Milestones

For years I never looked at the stats for this blog. I guess I was afraid to see how few people looked at my efforts. Now that Blogger has changed the interface I see those stats often. Just passed the 120,000 pageviews for the life of this blog...who knew? That's a lot of people visiting at least one page. Woot!

Another milestone is the celebration of another year of marriage. The theory is that it gets easier with time. My experience is that marriage more closely resembles the roads around here; ups and downs, gentle and not so gentle curves, smooth some of the time but rocky, too. Right now seems to be well paved and only mild curves and few hills which is nice after some rocky times a year ago. Mostly I feel lucky...and that's a fine way to feel. Sweetie and I look forward to more time together, God willing.

To celebrate we took a drive (how appropriate, right?) last weekend south and west, over those up and down country roads, past lush green hills, grazing cows, colorful wildflowers and all kinds of barns. A seafood lunch at Tony's in Marshall was uncrowded and excellent.

It was amusing along the road there and after to see the cars lining both sides of the road for long stretches at Hog Island Oysters, Tomales Oysters and at Nick's Cove where the seafood isn't any better, especially the oysters, but the crowds are abundant this time of year.

Another beautiful drive took us to Pt. Reyes and the Cowgirl Creamery building for tastes of exquisite cheeses that cost over $30 a pound or more, although there are some that are more reasonable. I happen to love their Red Hawk cheese so we took some home to enjoy during the week. It is rich and semi-soft and a bit smelly but soooo good. Another beautiful drive took us over the hill past the McAvoy Ranch with all of their grey-green olive trees and into Petaluma. We even found a farm stand with fresh strawberries picked in a field nearby. What a wonderful spring day it was!

Are you celebrating any milestones any time soon? Want to share?

Other things that have been keeping me busy include getting my comfort food cookbook off to the publisher, lots of time in the garden weeding, mulching, preparing to plant and...yay!...planting the squash and tomato seedlings (plus I gave away over 6 dozen tomato seedlings this week) and spraying cayenne laced water over the lily shoots that are just sprouting, on the roses to discourage the deer, and over the iris buds because I'm not sure if the deer like them or not. They apparently don't eat tulips, so I have some beautiful ones and they have lasted a while, bringing cheer to the garden.

Sweetie and I have been working on finishing up the new door into the utility room because it has an animal door in it and we hope to get a new dog by summer. It is hilarious to see our cat trying to decide if he wants to use this new door or not. He has trained us to open the other doors in the house for him and we did so because the old animal door opens now onto weeds. It's not unreasonable on our parts to expect him to use the new door which can be reached without getting any dirt on his paws, but it is also not unreasonable for the cat to expect us to continue to open any door he chooses to use. Fortunately positive reinforcement works! Each time he came through the new door this week, I rewarded him with some kitty treats and lavish praise. Now he saunters through as if there is no need to consider any other entrance...this one will do.

Other enjoyable pastimes include the gym in the usual way, the scholarship group meetings, the art class where I am painting tomatoes in expectation of even better ones come September, and work on a friend's childrens' book. Meals with friends and bread baking are constants and very satisfying. How did I ever have time to work?