All that shit I haven't told you about yet.

My good buddy, Dig, has this great approach to blogging wherein she writes a few sentences or adds a picture or whatever when she has a moment and then, when she has enough moments pieced together, she publishes her post.

She calls it "nuggets".

I think I might like to try this approach, since I'm so totally not getting to the blog as much as I want even though I have two tons of shit to tell you guys about, so I'm just saying I might try this method. In the future. In another post.  And I'll just assume you'll all deal with it OK.

For now, you get a shortish stilted post wherein I piece together what I remember about three separate events that I've been meaning to tell you about and I'll just assume you'll all deal with this, too.

You guys - you're so flexible. I so like that about you.

Firstly - I milked a goat.

That, in itself, probably deserves its own post because it was one of those things that I have never done but sort of assumed I would like. And I did! Which, obviously, because it didn't involve getting a kick to the face, which is what I was sort of expecting.

Goats are dangerous, people. Just ask Bubba. He hates those fuckers. Me though? I love them. Now even more so given the lack of face kicking.

And to bring the Goat Joy to a whole new level, I made cheese from her milk. Just right then and there.

1. Milk goat. (That's not actually me milking right there. As though I'd have a purple purse. Please.)

2. Make cute cheese. (Then make awesome smoked trout appetizer and eat it while getting blazing drunk.)

And for those of you who are interested in what Love Apple Farms looks like in their new location, I took a handful of not great photos because WHOOPSY I forgot my good camera.

Hazy photo from the deck.

The pumpkin's bench.

Monster tomatillo that would positively dwarf my retarded plants.

Cutest and orange-est squash.

Wee-rinkly tomato.

More wee-rinklyness.

Groovy hillside trellised hops. If I had a hillside, I would totally do this.

If you've never been to LAF, here's some pictures from another time I visited them and started a different new hobby that's not so new anymore, even though I haven't updated you guys on it in a long time. Confused yet? Yeah, me too.

So yeah, I made cheese. I'll post on how to do it in more detail when I actually try to make cheese at home. Sometime in the next century when I have five minutes to rub together.

Wow. That doesn't sound right.

And speaking of having no proper time - I am going to revise my previous statement about piecing together bits of nuggets and words into a grand post to publish at a later date and just give you this.

Because if I wait to add more stuff to it, the thing's never going live. I'll get too far past the things and I won't remember and then I'll just be all Oh fuck it, I can't remember anyway and then no one will hear about the Heirloom Expo or my philosophy on getting my hair wet when I go swimming or how awesome Roller Derby is and how I'm so super proud of my friend for finishing her first triathlon and oh, by the way, I have a duathlon this weekend which I've trained (ish) for and haven't even talked about in forever.

Do you see how waiting for all of this to get crammed into one post could result in no posts for one hundred years?

I think you do. So. Here you go. I'll hopefully be back shortly with another short post about one of those things I just said.

Who's effed *NOW*?

Go BOOBS.

Yeah, probably Team Cucumber.

I mean, sure, both plants are still technically in the ground, but only one's still producing viable fruits.

The other is, well, not.

Not.

 In fact, the watermelon's managed - with ONE fruit - to surpass the entire summer's production of cucumbers by nearly a half pound.

Seriously. So far this year - 3.18 lbs of cucumbers and 3.59 lbs of watermelon.

Says a lot, that.

Like, the cucumbers suck this year, mostly. Especially compared to years passed. Last year - 17+ lbs of cucumbers. Year before - 13 lbs. Though, last year I did have 64 lbs of watermelons, so this was a weird wager anyway.

Whatever - you guys were up for it - don't be pusses about it now.

And since there's another watermelon on the vine and, like, a few scraggly depressing looking small ass cucumbers on their vine - we could perhaps have a pathetic mini produce drag race to the end of the season.

Or we could start eHarmony for produce.

The cucumbers keep doing cute shit like this, so I leave them in the ground. Cuteness wins every time with me, you know. But you know what does NOT win with me? Grossness.

You're gross, beans.

