Yours, Mine, and Ours Craft

 There is a strawberry plant in the backyard that held on from last year and has been living its best strawberry plant life. Strawberry runners are trying to take over the entire planter bed system that the previous owner put into place. I spent some time weeding earlier in the summer but the elderly fence on the right side of the yard has been taken over by shaking aspens trying to grow. Aspens are very aggressive. They really want to reproduce. I'm not sure why they're sold in stores.

But this strawberry plant has been producing strawberries and considerately hiding these under-leaf so the birds don't see them. We've been nabbing them and they're pretty good. A really nice surprise. I didn't do anything for our garden this year as far as buying plants.

At one time I saw that one of the local mill and feed stores was giving plants away, but didn't make it downtown in time to see what they had. 

But anyway, here's what we have going: strawberries, chives, miscellaneous flowers (including a chocolate lily that's very committed to surviving) and some quite dehydrated raspberry bushes that I picked up last year.

Yesterday was my...fifth? Wedding anniversary? Like I said, my mom was the person who reminded me of this. Typically it's Facebook, but for whatever reason it...didn't this year.

I picked up a shift at work somewhat last-minute; I think I would have bumped off early if there had been an indication that we were supposed so celebrate by doing something. I woke up with the sense that it was pretty shitty of me to pick up a shift on Sunday at all. So part of me is pretty guilty. And part of me is all like: I would like to maintain my health benefits status and continue to be able to pay off part of the principal on my student loans, thanks. But yes, a recurring complaint is not being there with my family for family time.*

L and I went on a hike to Thunderbird Falls with L's best friend from babyhood and some of their family. It was fucking fun. We went on the little path down to the base of the Falls and L2 sold me on doing something called Four Peaks Four Weeks next year.

S got some Thai food to celebrate our anniversary and filled out more paperwork for the roofing job. He played Minecraft with the older boys on Xbox and stayed on top of dishes all day 🥳

We went over and visited with my parents which involved going on a small bike ride through the neighborhood to track them down because they went on a neighborhood walk. 

The weather's been: sunny and behaving itself for the last couple of days so I have the impulse to get out there and enjoy it.

Today:

• meeting for school where I try to sell people on joining a student organization
• buying water balloons because: sunny.
• deep clean the car
• create a punch list for unfucking the office (the thing that most needs unfucking are the shelves that finally collapsed under the weight of all my books)
• maybe order books for school
• mow the lawn
• maybe some weeding

* this might be pretty founded. I'm not sure. I try to be there, but there's also the impulse to Do Things. And I immediately think of my dad when this impulse kicks in. My mom too, I guess. My dad was forever working, working his second job, working on certifications for the first job, reading books about personal interests, working on the farm...you get the idea. And my mom was forever taking care of homemaking stuff, yes, but also teacher stuff, side hustle stuff, working on her genealogy hobby, turning the animal products we had on hand into things we could take to 4-H, working on enrichment opportunities for us, spending time with family, talking on the phone with friends, reading books about her personal interests, going to conferences for UDC (problematic, but that's for another time). But point being: of all the things that made my childhood difficult - the stuff I just listed? Not among them.** That's how I think of adults in a relationship being. You have your interests, I have my interests, we have shared goals (ideally) and we don't diss the other person's...uh...interests assuming these have no negative impact.

**Except inasmuch as I feel like I should be doing "more". So actually scratch that statement, I guess? But also I'm not sure how adults function without huge energy expenditure.