Like two bloggers crossing in the night + blisters and the garden

(Please ignore my giant gleaming forehead in this photo. Good lord, is THIS what I look like after a long day at work? Yeesh.)

I was lucky enough last night to get a chance to meet up with American-turned-Italian-back home visiting the States blogger, Sara Rosso of Ms Adventures in Italy for a bit of International Women's Day celebrating at a local Mexican food joint.

Sara was nice enough to invite me to join her and a big group of her long time chums for a little socializing in the name of a holiday that we don't celebrate much in the US. Of course, as you can see by Shelley's latest post, this is something observed a little more actively in Italy, so I was excited to be a part of it here in the States.

Plus, how cool is it to meet up with people you only knew virtually via the blogs?

Cool. Not dorky - cool.

Although explaining away the dork factor when you're introduced as "Jessica, from the blogs" is something of a challenge.

Either way - chalk one up for the blog and it's ability to bring together equally dorky people from around the world (should probably speak just for myself here since I hear Milan is the anti-dork) who never would have met otherwise.

And, while we're at it, I'd like to direct your attention to the conveniently placed link on the sidebar here so that you can easily skip right over to Sara's blog and find out what all the fuss is about.

In other news, I am still blister-free. I'm sure you are all very worried and riveted by my Blister Updates, so I thought I'd tell you that after a four miler yesterday my feet were still blissfully unmarred and rip roaring ready to go for tomorrow's 5.5 miler.

In other, other news, the garden has arrived. In a way.


As it turns out, last year's gardening experience is far enough away now that my voice saying, "I'll never plant from seed again. I'll just go to the nursery like a normal person and buy seedlings." is barely audible. Which explains why the garden arrived in a box on my doorstep instead of in little containers in the trunk of my car like the replacement garden I planted last year after most of my seeds croaked.

Granted, the reason the seeds never had a fighting chance was because I started them indoors way too early and, as it happens, I do not excel at the activity known as "hardening off" seedlings. This is when you take your wee vulnerable spindly sprouts from the warm coziness of your house outside into the big bad (usually much colder) world during the day so that they can get used to being out there on their own away from the safety and non-windy conditions of your sunny window.

That isn't the hard part.

The hard part (for lazy me, anyway) is remembering to:

1. Bring them back in at night when the temp drops to, like, 40 degrees or less
2. Not smash them accidentally while they live in their temporary coffee mug transport vessels.

I'll tell you what, I've come to terms with the fact that this whole process doesn't highlight any of my stronger skills, so I'm giving up on it. At least the "Start Seeds Indoors" part.

All seeds will be started outdoors, in a few weeks, so that they can go through their own Darwinian selection process without having to also survive the clumsy inadvertent crushing from their beloved caretaker, me - Finny "Wrecking Ball" Knits.

For the next two coming weekends, however, we have a much scarier task on hand - the taking down of a big dead tree and the removal of our very own Green Monster to make way for the, TA DA!, future new fence. There will likely be photos of all of this mess, so stay tuned for some interesting injuries.

Still, though, no blisters!