Yeah, I pulled the beans. They were getting too spooky and ugly and cobwebby and giant bean-y.

I mean, really, there's a fucking FLY on the dried out bean. Nast.

Not appealing.

Thankfully, when the beans wave the We're Gross flag, it's actually them saying that they're ready to be hauled in and saved for Spring 2012 because, yes friends, another hobby is afoot -- seed saving.

If you're not swooning, I just don't know you anymore.

I've decided that it's dumb for me to keep ordering more seeds every year when I never use the entire packet of the seeds that I buy. And in the rare cases when I do (like in the case of the beans, for instance), having saved a bunch is just a way lot easier than ordering them online.

OK, well, it's not easier, but it's more fun? Economical? Old timey? Uh...a new reason to start another hobby?

Yeah. That's probably it. But still! Cool, right? Yes. I think it's cool. I think seed saving is cool. Because that's the kind of weirdo I've become. I save seeds and I take a day off of work in the middle of the week to go to an heirloom produce and seed event.

Like a total fucking weirdo.

But that's OK, because you guys are used to it. And I bet maybe one of you wants to learn how to save seeds. So, all one of you can hang out here while I try it out in earnest for the first time.

Just to give you a heads up - this year we'll be saving heirloom varieties (because hybrids don't produce reliably from their seeds as the hybridizing process leaves them incapable of reliably reproducing - see you already learned a thing) of green beans (Fortex), tomatoes (Brandywine, Sun Gold cherry) and cucumbers (Solly Beiler).

I'll walk you through the saving process for each, as I learn it. So, you know, there could be errors as I get drunk and maul the garden for good looking shit to save.

First things first though - beans.

The first step in saving beans is to let them grow to maturity on the vine, let them dry right on there like big dangling turds, and then pick them, husk them and store them in a cool dry container.

So far, that's all I've done. As you can plainly see. We'll talk more though as I harvest another tomato for its seeds and then when I figure out how to save cucumber seeds, since I haven't looked into that just yet.

Good weirdo times around here, friends.

Also - Team Cucumber - you're effed.

This is how I don't become an alcoholic. Or how I DO.

It started innocently enough, this hobby stuff, back when I was a kid and someone taught me how to make friendship bracelets.

I forced my mom to take me to Ben Franklin (that completely unsatisfying hobby shop with 80 rows of balsa wood model airplanes and almost nothing else) so that I could buy String, as I referred to it with my sophisticated 3rd grader vocab, and then proceed to make one hundred fairly similar bracelets for friends and then, when I'd run out of friends, those who sat near me in class and then, my sister.

Sure - she's a friend NOW - but back then...less so.

I enjoyed pinching her. That's something.

Anyway, I think that's probably a good place to put a pin on my personal timeline of When This Hobby Bullshit Began.

The whole friendship bracelet thing lasted for a while, or probably something on the order of two weeks, which counts as "a while" in 3rd grader years and then, when I got tired of tying knots shaped like the number 4 with embroidery floss (thank you, 3rd grader directions), I set aside the String and moved on to other endeavors.

Like playing soccer, going to swim practice at dawn and school - which took up an oppressively large amount of my time.

Which, thank god, because later in my teenage years when my time wasn't nailed down by as many organized sports, I made a hobby of being the biggest bastard child a set of well-mannered hippie parents could imagine and fear.

Wow - I was awful.

So awful that I don't think my recognizing this fact in my 30s does anything to make up those years of sheer horror. I've stopped apologizing to my parents. We've agreed to just refer to those as The Dark Years and then also to never refer to them at all.

The never-er the better.

But then! I graduated from college and moved back to California where I began my life as a career commuter. What I was doing for work - which SHOULD have been the topic of convo and importance at that time - fell by the wayside as I recounted with great dramatic flair and arm flinging the soul-crushingness of my daily commute to and from San Francisco. And to and from Santa Clara. And to and from Livermore.

Oh god, it was grotesque.

But! Had I not spent the better part of my early twenties riding BART and CalTrain and MUNI (hate you still, MUNI.) and light rail and my fucking feet, I may not have begun my life as a serial hobbyist.

