A Rambling Dad's Day Weekend Post

We had a low-key Father's Day weekend this year.

Doug got the best imaginable present: we finished the majority of work on the upstairs on Friday! And he actually got to see Harrison for more than two hours on a Saturday and Sunday! There are still odds and ends to do [make decisions about carpet, pick out lighting, take a trip to the salvage place for hardware, finish caulk work in the new bathroom], but there will be no more late nights and no more of Doug's entire weekends consumed.

Saturday morning we went to the Public Market. It's early in the growing season here in WNY, but there was fresh homegrown red romaine and big bunches of arugula and quart baskets of strawberries. Doug and I marvelled at the taste of warm, fresh-picked, vine-ripened strawberries, which we seem to forget about every year after eating green-picked, cold-storage California strawberries all winter and spring.

We're very late in starting our own garden, on account of, you know, not ever having been able to get outside to work all spring, but we also came home with some sweet italian and thai basils to plant. Those and the few volunteer tomato plants will be the extent of our veggie garden this year, I'm afraid. And that may be alright, because Harrison has appropriated the empty plot as his dirt pit. He's very busy there most afternoons with his shovel and pail: transporting, piling, digging, and watering.

On Father's Day Doug declined my invitation to go out for dinner and instead we stayed in, barbequed some yummy spice-rubbed steaks [a winning combination of slightly crushed dill seed, coriander seed, black peppercorns, sea salt], ate outside at our "new" patio set [thanks, Suzanne!], took a walk around the neighborhood, munched on Doug's present of fat Washington cherries, played in the sprinkler and kiddie pool, did a little bit of weeding, and ran around the yard.

The calendar said "Father's Day" but it was really a great weekend for me too. I'm so glad to get my husband and parenting partner back!