Chronicles of a Perfect Summer Weekend

Its Monday morning and while I can't say that I'm all that thrilled to be at work, my grumpiness is slightly lessened by the fact that I had such a nice productive weekend. And now, here's an account of the completely mundane weekend that made me so happy.

On Friday evening Nick and I enjoyed hanging out the backyard, having a cold beer, admiring the garden etc. Of course, as usual, my admiring the garden quickly turned into working in the garden. There have been several garden projects on my "to do" list for a while, so, feeling abnormally industrious, I started pulling weeds, removing old chicken wire in preparation for the prettier fence that would replace it, and harvesting some new potatoes and carrots in order to make room for planting of fall seeds. We ate a dinner that was prepared on the grill, by far the best way to cook in the summer. The night ended with some ice cream and TV comedy.


Saturday morning I woke up and was ready to get out of be before 8:30, which is pretty early for me. We rode our tandem bike over to the farmer's market, which has now become our Saturday routine. As we rode toward the market, we became part of a bicycle convoy of hippie fuel conserving bike riders which warmed my heart. I love riding my bike, have I mentioned that? Unlike other Saturdays, however, we did actually make it there in time to get some of the fabulous freshly fried donuts that are usually sold out by the time we arrive. We filled our backpacks with produce: red onions, sweet peppers, tomatoes, broco-flower, mushrooms, blueberries, cherries, and peaches. We got out having only spent $24c, which is a victory for us. Later that day we took the bike out again to join our friends for a mid-day BBQ. After the food I feel asleep on the couch while everyone else talked in the kitchen. I love naps. We returned home for a pretty boring Saturday night of watching Mythbusters on TV which was the lowlight of the weekend (not that I don't like Mythbusters, I'd just already seen many of the episodes but couldn't think of anything better to go do.)

Sunday was the best day! We woke up around 9:30. I was craving pancakes so I made pancakes, waffles (for Nick), eggs, and fake bacon. Who needs to go to the Pancake House anyway? I probably cooked to much--who can realy eat nine pancakes in one sitting--but I knew that we'd be spending the rest of the day in the yard and would need the energy. After breakfast we applied the sunscreen, made a big pitcher of ice cold orange cool-aide type beverage, and headed outside. Nick washed the dogs while I planted some Coneflower and Black-Eyed Susan plants I got half off at the garden center. Other projects included: overall weeding of the yard, finally got around to putting in the new prettier fence to replace that chicken wire to keep the dogs out of the flower bed, built 6 tomato cages to wrangle overgrown tomatoes that had begun to flop over onto the ground, planted some broccoli. sugar snap peas, and edemame seeds hopefully for a mid-fall harvest, watered container plants using water from the rain barrel (felt so eco about that), and Nick cleaned and oiled the Teak outdoor table that we hope to sell on craigslist.... I think that was it. Around 5 I was exhausted, covered in sweat and several scratches (from the fencing I used to build the tomato cages); I decided I was done. A shower and a glass of iced tea never felt/tasted so good. I made a dinner of fajitas, which was followed by a walk up to our neighborhood ice cream parlor. Walking to the locally owned ice cream parlor and then walking back licking our ice cream cones is one of my favorite things to do in the world. It was a perfect end to an almost perfect weekend. This is why I love summer.

What are your favorite summertime activities?

Thanks for reading. :)