Because on the various train and bus-like modes of transpo, I learned to knit. And crochet. And actually read all the magazine subscriptions I'd amassed over decades of birthdays. Which ended up inspiring me to try new hobbies like sewing and cooking and reminded me that OH YEAH I could grow food if I so desired and OH YEAH my mom is a gardener I could ask her and so on...

So, whether it was the time on the road to and from work or the mind-numbing work or the subliminal magazine influence or the suffocating broke-ness (I lived on food swiped from executive luncheons for about four years) - I took up hobbies to entertain myself. Cheap ones.

I guess that's the best way to describe these years of hobbying - The Cheap Years.

Years of acrylic yarn, metal hooks (tink, tink, tink - I still hear that shit in my nightmares), poorly coordinated fat quarters from the $1 bin, plants ripped from my mom's yard (hey - she was the one doing the ripping), "Champagne" chicken made from Mumm's and so on...

Boy howdy, did I make some ugly, ill-fitting and offensive shit, people.

Thankfully, I also grew some pretty flowers and a tomato.

I think I'm starting to see how the gardening hobby stuck most effectively while other things like soap making (why? Soap is what? A DOLLAR. Just buy it.) and candle making (No one needs more candles. This is a fact.) were forgotten after only a single try.

Though I *just* threw out the soap molds, like, a month ago. Perhaps I should add de-stashing as a hobby. A hobby I stick to. Eh...

So yeah, that was all true until about five years ago when I started this blog.

Wow. Has it been five years? Wait! No! I just checked the archives - it's been SIX years. Yikes. Sorry people - that's a lot of salty language and poorly written tutorials to endure. You're champs.

Anyway, yeah, when I started this blog I also began reflecting on the state of my hobbies and, more importantly, reflecting on the state of other people with the same hobbies and I then decided to stop making crap.

Or, at least I decided to stop using crap materials to make what might or might not have turned out as crap.

So, like, wool yarn instead of acrylic, bamboo needles instead of metal or plastic, decor weight fabric rather than quilter's calico, foods other than chicken...you know.

Which I think, for the most part, has improved those hobbies to which I've stuck. The products of those hobbies has improved anyway. So, at least now when I finish a knitting project and SHOCKER it fits and looks decent, I have a useful clothing item instead of an itchy unwearable piece of synthetic garbage to add to the Goodwill bag.

Thank god for Goodwill, by the way - they save me from having to face my failures every day. Or at least from having to put them directly into the garbage, which is certainly where they belong and, likely, where they eventually ended up when the Goodwill sorters got a hold of them.

Short aside: Goodwill sorters - you do good work. Thanks for handling that whole wrap skirt fiasco. I really have no idea what made me pair narrow wale corduroy with blanket binding. It wasn't right.

Glad I got that out of the way. I've been thinking it for a long time. Knowing that Goodwill is there makes me a more confident hobbyist.

Not that they'll take a failed beehive, 40 tubes of too hard lip balm, cucumber plants with powdery mildew or my last two NaNoWriMo projects, but in some cases, they're a savior.

Which brings me to the purpose of this post - HOORAY WE'VE MADE IT! I need a Gatorade. - all my god damned hobbies and how, when recounting my weekend's activities to a friend, I realized that I've collected so many hobbies that I may find it hard to carve out enough time to join said friend for margaritas on Saturday.

This is my wake up call, friends.

My name is Finny and I'm a hobbyaholic.

Yeah, that makes no sense as a word, but I think you get what I'm saying. My hobbying has slowly and quietly gotten out of control.

And you know what broke the camel's back? Cheese.

I told my friend I was taking a cheese-making class and I got the look that many of you have probably gotten. The one that you usually only see on the faces of the family members during interventions when the addict is all, "No, really! I've got this under control! I can stop whenever I want!", as they scrape the white crust of their nostril.

Liars, those.

If I've reached the stage where afternoon cocktails on a sunny patio in fall is about to be eclipsed by a full schedule of back to back hobbies, I've got to pull back.

