“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” – Anne Lamott

I’ve needed some time away from routine and schedule for the past couple weeks, which has included deadlines for this blog. It has been HOT here and that kind of heat always affects my motivation and focus. So I just kind of went with it and got little things done around the house, read a lot, and had small little burst of productivity. It has been good for me and I think I’m ready to get back to my regularly scheduled programming.

1. My garden is thriving! Both my wildflowers in the front yard and my herbs and veggies in the back are doing great. I’ve had a couple harvests of spinach and kale already and I love not needing to buy it at the store every week, especially since I’ve been into salads recently.
2. Summer salads. I’m not a big salad person, especially making them myself at home. But this week I made two really delicious salads that I’ll be making again! The first was sliced cucumber and red onions marinated in a vinaigrette (like this). Then I had that over top of spinach (obviously) and torn pieces of fresh mozzarella. Soooo good. The other salad was spinach again, sliced strawberries, goat cheese crumbles, chopped walnuts with a homemade basil vinaigrette (this one is so good!) Both of these were really simple to put together and really refreshing in the heat this week!
3. Monday morning walks. A friend and I went for a walk on Monday morning and it was so lovely we decided we should do it every week! Now I have something to look forward to at the beginning of each week and hopefully it will act as an anchor in time for kicking off the week the right way!
4. Painting our house. Like, the outside! We have a red house and the exterior paint is super faded. We’ve tried to find another red that we like, but in the end decided to go with a blue/gray color called Adirondack Blue. And it’s going to be my summer project to do the painting! I figure if I really screw up badly, we can hire someone to touch up trim and stuff, but hopefully we don’t need that. Also really happy we don’t have an HOA because this isn’t something I’m going to get done quickly. We’ll have a partially painted house for awhile…
5. Character breakthroughs in my writing. In the past couple weeks I’ve really started to get to know the main character in my novel and figure out some of her motivations and neuroses. It’s been fun to write a scene and know exactly how she is going to react to something! Still figuring out some of the other characters, but feeling good about where things are headed.