So Many Books and Vegetables!

We are harvesting our garden regularly and planning to can tomorrow. This is just some of the bounty. In addition to having our own garden, my students somehow feel compelled to bring fruits and vegetables to their teacher. On the first day of school, a girl brought a fresh picked cucumber from her garden. I was truly delighted and I guess my whole soul must have lit up like Las Vegas because ever since then...the zucchini, the yellow crook-neck squashes, the cucumbers, the jalapenos (must look up the spelling of this word), the green peppers, the peaches, and the apples have been pouring in! I've tried to tone down my delight just a little, quietly thanking each generous gift bearer and tucking the prize into my backpack behind my desk. I don't want anyone to think they have to bring me food. Such a sweet class.

It's a three day holiday weekend, but the Mister and I are just keeping it chill. We have adored the rain showers and thunderstorms. K acquired a weather radio recently (he's the perfect park ranger, but sometimes I think he missed his calling as a meteorologist). I was at school last night while he was watching football and he called to tell me, "The weather radio just went off!" He just wanted to warn me to be careful in case I was driving in it. He called me soon after to ask where the camera was. He said the ground was covered with white (hail) and he was going to take a picture! He called again soon after that to let me know the battery was dead. Shucks. This is just a little glimpse into K's excitement about weather. It was raining on our Midwestern Adventure and when we were asked on a cave tour (or something somewhere) to say where we were from, he practically bore testimony of the sheer miracle of rain since we hadn't seen any for so long. Truly, a sacred moment. When it snows, he runs outside to photograph the first snow of the season. He kept going out on the balcony last night to stick his hand out from under the eves and feel the precipitation on his skin, fresh from Heaven. His birthday in January is never quite happy with a captial "H" unless it snows on HIS day. Night before last, he turned off all the lights and opened the windows to watch the lightning. I appreciate all of these things too, but not quite as much as K. He just celebrates the awesomeness of it all as if he's never seen rain or lightning before! Hence, Exhibit B, the Weather Radio.

I am in the middle of a book binge. I've been reading Les Miserables which is like 1500 pages, so that's going to take a while. I was at Barnes & Noble the other night and snapped up a Shannon Hale sequel. I checked out two new books at my elementary school library the other day, and we stopped off at the city library yesterday. Plus, I have hundreds of unread books here at home. Oh, and I'm probably going to sign up for this class with the district that would require me to read a novel every month. It's like a disease. I salivate just thinking about it. It's been a pretty good weekend for reading, especially since football seems to have captured K's entire sum of waking moments. However, my assumption that because he's watching football, therefore, he won't miss me, is wrong. He gets off the sofa to look for me, reading on the bed. He asks questions and engages me in conversation. He calls me three times at school to talk about the weather. When I do plop down beside him on the couch, even if it is with a pile of math to correct, he pats my hand in content. "I just need your company," he says. Aww...I need him too! I just happen to think he's slightly more entertaining when he's not watching quite as much football. But I'm the one that fell asleep sitting up in the bleachers at a BYU football game when we were dating. I couldn't help it. I was just. so. tired.

Glad he married me anyway! Glad we get to spend the long weekend together in our little shelter here on Earth. Glad he'll be sitting right beside me in Church today. So glad. So in love!