7 Quick Takes Friday: Turns Out We Have an Outdoors!

The fabulous Jen at Conversion Diary invented this neat reciprocal deal: you post your seven quick takes on any topic at your blog, and leave a link to your list at her blog. Links all around! Just don’t forget to link to Jen, and take a look at her blog, if you haven’t already — she always has something new and surprising to say about her life as a Catholic convert.

After a long winter and a damp and chilly spring, we are groggily recalling that the outside doors can be used for other purposes than getting into the car. So here are my seven quick takes: “It turns out we have an outdoors!” edition.

–1–

We’ve been making great use of our firepit this year. Easiest project in the world: you just dig a round hole about six inches deep and 2 feet in diameter, and surround it with the biggest rocks you can find. If you can stand it, you can roast marshmallows with the kids

and if you can peel yourself off the couch once the kids have gone to bed (where they will surely stay, being stuck to the sheets with grassy, ashy goo), a backyard campfire is a lovely cheap date with your husband. Add a couple of cheap beers, and let the dew collect on the two of you as the fireflies come out.

–2–

Spreaking of fireflies, aren’t you glad they don’t make noise? Imagine if, instead of that mystical, silent, sailing glow, they went, “BLAAAAT . . . Blat . . blat. . .blat BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAT . . . “

–3–

While it is pleasant and beneficial to water one’s garden in the cool and dim light of dusk, be prepared for a horrible shock when you go back in the bright light of noon to weed. That’s not a metaphor, it’s just the truth. Eek! Sorry, peas, help is on the way.

–4–

Another luna moth has plastered itself to my kitchen window screen. I know you’re supposed to feel honored when a rare and luminous specimen graces you with a visit, but I do. Not. Like. Moths. They are the only insect which make me break into a sweat on sight. I keep imagining, what if they got into my mouth?

–5–

Miss Baby tolerates a bath, but refuses to sit down, and she panics at the touch of a damp washcloth, on the rare occasion that I get fed up with the perpetual ring o’ grime she sports around her “neck.” Not a fan of getting wet. But water at the beach? That, my friends, is another matter. When she spots that sparkling blue, she wrenches herself out of my arms, takes off at a bobbling trot, falls down, picks herself up, and doesn’t stop until she hits the water. She then spends the next three hours just wallowing. You’ve never seen such a happy person. Boy, I love the beach.

–6–

One of these days, I am going on a rampage to liberate all those wretched upside-down hanging tomato plants. WHO’S WITH ME? Okay, no one, fine.

–7–

This doesn’t exactly have anything to do with being outdoors, but I just love this picture of the biggest guy and the littlest girl in the house.