Right? Because otherwise when will I drink? That's a hobby, too, you know. You don't just start by having a top shelf Cadillac margarita with Tres Generaciones tequila. OH NO - you have to work up to it. You start with that sour mix crap in a bottle and some Albertsons brand tequila and then you learn first hand what a margarita *should* and should *not* taste like and go from there. Through many years of disastrous hangovers and awkward apologies. You know, until you're a discerning margarita drinker who can lounge on a sunny patio with friends for the better part of an afternoon without drinking too much, but also without ever running your perfect margarita dry.

It's an art, is what I'm saying - a hobby in its purest form.

But this hobby is in danger - because of the cheese making.

And beekeeping.
And running.
And canning.
And knitting.
And cycling.
And new book reading.
And fly fishing.
And NaNoWriMo novel researching.
And lip balm recipe refining.
And Japanese maple pruning.
And, and, and...

I guess this is just how I don't become an alcoholic. I take up so many hobbies that I just don't have time to drink until I've taken up so many hobbies that I'm so stressed that I MUST drink and then...whoopsies I become an alcoholic.

It's a fine line.

Time to pretend I love Fall the most.

As you probably know, Labor Day has passed and that means that we're heading straight into Fall.

Also, yes, I realize that it's not a proper noun and doesn't call for a capital letter, but for me, it's a big deal.

Because I LOVE SUMMER.

I love flip-flop tans and backyard BBQs and and wearing white pants and swimming in the lake and listening to the crickets while I fall asleep and backpacking under big storms of swirling stars and watching the garden get crazy with tomatoes and dinners outside and firepit bonfires and lots of shit that only really happens in the summer.

And then it ends. And I become sad. Because I know my flip-flop tan will fade. Beach sand will be vacuumed up and disappear. Windows will close out the sounds of outdoors. I'll have to hold the umbrella over the dog so she'll poo in the rain.

Basically, some things will start to suck.

But before you get all, "What about skiing and pot roast in the crockpot and rainy weekends watching Archer re-runs with Bubba?" and shit, let me tell you that I'm working really hard to pretend I love Fall the most of all the seasons.

Because it makes me hate the passing of summer less and lets me not ruin the forthcoming winter for Bubba, because that is HIS favorite season and there's nothing suckier than having someone around telling you how miserable they are when you are blissfully happy.

Like I would be if I were all, "UGH. I can't believe summer's over. Stupid winter. Stupid cold weather. Stupid snow. STUPID. *Frown face*"

Meanwhile, he's trying to keep from exploding with happiness because we're that much closer to the first snowflakes flying in the Sierras.

SO - that means I'm loving up on Fall.

Sort of. If by "loving up" you mean "lying to myself continuously while quietly planning a winter escape to Hawaii".

That's a lot like loving.

Also, eating BBQ every single day until it's gone because WHOA did Bubba make a lot of it this weekend for our Labor Day bash.

Thankfully, Frankensmoker was up to the task of smoking what appeared to be the brisket off a whale shark.

Also, all these ribs.

Plus these ribs. And beans. OH THE BEANS.

This accounted for 1/3 of the ribs we made.

Yeah, I could probably eat all these alone. If you gave me a week or two.

This barely scratches the surface of the brisketness we smoked.

Maximum capacity on the 9 quart pot means good times with BBQ beans.

So, yeah, I'm expending a lot of energy right now being all OH, at least I can wear my boots again and maybe I'll take up a new knitting project or sign up for a fall race in order to keep from whining constantly about how I'll never see the sun again since The F Word is coming. 

Because after The F Word comes The W Word and EVEN WORSE - The H Word. 

I won't even go into that now. It'd ruin all my pretending and I'd inevitably shift into full rant mode and since I'm feeling so balanced and not rage-y thanks to my hippie vitamins, I'll save that rant for another day when we're closer to the Most Ugliest Time of the Year.

Though quick update on the whole vitamins situation - THIS SHIT STILL WORKS. Yeah - we're going on 9 months with the daily Vitamin Feast and I've only had two migraines.

Why did I get two migraines and not ZERO? Fine question. I have no idea. 

