripe around Independence Day.

We are having quite a dry spell here in Southern Wisconsin, and if we don’t get rain soon the farmers may lose their corn.  However, I haven’t had to mow much and there aren’t many mosquitoes at the moment– so we take the good with the bad.

Weekend

Just came off a pretty good weekend.

Madeline left Friday with her dad to do her first-ever college visit, at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She liked it and will definitely apply.

Friday was super busy at work, and we were short-staffed.  I ran my butt off, but the tips were good. Right after work I had to run to South Wayne and pick up many pounds of pork from the 1/2 pig I bought from a friend.  Now I have lots of locally raised meat in the freezer.  I was tired Friday evening, and the small glass of wine I had with dinner made me feel awful, so I went to bed a bit early.

I worked Saturday, another busy day and again short-staffed, but again the tips were good.  I had Mass at 4 and I was the lector.  We started the new songs, from the new translation of the Roman Missal.  It was a little rough going but we’ll catch on!  Fr. David gave a great sermon on evangelization.   It was lovely out when I left church, and when I got home I changed into some comfy clothes and headed out to the nearby dog park, where I used to take my beloved dog Toby when he was still alive.  I hadn’t been there in quite a while.  It was wonderful, a lovely fall evening, a bit cool, the sun low in the sky.  I took a brisk walk through the woods and fields, and it smelled so good– that rich,moist, slightly decayed smell of autumn fields.  I felt so much better after that walk.

I made myself a nice dinner at home, then vegged a bit in front of the tellie, then to bed early.

Sunday I headed over to Dubuque to see Jacob.  The house he lives in is old and very cool, just sort of rambles on.  He says he doesn’t feel at home there, yet; hopefully he will soon.  It was good to see him, he’s doing well and very busy with classes and activities– flight team competition is coming up soon.

I left Dubuque and headed to Madison to pick Madeline up at her dad’s.  The weather took a turn for the worse, and it was a stressful drive– I ran into some heavy rains, and even hail.  At one point I had to pull off the road, the hail had covered the road and it was very slippery.  White knuckle driving, it sucks.  I made it to Madison, and by the time I’d picked up Madeline and was heading for Monroe, the sun was out and we saw a rainbow.   Autumn in Wisconsin.

So– into a busy week.