Anyway, I’ve been following RVAnews‘ “Garden Wars” feature with great interest for the past few weeks, and each time I read it, I find myself fretting over whether our beloved veggie patch is behind “schedule” or otherwise inferior because we didn’t have John Sarvay’s beautiful lavender (our lavender seedlings wilted), or Scott Pharr’s peas and carrots (mainly because we didn’t plant carrots this year, after last year’s were such a disappointment), or Ryan Smartt’s abundance of tiny greens (about a month ago we were up to our ears in arugula and buttercrunch lettuce, but they’ve since bolted and our newly planted greens just seem to wilt in the current heat wave). That, of course, is in addition to thinking, Man, my garden photos would be infinitely better if I had some cute toddlers to put in them…. AHEM, a topic for another post.

Anyway, as I read this week’s installment I was coveting the Sarvays’ green beans and the Smartts’ Big Bertha peppers and the Pharrs’ beer-battered squash flowers (I KNOW!)…and I had a bit of a revelation: You guys! (I said to myself) Our garden is awesome too! And our tomatoes are green just like theirs! And we have tons (and tons and tons) of summer squash! And we have pretty squash blossoms, too! And we actually have bigger cucumbers! And we still have SO MUCH kale!  And mint! And baby eggplant! And beets! It was a triumphant moment, I’m not gonna lie. Definitely worthy of exclamation-mark abuse. I totally felt like a bonafide, successful backyard gardener at that moment.

In affirmation of this victorious feeling, I went out into our darling, bountiful patch of productivity and snapped a few pictures. (More to come in my Flickr.)

Nothing like turning a tiny, dry seed into a monstrous green plant that produces edible fruits to banish feelings of inadequacy. And with that, I’m off to enjoy a lunch of summer squash salad — made with 90% homegrown veg.

Ah, autumn! I dig the way you make me crave oatmeal (with cinnamon and almonds and honey, please), snuggle with my husband more, and how you bring color to my cheeks with your brisk wind, and fill my neighborhood with the smells of wood smoke and old oil furnaces firing up for the season.

But there are parts of summer I’ll miss. The long evenings, for one thing. The way a cold beer is so refreshing after a sweaty bike ride or kickball game. Iced tea, too–OK, basically all cold beverages. And of course the wonderful ability to step out my back door and harvest some fresh vegetables for dinner.

Fall really seems to have set in here in Richmond. (Proof: today I am wearing a sweater AND a scarf, and I even turned our heat on–pretty low, but it counts.) I keep thinking about how various things are the “last of the season” lately…like when Ben and I went canoeing last week, or yesterday when I picked all of our garden’s remaining basil and made a ginormous batch of pesto in order to preserve it.

Not that change isn’t good. It’s actually kind of refreshing to let something cycle out of your life for a little while–makes it seem newer the next time it comes around. This year we’ll be making a real effort to buy and eat mostly produce that’s in season locally, and as much as I’d love a fresh, juicy blueberry (OK, more like a quart of them) right now, I have a feeling that the first one I pop into my mouth after 6+ months without them is going to be an epic experience. And anyway, I have a bowl full of chestnuts to roast.

Speaking of life-art imitations, I feel a bit as if I’ve been whip-it-ed (how does one form the past tense of “whip it”? whipped-it?) myself this week. It’s just been a whole slew of happenings and obligations and deadlines and responsibilities, one seeming to crowd in right on top of the last — but not in a wholly bad or overwhelming way. I mean, I like being busy. This week the busy-ness has been compounded by the fact that my hubby’s out of town. (But he’s on his way home right now, yay!)

The highlight reel:

• had a super-fun humpday happy hour with a handful of wonderful women and loads of delicious eats that I had a ball preparing (you MUST make these brownies from Smitten Kitchen, and this white bean-cherry tomato salad from Simply Recipes — both are divine). PLUS, close to half of the ingredients I used came from our garden! Double win!
• experienced my most successful week of Etsy sales yet: six sales since Tuesday! I’m stoked about having such a positive shop relaunch, and brimming with new ideas for things to make and do.
• got to eat all the leftover brownies myself since Ben’s away.
• it’s really starting to feel and even look like fall in Richmond, and the weather this week was decidedly on the cooler side of crisp. Bonus: Our A/C hasn’t run since last Sunday.
• finally, I was going to leave you with a magical video to enjoy, but YouTube seems to be down. Do yourself a favor and search for “fleet foxes tiger mountain peasant song cover” next time you’re YouTube-ing. You won’t be sorry. (Thanks to Tarfia for bringing this wonderful video to my attention.)

Well, this was long overdue! Just relaunched my Etsy shop, with loads (OK, more like a dozen or so) of sweet new one-of-a-kind jewelry creations. I’ll be listing stuff throughout the day, so keep hitting that Refresh button! And, BONUS, every purchase from now until next Tuesday gets FREE SHIPPING.

Be that as it may, I’m well into year 2 of grad school now, and determined to better balance my poetic/scholarly interests with my crafty ones. Last week I made a new lightbox and photographed a bunch of newish jewelry, and I’ll be relaunching my Etsy shop this week. This blog is gonna get busy, too. Stay tuned!

