September in Review

Here are some scenes from our September around here. I’ve been trying to be a little more proactive about putting down the phone, being present and embracing this thing called JOMO (joy of missing out) which as a natural introvert, turned out I was already pretty good at. With my sister in town to help me with some things, it was also nice to just hanging out, eating homemade bread and pastries (a shared love), and spend entire mornings talking about nothing at all over coffee (another shared love), because that’s what sisters do best.

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At the start of the month, I felt motivated, for approximately 30 minutes, to work on organizing/redesigning my office bookshelf. This is as far as I got. Does anyone have shelf styling tips for finding that perfect balance between aesthetic and utility? I’d love to display knick knacks/ tchotckes and books side by side in a way that says “Come read/interact/play” instead of “Please don’t touch and ruin this perfect #shelfie” which is the vibe I get from a lot of design inspo office tours. Can something refined and look put together and also lived-in, loved, and useful? Hoku finds my musings uninspiring.

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Meanwhile, the garden actually did get a much needed Fall refresh. We said thank you and goodbye to our beloved watermelon patch, sweet peppers, and eggplant - which believe it or not, was still going strong. I found it so ironic that the best summer producer in our garden was the veggie we were least fond of. That’s right, we actually don’t like eggplant! I thought that if we grew it ourselves, maybe we’d change our minds about it. (And we did make a few dishes, which were actually not bad.) But by the end of August, we were swimming in eggplant with no end in sight and I couldn’t do it anymore. Still, a successful experiment in trying something new.

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I love those weekends when the three of us spend an entire morning at the nursery, followed by an entire afternoon working side by side amending the garden bed and planting new veggies. Well, two of us. Hoku supervised. We planted parsley (David wants to make Pasta Aglio e Olio from one of my favorite movies, Chef), tatsoi, broccoli, kohlrabi, bok choy, snow peas, brussels sprouts and bibb lettuce. Leafy greens season is my favorite.

We also had every intention of dusting off our homemade grow light and getting some seeds going, but we never actually got around it. Which we all know is just a euphemism for, we got hella lazy.

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The last of our sweet peppers went into a yummy pasta. And we haven’t turned over our tomatoes yet since they seem to be hanging on, but they are definitely the least happy about it being Fall.

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