Perhaps there are other things out there in the world and my life that impact my migraine status. Perhaps someone hit me with a ball peen hammer while I slept. Perhaps they were In The Back of my brain inventory and had to be trotted out for an End of Season Sale. I have no idea. I had them, I took Imitrex for them and they went away.

I think the last one was a few months ago. 

But I've been taking my vitamins and supplements and capsules of mystery gel every day like a good little hippie and I don't wake up behind closed eyelids with fear in my soul because WHAT IF I HAVE A HEADACHE.

Instead I wake up and realize that I can't wear my white shorts anymore so I guess I'll just throw on these boots and call it good.

Did you get that? I tried to go full circle on this post, but I fear that I failed. 

Eh - it happens.

About that lip balm [TUTORIAL]

So, like I was saying - I am a freak and spent part of my vacation making lip balm like a fucking hippie.

Or, like a fucking beekeeper.

Because, when you are a beekeeper and you have beekeeper friends and you are immersed in the dorktastic world of bees, beeswax becomes like the zucchini of the gardener's world - that thing you don't want to waste because LOOK WHAT I DID but also that thing you need to get rid of because WHY DID I DO SO MUCH?

It's everywhere, is what I'm saying.

And when you meet with your fellow beekeepers at least once a month for the very glamorous event of a Beekeepers Lunch, inevitably someone will have harvested from their hive and will be trying to pawn off the wax so that they don't have to deal with the incredible but completely fucking abundant supply of beeswax that abounds.

I'm like the unsung hero of the group right now, for all my wax taking, and I rather enjoy the role. I mean, obviously.

So, when my fellow beekeeper who we'll call, Guy, because that's his name, offered up the unfiltered wax from a recent harvest to whomever wanted it, I raised my hand like a big crafty loser and said, "ME! I want to make lip balm!"

To which he responded, "Whatever. I'll bring it in."

Guy's not big on emotion, but I like to think he appreciates my enthusiasm. As much as anyone appreciates the enthusiasm of a psychopathic monkey in their midst, anyway.

So, yeah, Guy gave me his Tupperware of unfiltered wax and I set off for vacation to turn it into usable lip balm.

SUCCESS! I mean, almost.

People - finding a useful tutorial, like a real how-to, for making lip balm that tells you proper quantities, sources and expected output is about impossible.

I believe this is because home lip balm makers are either:

1. Hippies who don't know how to measure or take proper notes
2. Hippies who don't want to share their master recipes
3. Annoying as fuck

Or it could be that they're a combo of the above, or none of these things at all - I'm just saying that when I went online to find a fucking proper recipe that would tell me how much of what things I needed, where to buy these things in these quantities and then how many ounces of lip balm it would produce - I came up annoyingly empty.

The fact that every recipe was riddled with snippets like, "Just mess around with the mixture until you get it to your liking" and "Try out some different butters and oils until it's just right" or "Then pour it into your containers and enjoy!", was a bit disappointing and, to me, a sign of laziness.

People - EXACT MEASUREMENTS PLEASE. Also, don't just give up and tell me to "Enjoy!" because I won't.

And I didn't.

Because I made a first batch of 20 .15oz lip balms and they turned out to be too hard. Like, can'tquitesmearthisonmylips hard and so I untwisted 20 lip balms back into the double boiler and melted them down for Try #2.

Which also wasn't awesome and still just a bit too hard. But oh well because I sure as shit wasn't untwisting all those lip balm tubes again.

Though, as you'll soon see, I didn't learn my lesson about maybe not pouring 20 lip balm tubes full before testing the product, which is just so classic me.

But I'll get to that part at the end-ish.

For now, I'll give you MY recipe. For what I've created so far after three tries, which is a pretty good lip and body balm albeit a tiny bit bland. I'll be adding some essential oils (wow, Hi, Hippie) to the next batch in my quest to create my ideal body balm, so you can come back for that if you like.

Because I understand how annoying wish-washy recipes can be. Also, hippies.

