A few days ago I didn’t have much work except for a long-term project and my regular magazine gig. I started beating the bushes. Now I have offers coming out my ears. The rest of this month looks to be very busy. I’m hoping I can manage it all with Asher by my side. Darn baby thinks he should get all of my attention!
So sorry I didn’t get in touch yesterday! Happy belated birthday.
What? You’re like 29 now right? Not sure, Flonk, but I think I am now the age you were when we first met. My mistake. Please forgive me. You aren’t old after all!
Hope you guys are doing well and making progress on Project Return to Good Places.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Yep, baby Asher has pinkeye. Lucas managed to infect both his grandmother and his brother. Asher’s medicine is an ointment that has to be squirted into his eyes four times a day. The tip of the ointment tube is totally long and pointy and Ian and I are terrified that we’re going to stab the baby in the eye trying to deliver the medicine. I wish the doctor had prescribed eye drops like Lucas had! Asher is rubbing his eyes a lot and they’re goopy.
He also seems to have picked up his first cold. But if so, it’s fairly mild. He has a slightly snotty nose and a hoarse little cough, but otherwise seems unperturbed. He’s still got a mellow demeanor, which is a big blessing.
Today I’m out in the world, working at my client’s office. Ian is home with Asher. It’s only the second day I’ve been apart from Asher to go to work (yesterday was the first). This is possible thanks to Ian having two days off this week at just the perfect time.
Today I’m able to work with gusto, to concentrate for more than 10 minutes at a time! It’s refreshing and enjoyable, but I admit to missing Asher and worrying a little—Not that Ian can’t handle it. He can. But because Asher is so young, he doesn’t know that I’ll be gone only a few hours. When he wants me and I’m not there, he becomes very, very sad.
I work away from home only three to five days per month. When I do, I take the baby with me. It’s ideal! Getting out of my home office once in a while c’est tres bon!
Today is especially nice. It’s quiet; I can hear myself think. I talk to grown-ups. I am wearing jewelery, which I usually can’t do with the baby. I can chat by the water cooler and participate in office birthday celebrations.
But at the end of the day, like now at 4:30 p.m., I’m missing my boys and looking forward to going home to see their smiling faces. T.G.I.F.
The boys and I drove up to Apple Hill to Patrick’s Berry Farm yesterday. We picked berries for about an hour or so on a sunny hillside surrounded by conifers. Finally, I understand why specialty seed and flower catalogues offer blackberry plants for sale! When berries are grown deliberately and orderly rows, trained on four-foot high fences, and trimmed so that the fruit can actually be harvested, they’re freakin’ wonderful! The plants weren’t dense and overgrown as they are growing wild along the American river (or as a nuisance to be erradicated in your backyard)–you know, so you can see the lovely black berries dangling on their stems but can’t possibly reach them without lacerating the hell out of your hands and arms. Until yesterday, that was my only experience of picking berries! We picked marionberries (a variety of blackberries) and boysenberries. We sampled New Zealand thornless blackberries, which were beautiful and truly thornless, but not as sweet as the marionberries we found up the hill.
We picked 4.5 pounds of berries, and bought pectin and citric acid powder, too, when we paid for them. Then we had lunch at a local tavern and headed back down the hill, wondering if we were actually clever enough to make jam. Ian and Lucas bought 16-oz. jelly jars.
The berry farm gives away a jam recipe for free. So we bravely tried it. I had always thought that jam making was one of those totally-not-worth-the-hassle endeavors. Something too complicated that would take several days, make the kitchen unusable, etc. Not so! Within two hours, we had four jars of jam (about 54 ounces, I guess; the fourth jar wasn’t full) in the water bath bubbling away. Lucas helped with mashing the berries and stiring the sugar in. Ian headed up the project and it was marvelous.
The jam cooled overnight. We opened the not-full jar this morning. The seal was good. The jam’s color is beautiful–deepest red-black. It’s full of merry berry pips. It smells delightful, spreads just as it should, and tastes divine. It was a low-sugar recipe, so the jam is very fruity and not too sweet.
I’m torn between the idea of giving away two jars and hording it all for ourselves. What a great experience! We got to do something totally new and had such fun in the process. I feel like we earned beaucoup Waldorf points yesterday. Makes me want to go back and do it all again before summer’s over.
