Who's that girl?

It's almost my birthday! And it's a big one - 3.0. What?!? Who is this person who is turning thirty?

Is it possible that I'm the same person inside that I was when I was 15, open to the wide world, more feelings than I knew what to do with?

Am I the same girl I was when I wore my first wool sweater during my freshman year of college, just learning what winter was about?

The same girl who decided to go to Africa because she saw a rainbow? Who has moved boxes and boxes of books across the country? Who had shoes made for her in Vietnam by someone who traced her feet onto a sheet of paper?

Yes, yes, yes!

And that same girl is a day older every day, but still mostly the same. Still thinks her cat might be the best company. Still looking for the right way to spend her work day. Still needs her family.

And that girl will be 30. I'll live in the same apartment for a second year - first time ever. I'll take care of myself. I'll get married!

Fruits of summer

Did you know that strawberries come in all these shapes? (image from here)

Last summer C and I picked an overwhelming 23 pounds of berries, all shapes and sizes and sweetnesses, from a farm in Pennsylvania. We happened to choose the day we were having a heat wave, so we were glad not to have strawberry soup by the time we got home with our haul. We ate our fill and then filled our freezer with enough berries to last us through spring!

This summer we were a bit more moderate in our picking - only 17 pounds! They filled our fridge.

So we ate and ate - strawberries on our waffles, strawberry smoothies, the best strawberry rhubarb pie I've ever had - we combined three recipes to get it just the way we wanted. Oh, it was good!And now we have our stock of frozen berries put away, like squirrels with a freezer full of delicious nuts.

Thinking we might pick some blueberries over the long weekend! I love summer. Happy fourth of July!

And happy birthday to my Gramma, who turns 88 today.

Dress shopping, Part 1

What is it about finding the right dress? Somehow it seems like it should be so easy. All the magazines and consultants and people telling you that there is a dress for every body shape, that they can find your perfect dress. How does that mesh with the changes that happen between the time you find the dress and the time you wear it, especially if you're stressed planning a wedding and living your life?

Trying on dresses for the first time wasn't fun. It wasn't terrible, but it would definitely be a stretch to say it was fun. Good things came out of it, though; progress was made. Leaning now toward something long instead of the tea-length I was first considering, after one of my co-shoppers pointed out that a short dress plus sitting down for our Quaker ceremony might mean that some of our guests would get an eye-full! Thinking about ivory. Still trying to strike a balance between simple and lacy/romantic/delicate.

I'm so grateful for my co-worker, who found all my inspiration dresses, and who looked at the pictures of me trying on dresses without once saying "unflattering" or commenting on the faces I was making. :)

And then this morning I almost bought a dress spontaneously - a no-return, on sale from an outlet store kind of a dress. And I felt like that might be both a relief (to have a dress, any dress, and know that it would keep me from wearing a white t-shirt to my wedding) and that it would cut short the joy and satisfaction that come from searching, taking advice, trying on too many dresses, and eventually finding the right one. Not the designer label one, not the cheapest one, just the one that's right for me. So it's probably for the best that by the time I was really ready to buy it all they had left of "my" dress was size 2. There's plenty of time, and about a zillion more dresses waiting out there.