Okay!
The weather has warmed. Last week, we were in a sweet spot of 80-degree days and 60-degree nights. I took a walk one morning (for my stupid health) and it was just delightful.
A couple of EXCITING THINGS have happened. One, I have declared this the SUMMER OF SALADS. I have been saving recipes from the TikTok salad girls all winter against this day and I declare Summer of Salads OPEN! Summer of Salads is very inclusive. It could be composed salads, it could be tossed salads, it could be chopped salads. It could be a meat salad. I am making the Jennifer Aniston salad, the Kardashian salad, the New York Times party salad. SALAD!!
The other exciting thing is that I bought the Instant Pot air fryer lid. On Friday – a hot day!! – I made roasted potatoes without raising the air temperature in the kitchen to 95 degrees.
Don’t worry this will not become a salad and air fryer newsletter. Or maybe you would like that! I’ll never know.
Last weekend: we socialized, we gardened (well – I was outside while my husband gardened so it counts), we made burgers on the smoker. The weather cooperated and so did the dogs, for the most part. They are starting to be able to hang out with us outside for a long span of time and even be left mostly unattended without acting like total jacknuts or eating whole sticks or dead birds or whatever.
This is another week, in a list of what now seems like hundreds of other similar weeks, where the previous day’s news made me tired before the first minute of work ticked off the clock. I have a bone-deep weariness about it. It’s why I spend so much time looking at salad recipes or reading up on the finer points of air frying, or looking at articles about makeup routines and then shopping for all of the things in the routine, even if I do not end up buying them. (It must be said, this week, I did buy the things.)
Yesterday, though, I took off my Sad Cardigan and tossed it in the laundry chute. For one thing, it is going to be 90 degrees tomorrow, and for another, you can only wear the Sad Cardigan for so long. On days like this, it is better to make small changes, like binging Hacks instead of watching Downton Abbey for the 18th time.
Somewhat related: I am also starting season 11 of Call the Midwife. I’d like it noted for the record that Nurse Nancy Corrigan PULLED A MAN’S FOOT OFF in one episode and nobody even offered her a cup of well-sugared tea. How do I know what things are traumatic in the CtM universe without well-sugared tea!?