A coworker gave me an award. It was only worth about $20. But it came on a really bad day and I’m going to paste the words so I can save them.

“Tytania, when I think about you, I feel like a drop in the ocean of knowledge you have around our application.  I am so thankful to you for always being there to answer our questions, however dumb they may be, without loosing [sic] your cool.”

When your sleep is right, and your estrogen’s right… ain’t nothin’s bad.

On my lunch break I bike to this road and back.

When I bike up the road a few hundred yards and turn around, I almost always sigh at the lovely sight before me, whatever time of year. I envy the people whose house abuts this view (although the marsh probably breeds mosquitoes and flooding). Today there were two cars of people stopping to take pictures. I read that we are about a week behind peak foliage, and I believe it – normally the world is on fire when I go to Tunbridge, and instead it’s just starting to spark.

Say hello to a brand-spanking new mailbox including finished post courtesy of the guy who every now and then gets something done around here!

Let’s make this clear: Summer rules the calendar. The ability to seamlessly slide between indoors & outdoors without additional protective gear being donned instantly seems to enlarge the world. Balmy summer air is a whole-body caress. Food comes right out of the ground. The whole world seems to be on your side.

The only consolation around summer’s inevitable end is that at least we get Fall. Fall’s consolation prizes:

• Boots!
• Jackets! I just love jackets.
• The return of Soup Night! I have a very nice revolving repertoire of soups that make weeknight suppers easy.
• Baking!
• Oatmeal!
• The dazzling and surreal display of Vermont foliage – we get a balm for the eyes in exchange for giving up our balm of summer air

I mean, if we had to dive directly from summer to winter? Thank you, Fall.

But first. I got five more days of summer to go, bucko. Make it count.

1. Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re wonderful.
2. The way your Mom treats you kids is not right.
3. Be friends with your father. Talk to him. He wants to hear from you. Just open your mouth.

1. Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re wonderful.
2. You should really date other people. Locking yourself down at age 15 1/2 is not wise. See what other guys are like.
3. Most importantly, relax, Tytania, enjoy life. Like when your boyfriend shakes you sometimes and say, “Be happy!!”?? You take everything so, so seriously. It is serious, but if your first rule above rules was, “Relax, Tytania, Enjoy Life,” the others would follow so much more naturally and joyfully.

Those are my two regrets about my teen years. I wish I’d dated other people, and I wish I’d been happier.

I thought I was just going out to pick some little tomatoes – I thought the string beans* were done. Far from it!

*Mostly shown here are Dragon Tongue string beans. They’re good – even when they get overgrown (as shown) they taste good and not mealy.

In the Champlain Islands searching for flat biking roads. So many hidden little gems on the lake. No, person in the water is nobody we know.