local strawberries!, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

I didn't have the best of weekends. Oh, it wasn't awful, but forces were conspiring against me to keep me from getting complacent.

Yesterday, I headed over to a local farm to get some fresh local strawberries. You can see by the picture I was successful. They posted later on their Facebook page that they'd had the busiest day in 30 years, and actually had to close the fields (it's a pick-your-own place) for the rest of the weekend! After all the rain we've had, I think folks were itching to do something outside, and descended on the place in droves.

Last night, I went over to my friends' place for a cookout, as friends from Vermont were in town. I managed to burn my hand on an iron skillet fresh off the grill as I knocked it off the stove and instinctively grabbed for it. I let it go immediately, but I have some blisters on my left hand. Ice, aloe, and various other remedies have made the pain fade to tenderness. Ouch.

Today, I was a slug. I even took a nap. Late in the afternoon, I heard water running (like the sound of a washing machine filling up) and discovered water spurting out from behind my toilet and starting to puddle on the floor. I nearly had a panic attack, as I used to have occasional flooding in my old place (as you may remember) but thought I was past that, as I'm on the second floor now. I called my landlady, and she panicked even worse than I did. She finally got hold of Steve, her handyman (who had just left here after mowing the lawn) and he found the problem and fixed it. Meanwhile, my neighbor helped me figure out how to get to the turnoff valve and stem the flow. It's all fixed now, but it's really not how I envisioned spending my Sunday afternoon. I was afraid to go out to the store to get a mop (all I had was a Swiffer), but I managed to make it there and back without incident. :::whew:::

After some lovely pork shu mai from Trader Joe's, I'm feeling much more grounded and relieved. Things could have been much worse. Must remember to count my blessings, even when things don't quite go my way.

And I still have strawberries.

heavy sky, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

I took this pic last Sunday, but this is pretty much how the sky has looked all week. Bands of rain moving through, and even a tornado warning or two in parts of Massachusetts. This weekend, the unofficial kick-off to summer, is supposed to be dreary, cool, and damp.

They let us out at 2:00 today, so I took advantage of the extra afternoon to hit Trader Joe's and get my food shopping done for the week. I love that place almost as much as Wegmans. And their cheese prices are much better! Got some old favorites, and tried a couple new things. I love when my freezer is full of yummy TJ's stuff!

Someone posted on Facebook today that the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston is free this weekend, so I promptly made plans with leenah to meet there tomorrow morning. I haven't been there in ages. I'm looking forward to paying my respects to Sekhmet, among others. Hopefully it won't be too crowded.

My brother and his wife will be up visiting this weekend; it will be good to see them. It's been too long. One of these days, I have to make a trip to DC to see them and our cousin, who also lives there. I haven't been to DC since, oh, '86? I think that's the last time I was there, except for driving through on the way to Florida, and that doesn't really count as it was dark, and we didn't stop. And that was a long time ago, too: my sis was pregnant with Willow at the time, and she turns 21 this year. So yeah, it's about time I paid a visit.

And ye gods, 21?!?!? My little Willow can't possibly be almost old enough to buy alcohol. :::boggle:::

Any fun plans for the weekend? Make it a good one!

inside/outside, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

I really like how this shot turned out. I was trying to take a picture through the window of the old meetinghouse at Stanley Park, and caught the reflection of the outside as well. Something I couldn't have done on purpose. *g*

It was a lovely, cool weekend. Perfect for walking in the park and the woods. The water is still pretty high; I still wasn't able to cross the usually dry streambeds to walk along the river - they still have raging streams running through them. That plus the bridge having been damaged by the storm means I can't get to the river path at all. I miss it.

I don't feel like this weekend was long enough to recover from my week. *sigh*

reap, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

I didn't get half the stuff done that I wanted to this weekend, but that's OK, because I needed the downtime. I got plenty of rest, watched at least three George Clooney movies, and even managed to do some walking.

After the steel-grey skies and muggy air cleared out, it turned into a rather nice evening, so I went out for another walk after supper. The air felt so good after the muggies of earlier today. It's supposed to be nice and cool tonight, so the a/c is going off and the windows are getting opened. Fresh air is so wonderful.

slide, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

Stick a fork in me, I'm done. What a looooooong week. It's starting to get busy, which is good, but then I don't have time to do some of the things they want me to do (like prospect for new customers). This morning, they had the new sales support person out front with us, so she learned how busy we are on Friday mornings, and all the things we have to deal with. She seems nice, and competent.

Part of why I was prickly yesterday was because a coworker had yelled at me because [insert long, boring, irrelevant story here], and was acting like a 12 year old over the whole thing. Well, she actually apologized to me this morning when she came in, and you could have knocked me over with a feather. I said that apparently I had touched on a sore spot, which she affirmed, and I said that I'm good at that. *g* I have a talent for saying those things most people just think, and it gets me into trouble now and then. Some people love that about me (my friends), and some people get really mad (my mother). *shrug* I yam what I yam, as Popeye says, and I don't ever say things to intentionally hurt people. I can't really help it if they take it that way.

I took a nice walk at lunchtime, impressed the boss with a suggestion that she was already thinking about, and made a picky customer happy with his new ad, so I'd say the day was a success.

And now, it's the weekend, which is an hour shorter than usual, and rainy, but it's still a weekend. Woo hoo!

Bonus points if you can guess which song was playing while I named today's photos!

chapter 42, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

I went for a walk along the creek on my lunch break today, and scattered along the path were pages torn from a book. When I came across one with a big '42' on it, of course I had to take its picture. I'm thinking that someone really hated an assigned book, and shredded it out of spite. I looked at the large size on Flickr to see what it said, and it seems to be about wagons and Indians and a fort. Somebody really hated that book!

I took Monday off as a vacation day, and Tuesday is a furlough day, so I have a nice four-day weekend coming up, starting in about half an hour. Yay! I'm going to try not to spend too much time holed up in the batcave. I hope the weather's nice enough to get outside and walk. I need to get out of my head a bit more on the weekends.