Finny's Put It All Over Your Body Balm

Makes 20 .15 oz tubes

Supplies

Forget the Emu oil and Cocoa butter, pictured but not used.

Double boiler (I found a sweet one for $2 at Salvation Army)
Cheesecloth (Hardware stores have these - I got mine at OSH)
Measuring cup with a spout ($1 at Target)
Measuring spoons ($1 at Target)
Rubber spatulas ($1 at Target)
Wax paper
Lip balm tubes/lids
Lip balm tube tray

Ingredients

Emu oil was left unused because it grossed Bubba out. Cocoa butter was left unused because it was wholly unnecessary.

4 T beeswax (filtered free of bee parts)
4 T organic sweet almond oil
3 T unrefined Shea butter
1 t honey
10  drops vitamin E

To make
If you need to filter your beeswax (AKA: Strain all the broken souls of bees out of it, also their legs and bodies), melt the wax in your double boiler and pour it through the cheesecloth into a bowl you never want to use for food again.

Bee souls abound. Also - that clean wax on top? MINE! I know. Impressive.

Bee souls aswim.

Bee souls afiltered.

Bee soul-free wax

If you need to also strain honey from that beeswax, melt the filtered beeswax once again and then pour it into another bowl you never want to use for food again and let it cool. The wax will settle and harden on top and the honey will rest on the bottom. You can just pull the wax off the top and go on with the recipe. Then you can use some of the honey, too, and OH isn't that just handy.

And...HONEY.

Over a pound of honey. Good stuff.

Now that you have your filtered wax and all your other supplies at the ready, melt everything except the oils (so, beeswax, Shea butter and honey) in your double boiler and stir it all together with one of your spatulas.

Fancy.

Then add your oils (almond and E) and mix with the spatula.

Then TEST.

Yeah, I said TEST. Because I did not TEST the first (or second or third) time I went through this process (which - SHOCKER) and ended up having to untwist and remelt 20 tubes of lip balm because the shit was too solid in its cooled state to be used as lip balm. You remember. I said this earlier.

Would have worked nicely as a plastic peg of some kind though. Or earplugs for an oval-eared giant, perhaps. Or a tampon for a big Barbie. But not lip balm.

Er...now what?

So, fill one tube and let it cool and then test it. Does it melt right? Taste normal? Not give you hives? Awesome. Snap the rest of the tubes into your handy tray deal, fill up the rest of the tubes, let them cool and cap them. Done.

Fun.

Is it too solid to melt properly? Yeah - back to the drawing board. Add more Shea butter and oils and continue the testing until it meets your specs. Maybe nix the cocoa butter if you so rudely ignored me on that one. Rude.

This is why all these recipes are so moonmaideny and non-specific - because things differ. BUT NOT THAT MUCH.

So, this recipe should give you a nice, albeit somewhat firm and fairly bland lip and body balm that travels well despite heat. Like, you could put it in your car and it won't melt into a pool of molten face lava all over your console. And it smells nice to boot. Sorta honey-ish and not like some whore's bathroom, which - no one wants that.

Hooray.

When the balms have cooled in their tubes, push them out of the tray with your thumb from the top and, if you want balms flush with the top of the tubes, press them balm-side-down onto wax paper to press off the excess and flatten them and then add the caps. If you like the extra balmness above the tube top (not that kind of tube top, weirdos), leave them alone.

Extra balmness. It's a thing.

Voila. Lip balm. From beeswax. That's not a total mind-fuck to create. Hooray.

I'll be back to report on the next version of this balm for your enjoyment. Or not. You may hate it. Shut up, hippies.

Happy Birthday. NO, REALLY. Super all the way happy!

When Bubba asked me, like a month ago or whatever, what I wanted to do for my birthday, I told him that I wanted to go backpacking.

Like last year, but this time we bring Jada. And we go somewhere where I can swim! Yes! I want to swim in a high mountain lake with the dog! And you, too, Bubbs - if you wanna swim. 

I'm very inclusive.

Er...no, but OK, said Bubba, and he set off to find a good place for us to go that would allow dogs since stupid awesomely beautiful and fun Yosemite is not OK with dogs. Probably because of the bears and the whole "dogs attract bears" thing and such.

