a quick update

1. Yes, I did get all my hair cut off. Pictures will be forthcoming next week because...

2. We are going to Brooks' brother's wedding over the weekend.

3. Jena is planning a fabulous birthday party for me the weekend after that! We are hard at work already.

4. and the weekend after that, we're going to Philly to see my mom, who will be there for a jewelry trade show.

Maybe after that, I'll start thinking and blogging again.

Oh, but

5. our book club starts meeting tonight (thanks to Steve!). We are reading The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Reflections may emerge in writing.

A poll

Because I'm indecisive.

Should I cut all my hair off like this or just trim to a nicer version of what I have now?

try my tomatoes...

 

the reddest tomato I've ever seen, with an equally intense flavor

 

my cooking show audition?

 

the jointly-labored results

 

the festive conclusion

 

outdoor shakespeare (an earlier day)

As suspected, the blog has suffered from my increased occupation: a lot of running around with Jena and a reasonable amount of studying, plus a lack of mental discipline to try to extract and express interesting thoughts. School starts again at the end of August so I'm trying to finally read all the books I've just been dabbling in.

 

food and society

Local Food Month started yesterday... and my freezer is still full of the non-local meat I bought before our vegan month.

There are three categories of endeavor: eating more local food, eating less prepackaged/fast food, and making more things from scratch.

Dinner tonight was, through no real conscious effort, successful in two and a rousing flop in the third. The salad was completely local, including the first cucumber from my backyard (!!). The dressing was from scratch, and the croutons were made from the heel of a homemade loaf. But the burritoes were frozen from Costco. Sigh. Jena and I were planning and shopping for our little July 4th party and decided it was too late to cook.

But I'm not going to knock myself out over it; I want to be more conscious but I can't spend all my time and money on food pursuits this month. Making a dent in the comps list and preparing my first class for the fall are higher priorities. Jena and I were looking at the illustrated entertaining section of my beautiful Junior League of Houston cookbook today, though, and decided that sometimes we wouldn't mind being rich society wives who could spend all their time planning elaborate parties. We could join the DAR, for starters...