Speaking of Christmas, holy crap it’s soon! I’m getting ready to pull out our stockings and hang the Advent calendar we made last year. We’ll probably go get a tree next weekend. Figure we might as well make our house as festive as we can, since it looks like we’ll have a Richmond Christmas. I may get to go to Florida next week for a few days but it’s pretty unlikely we’ll make it down there for Christmas itself — it’ll be sad to not be with all of our family, but a private Christmas is fun too. We’re trying to think of a new tradition to start this year…suggestions are welcome.

The semester wraps up next week (I’ve got one last 20-page paper to finish and turn in), which is exciting — then I have about a week (less if I go to FL) to prep for the Richmond Craft Mafia Handmade Holiday craft show. If this blog has any Richmond readers, I better see you there! I’m working on some rad Christmas cards and ornaments, plus my signature recycled silverware jewelry, and maybe even some cozy crocheted accessories. And on that note, I’ve got work to do!

Which means it’s almost Ben’s birthday, then it’s almost Thanksgiving, then it’s almost the end of the semester, our anniversary, and Christmas! This is always an exciting time of year for me. Yay for fall and pretty colors, too.

While I’m here, how’s about a quickie weekend wrapup-type update?

Friday: Drove out to a house on the Mattaponi River to feed some donkeys (long story there); went grocery shopping on my way home. Realized that our lack of heat/hot water wasn’t going to be solved by a delivery of heating oil; pouted and shivered while Ben called our home warranty to get a guy to come work on it — not til Monday, of course. Heard some talented folks from my writing program read at Moveable Feast, followed by drinks (and nacho-mooching) at Commercial Taphouse.

Saturday: Discovered the unheated house is infinitely more tolerable if I spend the day in bed with the space heater nearby; did so with my laptop and stacks of homework most of the morning. Made granola; realized I was out of applesauce to sweeten it with — I had one tiny apple, so I made my own applesauce. (Turned out great.) Finished Season 3 of “Arrested Development” (again) while eating cookies and drinking homemade mochas with Ben. Cooked some amazing tofu chili. To bed early-ish.

Sunday: Farmers market (with a mere $3.50 in cash), laundry, chores, homework, wrapping Ben’s birthday presents, writing, watching TV on the Internet, blogging. Later: church (all alone ’cause Ben had to work a double today), taking Ben some supper, finishing homework, and hopefully sitting by a fire with Ben when he gets home.

Have a great week!

Best thing I’ve seen all week (found near Mechanicsville). Until this, that is:

I’m sure it would be overwhelming for both you and me if I tried to cover all the intricate workings of my life in the past month, so permit me to simply skim some of the highlights (or you can just check out some photos), which will most likely primarily involve weekends, because that is when I do more interesting things. (If you are truly interested in hearing me drone on about Composition Theory, workshop-speak, why I’ll probably never write another sestina, or the challenges of working with English-language-learners or unmotivated freshmen in the Writing Center, buy me a drink or something and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say about any combination of those things. But this doesn’t seem the place for that.)

A couple of weeks ago Ben and I decided to go check out Colonial Williamsburg. We drove out there, found out it costs $37 per person to get in, and decided we could get a similar experience by watching The Patriot or something. Instead we went to Williamsburg Winery, had a picnic on Jamestown Island, got attacked many teensy spider-ish bugs which turned out to be flea ticks (as evidenced by the dozens of itchy red spots on both our bodies the next day), then drove the Colonial National Historical Parkway from J-town to Yorktown. Saw lots of seriously OLD stuff. When we came back to town we decided to celebrate Ben probably getting a promotion by eating an extravagant and delicious dinner at Mamma’Zu. Good times.

The next weekend, some of our best pals from Kentucky made the 12-hour drive to visit us. They brought their bicycles, so we spent a good 6 or 7 hours on Saturday riding around Belle Isle and James River Park — we covered something like 20 miles that day. Later we tried to check out the Italian Festival in Church Hill, but by the time we got there they had stopped selling drink tickets (I still don’t understand Virginia ABC laws), so we wandered around sadly for a few minutes watching staffers pack up wine bottles, then went to Patrick Henry’s Pub, where I tasted some of the best eggplant parmesan of my life. We got up super-early the next day to cook our friends biscuits and gravy before they hit the road. I never managed to take a nap that day, so I decided being groggy was as good an excuse as any for not getting started on writing my comp theory paper.

This week we were graced with a visit by two friends from Florida, and we had a great time taking them to a couple of our favorite Richmond restaurants and scavenging a couple of thrift stores. (I scored some cute Ikea curtains for our front room — four panels for 10 bucks!) We also toured the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which I think we would have enjoyed much more had half the exhibits not been closed for remodeling — none of us get particularly excited by Faberge or British Sporting Art exhibits.

Which brings me to yesterday, part of which I spent drafting a paper for comp theory (ugh times infinity), being amazed that gas had “plummeted” below $3/gallon, and getting ridiculously excited to discover a new Ukrop’s and Target within 2 miles of our house. Other parts of the day were spent cooking up some unbelievably good vegetarian chili and jalapeno cheddar cornbread with my hubby, then bicycling over to Brown Island for the Richmond Folk Festival. We caught shows by Liadan (lovely) and the Dan Tyminski Band (super fun, but I was sad he didn’t play the dobro).

And now back to my paper-procrastination methods of drinking gallons of Emergen-C, reading, messing with my photos on Flickr, eating kiwi, and trying to upload a video of Dan Tyminski to MySpace. Hope you had a great September!