Pffttt...bears.

Though I don't *really* want to have my face enjoyed as a midnight bear snack...

So, Bubba planned a great sounding trip where we'd hike up to a nice lake so Jada and I could swim and he could sit on the shore and throw shit at us because he's not as super into the swimming thing like we are.

We being Jada and I, you know. Me + the dog = swimming buddies.

Last Friday night we got all our shit shoved into our packs and Jada's food stuffed into her pack and tah-dow! we were ready to go.

Until we woke up Saturday morning and it was raining.

Shit snacks.

So, we punted.

I mean, I'm all for Be a Hardcore Camper and such when you're stuck out in it,  but it was hard to stand in the clean, dry comfort of the cabin and be all, "Yes. I want to hike myself, a 30 lb pack and a dog up a muddy mountain trail so that I can swim in a cold snowmelt lake while it rains and then sleep in a tent with Wet Dog Smell." when I could instead be all, "Let's stay in the cozy cabin, make waffles, bake bread, drink beer, let the dog run amok in the woods after which I can dry her off with a beach towel and then we go watch the Giants game with the neighbors."

Needless to say, Bubba was all about it, too. No one wants to sleep in a tent with Wet Dog Smell.

Guess I'll be unpacking these packs then.

Boo rain.

And then Bubba, Jada, the neighbors and everyone kept trying to *make me feel better* because I was missing out on my birthday backpacking trip.

Because making waffles, baking bread, making another (BETTER!) batch of lip balm, playing with a happy dog and watching baseball makes me so sad.

I resisted at first, and kept saying things like, "No, it's totally fine! I'm happy, see?" while smiling big and aggressively hugging the dog, but then it became something of a personal quest for Bubba to make sure that the birthday weekend fulfilled my birthday wishes, so I just let it happen.

I know what will make you feel better! BACON!

And a birthday present! Down booties!

And a big stack of waffles!

And a freshly caught squirrel! (Look - we're in the woods, she's a dog doing a dog thing - I don't want to hear your shrieking.)

Actually, mom, can I get that squirrel back? I think I left the tag on it. Yeah...that's it.

BLTs! Those make you happy!

On freshly baked bread!

And then, on Sunday, when the weather was P.E.R.F.E.C.T. - the *consoling* continued in earnest even though my face was creased from a rainy Saturday full of smiling big and the dog was bruised from all my semi-convincing happy hugging.
 

You love the beach! Let's go there.

I've even scheduled some special birthday guests. No, stop crying, it's not a clown.

Let me entertain you - I'll go scare all these stupid seagulls...

Fly away you sumbitches! That's a birthday ORDER!

Baby, they didn't fly away. I'm sorry about your birthday entertainment.

So entertained.

So, yeah, Birthday Not-Backpacking Weekend was a total success and I wasn't sad for even a minute.

Obviously.

Though when I came home, I found that the garden had not received the memo and was still concerned about my birthday feelings. Even after I hugged the dog right in front of them.

All of this pollen is for you. Surprise!

We made this for you while you were gone. Surprise!

Bet you didn't think we could get this big, didja? Surprise!

We've made friends, the volunteer cucumber and I. Surprise!

DONG!

Here, we got you something. 17 lbs of something.

No, really, we like the food you made for us. Ummmyummyumm...

We've been waiting for a special occasion. Surprise!

Thanks, guys.

So, today I celebrated by hanging out in the garden for 2+ hours, maxing out my big food processor making The Best Sauce Ever. Yep. and eating the finest tomato sandwich in creation.

Why yes, that IS blue cheese on that sandwich.

Happy Birthday to ME.

 Later, Bubba is going to take me out with the three dimensional people for a proper meal during which time I will wear a new dress and drink as many cocktails as I want plus also eat nice food prepared by a qualified chef.

If only I could have a decent birthday. *Sigh*

KIDDING! No, really - I'm SUPER ALL THE WAY HAPPY!

Hey, where's the dog going?