5 1/2 months of summer, and counting...

It's supposed to be 80 tomorrow. That's 5 and half months of summer for me so far this year - dangerously close to a full half year of summertime. I will stop the whine right there because I'm sure all of you Portlandites are dying for the sunshine. But I will just say that God made seasons for a reason! We all need the off-season to hibernate and re-charge our batteries so that we can enjoy the sun when it does come out. At least this is my pattern. Sun-sun go away, come again another day, little Stephie needs to rest, sun-sun go away! :)

So, long time no blog.. Sorry that I've dropped off the face of the earth but I have to admit, I have been feeling a little blue lately. Which doesn't make me want to write. I don't know if it's the beautiful weather that's been getting me down, or what, but I've been terribly homesick the last few days. Thanksgiving needs to come...NOW!.. I've been counting the days, and we're down to a week and a half (or so.. bear with me if a I shave off a few days to make it seem sooner). We're leaving Wed. morning in a rental car, and probably arriving LATE Wed. night. One of Neil's classmates is from Eugene and will be hitching a ride with us, so we'll have a little bit of company in the car.

The other thing making me homesick might also have been the adorable pictures that my sister sent of my little nephew in his kitty costume for Halloween. They were at a Halloween carnival that my parents school puts on... without us.Then they went trick-or-treating in our old neighborhood...without us. Actually trick-or-treated at our old house. (long, forlorn sigh...)

See also: Pumpkin carving and mom and dad's on beautiful fall day. ho hum...

Neil and I have been getting over head colds all week, so things have been pretty low-key. A lot of lounging around on the couch watching T.V. Nothing exciting to blog about, that's for sure. I thought I might be feeling well enough to return to running yesterday. Then I ran 1/2 block to catch the bus and thought I was going to lose a lung, so I decided against that. I'll take the weekend to recuperate... I have a long, hot bath on the schedule tonight. Neil will be at a lecture until around 8:30 - 9:00, so I will have some (more) alone time... Just what I need! :)

I have been getting a lot of reading in lately, though. I just finished a book called "Plenty" which is about a man and a women living up in Vancouver B.C. that decided to eat only what was grown/farmed/harvested within 100 miles of their home. It was a very fascinating and eye-opening book. Their stories are very interesting and the facts that they uncover and people they meet make for a great book. They managed to do it just fine, even though this meant giving up flour and white sugar (neither was grown within 100 miles of their house). And they became so much more in touch with their food and their environment. By the time they ended the challenge, they ended up still mosting eating locally-grown food, because they valued it and liked it so much more. It makes me think much more about the foods that we eat, and where we get them... I get my fresh harvest box each week, which I try to make as local as possible, but I did break down and buy bananas the other day - from Mexico... I felt bad when they finally arrived. I was also thinking that Spud is just a middleman, as well - so the farmers have to drive all their produce to Spud's warehouse, then spud drives it to me - doubling the fuel necessary. So I visited a farmer's market here in the financial district on Thursday and was pleased to find SO much fresh produce - and straight from the farm to the market, cutting out the middleman. So my next experiment is to discontinue the fresh harvest box and start getting produce from the farmer's market every Tuesday/Thursday (there are two markets).

I think it's good for me to read a book like that every now and then. It's interesting reading, plus it makes you stop and examine your own actions... Other books that i have read lately that made me think a little: "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver (also a local-eating endeavor story), "Fast food Nation" by Eric Schlosser (about the origins of fast-food), and there is one more that I just finished that I can't remember the title - it's about genetically-modified foods. I would recommend any of these as both a good read and very information/eye-opening.

Tonight, I am picking up a new one called "In defense of food" by Michael Pollard from the library. I'm not exactly sure what this one is about, but the author is supposed to be good.

On the docket for this weekend is the S.F. Green Festival tomorrow and also some shopping! YAY! I'm planning on swapping some clothes at Crossroads - the S.F. equivalent of Buffalo Exchange. I have a whole bunch of dressy work clothes that I don't need any more and I'm hoping they will take. I need jeans and sweaters instead... Hopefully the shopping therapy will lift me out of my "mood" because Sunday we are renting a car and driving out to Mt. Tamalpais to do some hiking. It's a lot harder to hike when you're down in the dumps! But that should keep us good and busy and hopefully there will be some good pictures to post on the other side of the weekend.

See you then!