I’ve been a busy girl of late. Summer is rapidly drawing to an end and I’ve been scurrying hither and yon, trying to wrap my hands around these waning days. Saturday morning, I got out of bed earlier than I do on my work days, in order to go out to New Jersey one last time to pick summer fruit. Between us, Shay and I picked nearly 10 pounds of blackberries. I also bought a dozen ears of the sweetest white corn I’ve tasted since I was last in Iowa and a peck (as in a bushel and a peck) of hail-kissed white peaches.

I had to hurry back from New Jersey, in order to be at home when the new refrigerator arrived. When the original, turquoise fridge broke down sometime in the early nineties, my grandfather ordered a new unit through the building. It was a basic GE unit that held 15 cubic feet of foot on three wire shelves. Storing food in it became a 3-D version of Tetris, always requiring unsafe stacks and much rearranging, even do something simple like remove the milk. Scott was never able to find anything in the fridge and so several months ago, we started talking about getting a new one.

Last Saturday we ordered it and this Saturday it was delivered. It was a tricky thing getting it into the kitchen, and I nearly vomited when I realized that it might not fit past the bar in the living room. Luckily, the men who delivered it were experts in the field of getting large appliances into small spaces and after some careful planning and measuring, were able to make it happen. If ever someone could be infatuated with a household appliance, I feel twinges of love for this hulking white box in my kitchen.

Saturday night, after hours spent arranging and re-arranging the kitchen in order to find homes for the items the new fridge displaced (we had to take down a cabinet and my spice shelf in order to make it fit), I baked up a double batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (some had pecans and some did not). I did it in part to try out the review BeaterBlade I was sent last week and in other part because some weeks ago I promised Scott cookies. My baking honor was at stake, and so I had to deliver. They have proven to be delicious cookies, despite the fact that I was so preoccupied with getting good pictures of the beater spinning around that I forgot to put any spices in the batter.

Sunday morning, I once again got up earlier than is reasonable, this time to have breakfast with Shay, AnnElise and Joy. Joy is moving out to Ohio to go to school and be with AnnElise and so we gathered at Sabrina’s in the Italian Market for one last meal before they got in the car to head west.

After we said our good-byes on the corner of 9th and Washington Ave., I bought a gallon of olive oil at Claudio’s and a bag of red chili flakes at the Spice Terminal. They made me realize just how dead my previous jar of chili flakes had become, as every time I open this new bag, the air in the room becomes fire-y and my eyes start to tear. These new purchases tucked into the back seat of the car, Shay and I made our way to the Headhouse Square Farmers’ Market, for what has become our weekly habit of food shopping (half an hour) and sitting on the curb with coffee (for me), lemonade (for her) and conversation (for both).

Later on in the afternoon, after I was back at home, the weekend of minimal sleep caught up with me and knocked me into a two-hour nap during which I was mostly dead to the world, save for the five minutes that I somehow talked to my mom on the phone.

The weekend ended with an impromptu meal of pulled pork sandwiches and corn on the cob with Thad and Angie. We came home with a bag of produce from their garden and that refreshed feeling that comes when you manage to squeeze one last bit of enjoyment into an already full weekend.