I distinctly remember being a little girl and waiting in the car outside of the house of one of my mother’s friends as she ran inside quickly to drop of some desired items. I considered the house thoughtfully, unable to put my finger on why the house looked so strange. It was a normal enough house– a little garage, front door, a few windows, with beige siding and some shutters– but something about it seemed wrong to my mind. It looked clean, but almost unlived in, and not the way a house ought.

Finally, it struck me: the house looked odd because there was no garden. No tulips, no hydrangea bushes, not even some shrubbery to soften the sides of the house. Now, for all I know, their landscaping may have simply been in a temporary in-between state of clearing out before new planting, but at that moment the house just looked so sad.

My house? Has never been like that.

I can’t take credit for hardly any of it, except many hours spent mulching and weeding as a younger girl and child, and my absolute zeal for bulb flowers (such as daffodils) that I try to plant everywhere possible in the Spring. My mother, amazingly, despite four children, a few years spent babysitting two more, and having part-to-full time job almost regularly since I’ve been 12, has always kept up the most lovely garden.

Maybe it was my prior obsession with fairy tales, or maybe it was just a little girl’s desire to be just like her mom, but I’ve been obsessed with flowers for as long as I can remember. In one book, there was a fairy tale about a girl who was told that if she stole out at night during a full moon and put the dew from a foxglove onto her left eye, she would be able to see fairies.

Yes, I’ve tried it. No, I haven’t seen a fairy. Yet.

It’s no wonder that playing outside was our primary pastime as children. We weren’t allowed to play in Mom’s garden, because I’m sure she well foretold just how trampled-down it would look after eight little feet were done with it. The yard and green areas of the wood our house abuts were fair game, however, and we loved it. Whether we were making bows and arrows out of fallen wood and yarn, or building little houses out of twigs, or stuffing our faces with the wild raspberries that grow around these parts in July, our yards were our wonderland.

I have a lot of really nice memories as a kid of going to Funk’s, years before we worked there, and exploring the jungle depths of their greenhouses and nursery as mom shopped with her meager budget. They had a playground there, too, as well as an ice cream counter, and for some years even some animals (a couple of goats, chickens, a peacock) in a little mini zoo. Trips to Funk’s were always the highlight of a week.

It’s easy to take my yard for granted until people come over, and I get a chance to look at it with fresh eyes. My house is adorable, but tiny, and friends have often smilingly referred to is as a “tiny little cottagy house” and, well, other synonyms for tiny. The gardens, however, beat them all hollow– at these pictures are just in the daylight. At night, the wooden pergola (the wooden frame above) lights up with little globe lights, as does an arbor in the front yard; not to mention the fireflies, PA’s state bug (yes, there is such a thing as state bugs!).

I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite ways to relax in the summer is to sit out on our patio with a good book, my sunhat, some SPF 50, and a tall, icy drink. Though I’m not a backpacker like my father or a gardener like my mother, having such beautiful natural elements around me eases my soul like little else.

“I couldn’t live where there were no trees–something vital in me would starve.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne’s House Of Dreams

I realize that I may have some readers out there that have never had a fresh strawberry, who think that strawberries naturally come in little plastic snap containers from the grocery store after being shipped from California. That may think that all strawberries are huge and white at the center, and taste a little tangy and a little watery and are best eaten sprinkled with sugar on corn flakes.

Oh, my friends. I mean this in the least condescending way possible, but if you have never had a fresh strawberry, sun-warmed, snapped off the vine yourself, tiny and bright red and melt-in-your-mouth sweet, then you have never lived.

As I explained in my Tastes of Summer post, I am so very fortunate to live in Lancaster County and am thus surrounded by all of the freshest bounty that summer has to offer. Ever since I was a little girl, my mom would take my siblings and I to Funk’s strawberry fields, where they let you pick your own berries and sold them to you by the pound. I was naughty, and probably for every strawberry that made it into the basket, one made it into my mouth, but I have such vivid memories of crawling through the straw, lifting up the tender green leaves and runners to find the little red jewels. Mom would make them into jam, some of the best jam you’ve ever eaten.

Later, Funk’s was my first job, and they were (before they closed in 2010) known all over for having someone of the earliest and sweetest strawberries known to man. Working there, I reveled in strawberry season, and each year mourned its passing.

