Herbs from the garden

The weekend was full of good and beautiful days, peppered with a little humor and a pinch of exhaustion. One bad thing. I'll start with that so we can end on all the wonderfulness.

I hurt my knee jogging. I ran SIX miles last week. OK, "ran" is a strong term. Let's say "jogged with a lot of walking in the middle." But still, six miles. That is impressive. But on Friday I caught my foot on Evelyn's diaper bag and kind of twisted my right knee just a little. Not even enough for me to notice an hour later. But when I went to run my 30 minute walk/run on Saturday, I could feel a twinge. I should have stopped, but I thought it was just a normal "you are out of shape and your knees are hurting" kind of twinge, not a "you won't be able to walk for two days after this run" kind of twinge. Which it was. I've been in a whole lot of pain ever since that run ended Saturday morning. I can walk, but not down stairs, and only very slowly, and with the aforementioned pain. It's bad. I'm going to miss my 20 minute run today. I might miss this whole week. I might not be able to run again for a while. I might see a doctor. I am totally bummed about it, though, because I was so proud of myself for getting out there and jogging 6 miles in one week.

But now the good stuff. The biggest thing the Lew family did this weekend was start a container garden! We planted a few "early spring" vegetables, an herb garden, and--my favorite thing--a dwarf blueberry bush! We may have gotten a little ahead of ourselves and planted too early, but it had been in the 60s and 70s all week and we were just excited. So, since it might be a little early, we are keeping the plants in our garage at night, opening the door to let the sun in during the day, and hoping for the best. Before this summer is over we hope to grow parsley, oregano, basil, mint, chives, rosemary, green onions, garlic, squash, bell peppers, pumpkin, bok choy, soybeans, and carrots. I don't have high hopes for the blueberry bush to produce fruit this year, but hopefully in the next few we'll get some sort of yield. Oh the excitement. It was so nice to get outside, get our hands in the dirt, fill our pots and decide which vegetables and herbs would go together. We bought the herbs as plants, not seeds, and so last night we were able to take rosemary from our garden to make roasted potatoes. It was fun.

I also started learning how to knit socks, something I've wanted to do for a long time. I'm starting with a very simple pattern to learn the basics. If the socks turn out well they will be a gift to someone. If they don't, I'll keep them for myself. I knit one sock leg last night and started the heel before going to bed. I think I can maybe finish that sock tonight if I can figure out how to pick up stitches along the gusset. (Picking up stitches is really hard for me for some reason. I do it incorrectly every time.)

The rest of the weekend was laying around, running errands, not doing the dishes, and the normal stuff. We had gorgeous weather, though. Evelyn and I did a lot of sitting outside listening to the woodpeckers and dogs in the neighborhood.