Saved by a woman

The carrots have come in!! They are beautiful and delicious, and suprisingly yellow. I wasn't aware that one could grow yellow carrots... apparently, it can be done!

I turned these yummy friends into a tomato salad with pine nuts, blue cheese and balsamic vinegar. It made a terrific summer snack, especially given the particular sweetness of the yellow carrots against the salty blue cheese. Yum!

For dessert... Wild cherries! I feel really good eating raw foods like these. It's as if they cool the body down like an air conditioner. My insides chill out. It's very soothing, not to mention refreshing.

So, here's a little project that Jenn and I have been working on lately. We discovered these large cement blocks amongst the back yard kudzo one day and decided they'd make great benches. Over the last year we've managed to collect broken dishes and tiles. Now we're turning these blocks into mosaic benches! They're turning out beautifully:

I'm also beginning to make prepartions to move, but to be perfectly honest, I'm feeling somewhat torn. I'm excited about finding a new place in Grant park; I think it'll be wonderful. And of course, it will be much more affordable as well. At the same time, I'm saddened to be leaving my neighbor whom I've grown to love spending time with in our little creative pursuits. I'm also nervous about the prospect of living with someone again... it's been so long. Will he clean to my standards? What unknown things am I going to get frustrated over? What if this doesn't work out?? I know these are all just natural anxieties, and I will work through them one by one over the next two months. Chris is going to sublet my place for the summer, which will help me out on bills since Dad got laid off this week. Incredible.... over twenty years and you're let go just like that; no pension, no retirement. Times are tough indeed.

Oh!! I almost forgot to mention the latest literary discovery! Anais Nin. How she has my heart! I picked up her collection of short stories "Little Birds," which is an exploration into desire and the erotic. She crafts thirteen different tales of men and women, vividly capturing the idiosyncrasies of each character's emotions, longings, fetishes and desires. It's riveting and poetically tasteful. At times it was even hot... I found myself having to put the book down and take a walk to cool myself down! I'm really interested in checking out her others works as well, particularly her diaries. I want to know this woman. I want to study her skill.