Fortunately, Funk’s was also a greenhouse, and one year my mom brought home a pack of my very own little strawberry shoots. They’re getting old now, and I always lose a few berries to ants and birds, but the first few are coming in now, and oh, they are magnificent.

I have happened across goodreads and/or had it recommended to me at many points in my life. My library is one of the things I’m most proud of (despite the fact that it seems pitifully small to me compared to the library in my head), and anything that helps me better organize or appreciate my library is a favorite of mine.

Last summer, my mother in an uncharacteristic act of complete sadism and cruelty insisted that I pack up my books (as they could no longer be contained by my tiny bookself) and put them into storage until such a time when I actually had room to store and show them properly. I’m still a bit bitter about having so many of my babies in boxes, but I dutifully spent a week or so in May carefully stamping each book with my bookplate stamp and entering it into an Excel spreadsheet.

My Excel sheet is carefully organized: Title, author’s name (last, first), ISBN (if available), Original Date, Date Purchased/Added, Genre, and Other (for notes).

I love being organized. At this point, however, Goodreads just seemed like too much work, even for my books. I had already spent hours and hours carefully entering each of my books into my spread-sheet; I didn’t want to do it again just for some online database.

And then I noticed something. A glorious button on Goodreads that said, “Import from Spreadsheet.” With a few clicks, all of my books with an ISBN were neatly imported into my Goodreads account, picture and all.

It’s magnificent. I’ve only just begun exploring my account, adding books to my to-read shelf, downloading the app for my iPhone (I can add books on the go with one quick scan!!!) and slowly adding ratings and reviews. So thank you, Goodreads. Whoever invented you is awesome.

After a long semester, I am so happy to be back with my family. Today was spent at King of Prussia Mall with my mom and sister, shopping a little and window shopping a lot (Tiffany’s! Burberry! Fossil! Be still, my heart!). Lunch was something quick, but Mom treated us to The Cheesecake Factory for dessert– that’s right, you’re looking at White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. Yummmmm.

The other night, our staff had a potluck dinner to say goodbye and celebrate the end of the year. After gorging ourselves on delicious food (one of the RAs is from a Chinese family and brough sushi– YUM), one of my Resident Directors brought out a stack of little glass votive holders and a big jar of beads. We were each given a votive holder and a handful of beads, and as we sat around in a circle, we were instructed to give each other a bead along with a good wish or memory, so that we could each look back on our collection of beads and think of one another.

We went one at a time as the moment struck us, and since there are 11 of us and two RDs, it took quite a long time. It was really touching, however, and by the end a few people were at least a little teary. (I, shockingly, did not cry, but it took some awkward throat-clearing and a lack of eye contact to manage it.)

Sometimes it’s easy to assume that I don’t mean as much to people as they do to me, but as my little jar collected some beads I was so moved by every thought that was sent with them, even by Resident Assistants that I haven’t grown so close with over the past year. One girl talked about how resilient I’ve seemed this past year, dealing with grad school rejections. Another talked about how whenever she talks to me, I actually care about what she’s saying and pay attention. One guy mentioned how he helped me jump my car the other day (yes, again), and talked about how I am someone that will always have people around me that want to and enjoy helping me because of the way that I live my life. Oh, and about half a dozen people mention how professional I am working the desk.

I don’t mention this string of compliments to pat me on the back, but because I was so shocked and touched just hearing these simple things from my coworkers. I never thought I was resilient– there have been times this year I thought I was a hot mess. I never thought about paying attention when people talked being rare, it just seemed like the right thing to do. And I always feel like a burden asking for help of people.

I definitely wouldn’t say that my self-esteem has exploded to the point of narcissism, but it just lifted my heart to try and see myself through their eyes, and to try and spread that same loving feeling through my comments to everyone else.

The little heart-shaped beads are from one of my RDs. The matching black-and-white beads are from a friend who picked them because they represent the light and dark sides of the force (and, you know, life). The yellow zig-zag bead is from a girl I’m so happy to be friends with. The clear bead with the confetti is from a girl that is so crazy and fun and always cracks everyone up. I love tangible memories like this.

