Taking a walk/break from work today, I chanced upon this wee knit bunny on the ledge at Starbucks. I love stumbling upon random stuff like this. Left him there so that he might make someone else smile. Who knows what adventures this little guy might have.

A snowy walk, then yoga. Not a bad end to a long winter break.

Things that are full of potential: blank notebooks, the new year, clean slates. I spent a good chunk of the first day of the year thinking about goals for the year and tidying up.

After taking down our tree and trimmings, our house seems open and bright. My ZZ plant, which doubled in size during 2011, looks happy to have reclaimed its spot from the Christmas tree.

This is totally what landed him the role in Dirty Dancing, right?

Once upon a time, I posted #weekinsnapshots here every single week. Then, I began to distance myself from being so attached at the hip to tech, trying to enjoy life and the people near me more fully. I saw the idea of posting "a day in the life" on Quaint Living and decided to give it a try since I had the extra long weekend. The actual intention is for multple bloggers to post about the same day. While I like the shared day aspect, I missed the date, but decided to do it on my own.

Monday, September 5, 2011

After a night of staying up late watching movies, I slept in. Louie cooked breakfast, and I had a leisurely morning with coffee and records ranging from Songs of Love and Hate by Leonard Cohen to No Pocky for Kitty by Superchunk.

Earlier in the weekend temps here were near 100 degrees, then overnight it dipped to the 70s. It felt like instant autumn - perfect timing to plant fall seeds of broccoli, chard, carrots and lettuce. Having an extra day off allowed me to take my time with it and enjoy being outside on such a lovely, brisk day.

There is a bit of a lull in the produce, but the next batch of okra is getting close and I have loads of green tomatoes I hope will  ripen soon. The only harvest of the day was the last of the candy onions. We're going to pickle them to make Gibsons.

Many of my flowering plants were scorched earlier in the year by the hot, dry summer we've had, but a few are still quite lovely.

My dogs hung out outside with me. Even though they have the yard to run around in, they usually laze about on the deck until it's time for a walk. Schnitzel is almost 9 years old, a shepherd-husky mix we adopted from the Chicago city pound. Brüski is a classic mutt in that we really don't know what he is. We adopted him from a no-kill shelter in Southern Indiana about 3 years ago.

Afterwards, we had open-faced pepperoni sandwiches and lingered on the couch watching tennis. I had a furry visiter, Mr. Lumpkin. He is hardly ever satisfied sitting next to you, but prefers to get right on your lap.

We'd been planning all weekend to get a good bike ride in, and so Louie and set out on the Monon Trail, to the Central Canal Towpath to Indianapolis Museum of Art's gardens. There are some great bridges along the ride - these are just a few. The wooden bridge at Michigan Rd, a bridge to Butler University campus from the Towpath and an entrance to the IMA grounds.

The IMA grounds are full of surprise and color.

It's hard to keep cycling when there are so many lovely things to stop and admire.

At home again, we set about having a cooking frenzy. Stocking the fridge full of home-made things on the weekend is something new we're trying to free up our weekdays. Every burner on the stovetop, the oven, our grill and even our ice cream maker were in action at once. We made green beans, cheese grits, a big pot of chili, cornbread, pistachio ice cream and more.

After much cooking and cleanup, we enjoyed grilled steak and some wine on the deck.

When we left for our after-dinner walk, the sun was setting, making pink-tinted clouds.

Our usual evening walk is about two miles.
In for the night, we camped on the couch to try out the ice cream. So delicious. While enjoying it, I researched some pickling recipes. I'd hoped to pickle those onions, but the day ran out. Maybe next weekend!

Mostly this was a really fun experiment, but later in the day my zest for recording things was wearing out. On a busy day with work or traveling, I'm not sure I could have kept up. I am glad, at the end of the day, that I have this record of what was a very care-free, fun day.

Indy looks different from a bicycle.

My garden is exploding with cucumbers. I set a goal for this year to learn how to pickle and can some of our garden surplus. With beets, okra, peppers and more on the way, I better learn soon!

Measuring at approximately 8 x 16 feet, Louie and I have embarked on our most ambitious garden to date. We've had mixed success with gardening before. We've killed squash. We didn't harvest tomatoes fast enough and they went to the worms. We've never attempted growing more than a few basics.

Growing a thriving vegetable garden has been on my bucket list for the past ten years. Not just a small patch - I want to feed my small family of two, share with friends and still have an abundance to pickle and preserve. So this year, Louie built a raised garden bed. We started plants from seeds in our basement when the warmth of summer seemed impossibly distant, sat around our dining table sketching out a garden plan. To keep critters at bay, we added a perimeter of chives, onions and garlic. In all, we planted 1 or more plants each of tomatoes, lima beans, swiss chard, beets, fennel, spinach, lettuce, eggplant, banana peppers, habanero peppers, bell peppers, tomatillos, okra, leeks, garlic, green beans and cucumber.

Here's what it looked like when we started:

Aside from a few plants that were eaten up by what we assume was a mole when we first planted, we haven't had other troubles. Yet. (I'm sure they're to come!) For now, everything is growing like crazy. We had our first harvest of mesclun lettuce this weekend.

the woodruff place flea market:

I was so close to purchasing Mr. T for the Indy Film Fest white elephant gift exchange. How did I let someone else snatch that up?

cause/effect:
rainbow lights on the ceiling, and then reflected in coffee.