June

A couple of week ago I was driving to pick Jordan up from the university after he’d spent a long couple of days out in the field, and a thunderstorm broke right overtop me. In seconds, the highway had disappeared beneath a glistening sheath of water, and the windshield roared with rain. It was simultaneously stressful and cozy, somehow. There’s nothing like sitting in your car with warm, dry air blowing on your toes while it pours outside.

That was June for you: oppressive heat, thunderstorms, and then a couple of relatively crisp days–cool enough to wear a sweater to work.

But while the weather has been tumultuous, life has been relatively smooth sailing.

I started working from home two days a week–an incredible relief after a year of being bound to an office for 45 hours each week. It’s wonderful being able to sit down in my kitchen and watch as the sunbeams shift through the day while I bang out social media posts and articles and write emails. I love it.

People who aren’t productive at home never believe me when I say that I’m actually working–that I get even more done than I would in the office. But I thrive in unstructured environments. It means that I can get up, make a cup of tea, and slide into my work while still wearing my pajamas. It also means that when I sit at the computer, it only counts as “work” if I’m actually getting stuff done.

My working becomes task based–check off these three things on your to-do list, and then you can get up and go nurse the baby. Or go for a quick jaunt out to the garden, to get some fresh air. With incentives like that, it’s easy to check things off.

I find it much harder being in an office, because my mentality is that I’m already at work. Since I’m stuck in my office until 5 p.m., I feel pressure to dribble my tasks out through the day, so that I don’t run out of things to do–or fry my brain trying to squeeze as much in as possible. There’s only so much time you can spend staring at a computer screen before you need a break.

It’s also delightful getting to spend the day with L. Even if I don’t get to be his primary caregiver during those hours, it means that I get to watch as he cruises along the piano bench. That I get to hear his laughter from the other room as Jenna flips him upside down.

What else happened in June? (It’s July now, to be perfectly honest. July 2nd. I wrote most of this post while it was still solidly June, but then didn’t love the direction it was heading, so I put it off. Now here I am, trying to gather the pieces into something publishable).

Well, I got into a car accident. Maybe it was karma for writing that life had been smooth sailing. On the very tail end of June, as I drove to pick Jordan up from yet another few days in the field, the driver behind me failed to look up from his phone in time to hit his brakes. Instead, he hit me. I’m fine, but our car is not. The last few days have been a flurry of talking to mechanics and insurance people.

Not only that, but our beloved, trusty Subaru also gave up. First the muffler fell off. Then the brake fluid leaked out of the lines. We’ve been talking about selling both our cars for awhile now, and buying one new vehicle that can accommodate a couple carseats (gotta plan ahead!) and a couple of dogs–I suppose this was the impetus we needed for finally doing it.

In other news, our garden is producing insane numbers of cherry tomatoes. So if anyone has good ideas for unusual ways to eat cherry tomatoes, recipes would be highly appreciated! So far we’ve blistered them to go in pasta dishes, snacked on them straight off the vine (branch?), tossed them on salads, chopped them for pizza toppings… That’s what I get for being greedy and planting two plants.

Gardens are such a funny thing: you crave garden fresh veggies all year (or at least I do)–a handful of tart golden cherry tomatoes would’ve tasted like sunshine in December. But then once they arrive, the sudden surplus quickly satisfies your craving, and then all subsequent harvests don’t taste nearly as good. It’s good old supply and demand. And our cherry tomato plants have far exceeded the demand from our household. In fact, they’ve exceeded it so far that I’ve taken to trying to pass cherry tomatoes off on anyone who visits our house.

Welp, the baby is asleep, and I’d like join him. Tell me about your June (and any cherry tomato recipes you have) in the comments!