Tomorrow is graduation day, so by 8am I will be at the football stadium, obsessively straightening my honors cords and hood and probably-crooked cap and praying it doesn’t rain. The next time you hear from me, I will be a college graduate.

So, this weekend was long. Last on-call ever and an ENORMOUS amount of term papers.

And it’s only Tuesday.

So here’s a glimpse of one of the things getting me through the end of the semester. (It’s fantastic.) Just a Little Good Thing.

Some of you may or may not know that I have something of a problem. That problem? Is Neil Patrick Harris.

I’m sorry! He’s just too cute. Especially when he sings. I like him in HIMYM, in various TV appearances, at the Tony awards, in Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, in Sweeney Todd, in Company…… Everything, really! An in addition to following him on Twitter and reblogging too many things on tumblr, this love occasionally manifests itself in t-shirts. Gratuitous grainy webcam shots ahoy!

This is the first teefury shirt I ever bought (quickly followed up by a Star Wars tee), based on Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. That 45-minute online musical is the origin of my love of NPH, and after I made a friend watch it we decided together to get ourselves into HIMYM. 

Then, this week, in the mail: my OFFICIAL SLAPSGIVING SLAP-BET COMMISSIONER SHIRT. Since it’s only a matter of time until Vince and his best friend begin taking Slap Bets.

I’m thinking of growing these two shirts into a NPH-themed-T-shirt-collection. Y/Y?

As if the every-present countdown to graduation wasn’t enough, as I was home last weekend I got such a lovely taste of good summer food to come. Living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I am surrounded by some of the freshest and most fantastic produce when it’s in season. When I was thirteen, I got a job picking blackberries for a local Farm Market and Garden Center, where I would later work as an ice cream scooper and cashier for over five years. That summer, picking dark, fat berries in the heat, I couldn’t resist reaching past the thorns to occasionally pop one into my mouth, breaking the little pockets of juice against the roof of my mouth with my tongue.

It isn’t quite fresh fruit season yet, but my strawberry plants in the backyard are beginning to bloom, and this fruit is deceptively delicious for out-of-season pineapple and strawberries. These, combined with fresh eggs from my mom’s chickens? Perfection. I can’t wait to taste the real bounty that summer has yet to bring.

via onsecondscoop.com

As a Resident Assistant, part of the deal is that (assuming I’m not already scheduled to work) I can have two weekends off-campus per month (since, as an RA, part of the point is that we’re on campus all the time). This month was a bit of an exception, as some family health problems led to me sneaking an extra weekend home in this weekend. And of course, a fortnight from now, there will be no more weekends home– I’ll be graduated, and life really becomes one long extended weekend home. For the time being, though, I’ll take them where I can get them.

This might be stating the obvious a little, but I love my weekends home. West Chester is only about an hour away from where I’m from, but the weekends that I spend stuck on campus are the worst. I’d rather be home, hanging out with my doggie, talking with my Mom and Dad, watching Doctor Who with my little brother, eating delicious food I don’t have to cook myself.  Tonight, one of those delicious things is Turkey Hill Black Raspberry Ice Cream. Turkey Hill is made in Lancaster– “Imported from Lancaster,” like their tagline says. Anybody who knows ice cream knows that Turkey Hill is top quality, and that the people who are fans of 7-Elevens are people that have never been to a Turkey Hill Minit Market.

Like I said, West Chester isn’t that far from Lancaster, and you can find Turkey Hills all over the Northeast; in fact, my younger brother stationed in Kansas with the USAF recently rejoiced because he found his favorite Turkey Hill Iced Tea sold at a convenience store out there, a taste of home that he would never expected. Unfortunately, out that close to Philadelphia, people love their Wawas. While Wawa may be nice and all, it’s not a Turkey Hill by a long shot. And nothing beats their ice cream. (I’m sorry to say that I currently have half a container of Giant store-brand ice cream going to waste in my freezer at school because I just can’t enjoy such an inferior product.)

Lately, one of my goals has been to focus on more Little Good Things, aspects of my life untainted by stress and worry, things that are objectively good and enjoyable in and of themselves. Weekends home and bowls of sweet, creamy, Turkey Hill Black Raspberry Ice Cream? Bliss.