Bliss

I just spent the weekend engrossed in conversation, wine and love. My friend is getting married. She may have thought, at times, that this moment would never come. The despair over getting older, relationships that ended, and the lack of quality options was frustrating and overwhelming at times. Lord knows, I understood. Then, she met him. Her knight in shining armor, her ONE, her perfect, understanding gentleman with a good heart and a tender sweet love for my friend. I knew it would happen. There were times over the years that she wanted to change who she was and I encouraged to hold onto herself. Someone out there would love the person she was. I was right. He clearly does. All those quirks she wanted to stifle are accepted and embraced by him.

And so, in 5 short months they will be married - in what will be the shortest engagement of any of my friends. It has been a whirwind since they got engaged, but she has it all together. Her planning skills are incredible and I can only view with awe all that she has already done. I zipped down to DC this weekend to spend time dress shopping, wine drinking, favor prepping, and just talking. I realized how I miss my friend. Life has been busy for both of us in the past year and we have not seen each other as much as we would like. She has been happily engrossed in her relationship, so our phone conversations have been shorter and less frequent. This is not to say we lost touch - we still chat and make phone dates so we can have more than 10 minutes to catch up! It's just that we are in a different phase in life right now.

My friend and I reconnected this weekend. I saw her new place (ironically soon to be rented as they combine households after the wedding), ooohed and ahhed over her wedding gown, chatted, laughed, gave opinions on options, and tried on dress after dress. There was margarita drinking and laughing with several college friends, and much baby love of a darling girl belonging to another DC friend. I awoke this morning with something as close to hangover as I have had in a long time. A bit shaky and a note to self that going beyond the 2 bottles of wine was probably not a good decision on our parts. We are not as young as we used to be and our livers not as capable of bouncing back.

After pedicures yesterday afternoon, we bought goat cheese and french bread and wine and had ourselves a fantastic French lunch! ;) Last night we called another dear college friend who was far away. We put the speaker phone on, she had a glass of wine at her house and we commenced the talking, laughing and comfortable feelings that come from time spent with good friends.

Unfortunately, I did not take as many pictures as usual. Too much fun I suppose.

Nothing compares to good friends. Something we should never take for granted.

Sweet, Sweet Summer

I wish computers had scentavision in them. I love strawberry picking. There is nothing like walking into a strawberry patch on a warm summer day. The smell is heavenly. You crouch down and spy a bright red spot among the green leaves. Your hand touches that strawberry warm and ripe from the sun. Undoubtedly one of my favorite summer activities. (I picked 16 1/2 lbs yesterday!)

Some of my strawberries had an accident and got a little bruised!

But some were JUST perfect....

Making jam is another favorite. It's one of those things my mom did every summer and I finally let her teach me. It took several summers before I felt comfortable enough to do it without her standing 10 feet away for questions or help when things starting boiling and jars needed to be filled! It's so sweet and delicious when you have a little leftover in the pan and you can have WARM on toast.

Mixing the jam. You can only use a wooden spoon.

The jars sit on the window sill and get tipped over every 10 minutes until the tops "POP."

Ready to be labeled!

Now I have lots of thank you gifts, Christmas gifts, and "just because" gifts on hand. They just need labels and they'll last until next strawberry season.