Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Seeds of Happiness
Despite the 6.5 hours of sleep I got last night--an extreme deviation from my normal summer sleeping habits--today was a great day. And I don't think I've had such a great day in a long time. I woke up early to meet with my old friends at the Minnesota chapter Sierra Club office. That went well.
Then I just chilled out at Barnes and Noble for close to two hours. That was fabulous. I love books. I love book stores, and especially the ones with comfy armchairs, and especially when they're not all uptight about you using them for more than 10 minutes. I've had a $20 giftcard to use at that store for over three months, and I was hoping to finally make good use of it today. But I didn't. I guess I'm just too picky when it comes to the books I buy. I did have fun looking at a couple books, though. One that particularly caught my attention was Join Me, the story of a British "bloke" who, by whimsically placing an ad that read "Join Me" in a British journal, created a mass collective committed to doing good deeds. Blimey, eh? If only it were that easy to accomplish other things...
Then I bought orange juice, two containers of cottage cheese, and a roll of stamps because my mom asked me to. It actually felt really good to finally do something helpful. Maybe it was leftover Join Me vibes. Then I came home and mowed the lawn with my dad (we split, half-half). Then I read a bit from two books I checked out of the library. It's been a long time since I've done something like that, too.
Once my mom finally got home, around 8pm, we went outside to tackle our garden. For the last two years, we've grown various vegetables to varying degrees of success. This year, our gardening efforts, so far, have been kind of shaky. Two of our plants were completely devoured by a local, neighborhood bunny wabbit. A bunch of our flowers just shriveled and died, and we still hadn't planted all of our veggies.
So this evening, Mom and I braved our jungley, mosquito-full backyard like a pair of undaunted pioneers. We pulled out weeds, and dug up the dirt. Then we planted marigolds, dill plants, and sowed a couple rows of okra and radish seeds. Between all the digging and mowing I sure worked up quite a sweat. Oh and the mosquitoes really seemed to enjoy my presence (judging by the number of puffy, red bumps that now dot my body)...
But whatever, it was all worth it, and I'd definitely do it all over again. These are exactly the type of summer experiences and the much needed quality time that I had prescribed to myself at the start of summer. I'm glad I'm finally starting to have some fun, even with my parents around...
Then I just chilled out at Barnes and Noble for close to two hours. That was fabulous. I love books. I love book stores, and especially the ones with comfy armchairs, and especially when they're not all uptight about you using them for more than 10 minutes. I've had a $20 giftcard to use at that store for over three months, and I was hoping to finally make good use of it today. But I didn't. I guess I'm just too picky when it comes to the books I buy. I did have fun looking at a couple books, though. One that particularly caught my attention was Join Me, the story of a British "bloke" who, by whimsically placing an ad that read "Join Me" in a British journal, created a mass collective committed to doing good deeds. Blimey, eh? If only it were that easy to accomplish other things...
Then I bought orange juice, two containers of cottage cheese, and a roll of stamps because my mom asked me to. It actually felt really good to finally do something helpful. Maybe it was leftover Join Me vibes. Then I came home and mowed the lawn with my dad (we split, half-half). Then I read a bit from two books I checked out of the library. It's been a long time since I've done something like that, too.
Once my mom finally got home, around 8pm, we went outside to tackle our garden. For the last two years, we've grown various vegetables to varying degrees of success. This year, our gardening efforts, so far, have been kind of shaky. Two of our plants were completely devoured by a local, neighborhood bunny wabbit. A bunch of our flowers just shriveled and died, and we still hadn't planted all of our veggies.
So this evening, Mom and I braved our jungley, mosquito-full backyard like a pair of undaunted pioneers. We pulled out weeds, and dug up the dirt. Then we planted marigolds, dill plants, and sowed a couple rows of okra and radish seeds. Between all the digging and mowing I sure worked up quite a sweat. Oh and the mosquitoes really seemed to enjoy my presence (judging by the number of puffy, red bumps that now dot my body)...
But whatever, it was all worth it, and I'd definitely do it all over again. These are exactly the type of summer experiences and the much needed quality time that I had prescribed to myself at the start of summer. I'm glad I'm finally starting to have some fun, even with my parents around...
