Food Porn

Tonight Fuzzy and I grilled pizza. Mine came out so pretty I just had to post a picture. A friend of ours gave us some locally produced sausage, so I cooked some of that up and sprinkled it on with basil (from our backyard), cheese, and sliced tomatoes (unfortunately not from our backyard. Ours aren't ready yet). Needless to say, I ate the entire thing.


Also, in a fit of activity (to counter our usual inertia), Fuzzy and I harvested not only our little potato patch, but also the garlic. Pretty nice haul considering we haven't worked with either of these beds since, well, since we planted them. Now I've just got to pick the potato beetles out of my hair.

I Love it When Things Work Out with Little or No Effort From Me

Our front bed, consisting entirely of volunteers and no-care perennials:



We have sedums, which haven't bloomed yet, volunteer bachelor buttons in blue and pink, volunteer nicotiana, calendula, purple coneflower, and perennial sunflowers in the back. Makes me smile just looking at it. Makes me grin when I realize I haven't touched this bed in two months.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, Turn and Flee From the Strain

So my contract is almost up with my current job. I haven't posted much about this particular job, but it involves working with at-risk kids at a local community center. Technically, I volunteer through a national service organization, which pays me a stipend (stipend = very wee paycheck). Working with kids has been the most frustrating, ulcer-giving, hair-pulling experience of my life. It has also, without a doubt, been the most rewarding. Not to sound too Bill Cosby, but kids really due say the darndest things. Unfortunately what I heard was usually more along the lines of "Mommy's in jail for taking off her house-arrest bracelet," than "I want to be a pony when I grow up!"

Next month, my time with these kids comes to an end. I have the option of renewing my contract, but that ridiculously wee paycheck has kept ends from not quite meeting for the past year. So it's time to brush dust off the old CV and send it to any place in town that is even remotely hiring. But what kind of work do I want to do? Social work? Maybe. Or do I want to give my heart and mind a rest and work retail? We'll see.

Of course I'll probably just take whatever job presents itself first. Ends to meet and all that.

Oh, and here's that Eastern Red-Backed Salamander from our poophole. He's about 2 inches long, nose to tail.

Shithouse

So, how was your weekend? Lovely, I hope. Filled with soft lighting and romantic interludes and unicorns dancing on a freshly cut lawn. And what did I do this weekend, you ask? Well I assisted my groom in the construction of an open-air lavatory. A shithouse, if you will.

In all fairness, I mostly fetched gatorade and held things up while they got attached to various other things, but I did wield the drill a time or two and I even made a few (flawless, of course) cuts with the power saw. And I have to admit, the results make me inordinately happy. Is it wrong to take pride in a questionably constructed outhouse? The door goes up next weekend and I'm thinking of painting the outside dark green to blend with the pines.

Hitched!

Fuzzy and I are officially hitched! We had a very simple ceremony on top of a rock at a local state forest followed by a cook-out in a CCC-constructed pavilion with family and friends. I really don't think it could have gone any better. Set up was a bit of a bitch, but my fabulous mother handled a lot of the details for us, setting up the tables with little centerpieces of miniature twig birds nests filled with roasted marshmallow flavored jelly beans (they look very egg-like!) and flower arrangements of peonies from our yard and larkspur and coreopsis from a friend's farm.


Afterwards, Fuzzy and I headed out to PineTop for a low-key celebration with our friends, complete with waaaaay too much beer (mmmm, Bodington's) and left over cook-out food. The stars were amazing and several of our friends commented that they hadn't seen such a vibrant night sky since their childhood. I really couldn't have hoped for a more perfect day or night. And now I get to spend the rest of my life with the greatest guy ever. Doesn't get much better than that.



Oh, and please disregard how fat I am in the pictures. Clearly the vegan diet went out the window several weeks ago and was replaced by the insane stress eating diet.

Community

It occurred to me that though I've posted about my awesome friends in Louisiana, I've failed to mention the wonderful community I've found in West Virginia. And no, I don't mean the little hilltop coal camp we live in, where I just had to yell at a pubescent boy for throwing rocks at the neighbor's dog. I mean the people I've met through Fuzzy and the center I work at.

A few weeks ago, during the preschool that we host at the center, the preschool teacher came running up to me, saying "Oh my god, one of the kids fell in the gym and his nose is bleeding! Come quick!" I wondered whether I should fetch the first aid kit as I ran after her into the gym. But instead of a bloody-nosed boy, I found the parents of the preschool children, my friends, and Fuzzy's mom standing in front of a table piled with food and presents, a surprise bridal shower for me. I instantly burst into tears (which is well documented in several rolls of highly embarrassing pictures). No one had ever thrown me a surprise anything in my life. We all ate far too much, then the children sat in a circle around me as I opened the presents. Later, when I described the event to my mom, she told me, "You've really picked a good place to live." And she was absolutely right.

Today, two of my best friends picked me up at my house, took me to dinner at my favorite Mexican place, stuffed me with fajitas, poured margaritas down my throat, then bought me beer and ice cream and sat with me on a back porch for about four hours. At the end of the evening I was presented with a bag full of condoms, a deck of card printed with 52 different sex games, and a tiny penis eraser. You can't find better community than that.

Hello, My name is Elizabeth and I Go to Bed at 8

Sorry for the temporary abandonment of the blog. Between wedding plans, crazy end-of-the-school-year kids, and the brutal heat that has settled over West Virginia like a broody hen, I've been tending to go straight to bed when I get home from work. Lame, I know.

The wedding is next Saturday and I'm feeling oddly calm. Stressed as hell about the relatives coming, but calm about the actual nuptials. The thought of spending the rest of my days with Fuzzy makes me breathe a little deeper, a little slower.



In non-wedding related news, the garden is planted, the strawberries are in full production, and the peonies and rhododendrons are both in riotous bloom. Fuzzy and I found wild azaleas on PineTop last week, looking much like their domestic cousins, and several wild blueberry bushes that took several rounds of googling to identify.

Life has been harried and good in the last few weeks. At least once a day, in the middle of applying spackle to our pock-marked walls or pulling up invasive roses with the truck, Fuzzy will turn to me, smile, and say "We're getting married!"