Rain at long last!

Nothing like some good ol' rain to make everything burst forth. You can almost watch our gardens grow by the minute! Nathan's been bringing home zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes from our farm plot. And our Kilby Cottage garden is just about to start giving us our summer harvest--green beans and cherry tomatoes are blooming.

Ahead of the rain this week, we were busy harvesting garlic and a few onions as they need time to dry. We also brought our bolted kale and spinach plants indoors to save seeds for our fall garden. The kale pods are almost pretty enough to display in the house. Too bad they would also decorate the floor with a mess of seeds.

In an endeavor to use more of what we raise in the kitchen, we've been reevaluating our recipes to see how many of our own ingredients we can provide and what else is possible for us to grow. This week's lunch soup is full of our kale, onions, and garlic. Come fall, we should be able to provide the cannellini beans and the carrots too!

Outside of the fun from the garden, the stress from an overly packed May caught up to me this week. One of the interesting things about my personality is I can literally turn off my emotions for a while. It has its pros and cons. I can be extremely objective and rational to help friends and family through decision-making. I can also end up processing pent up emotions all at one time if I don't slow down enough to feel them more in real-time. Restless nights, tension headaches, and the other usual stress signals snuck up on me and made for a long week. Been seeking as much tea time and quiet as I can soak up the last few days.

Nathan and I are looking at making July a "reset" month of keeping our calendar as clear as possible and a sabbatical from much of our digital lives as can be done and still do our day jobs. We've been reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport together in the evenings and are excited to try a few of his suggestions and hopefully find new ways prevent overwhelm in the future.