My 80 square foot kitchen has been out of control messy lately. The floors needed to be swept and mopped, the counters were wearing a multitude of coffee stains and the clutter was making me feel like I was becoming a hoarder. Determined to get things in hand, I devoted many moments of my day off today to wiping, sweeping and throwing away. I now feel calmer in my soul. And my turquoise formica positively sparkles.

Thursday afternoon, I used my lunch hour to run over to Greensgrow Farms to pick up our every other week CSA share. While there, I bought a bag of salad greens and a bunch of carrots to round out the selection. Tonight, I pulled the greens out to wash them for dinner, and this very hardy ladybug trotted out into the sink.

I was so impressed that it had survived three days in the fridge that I couldn’t bear to kill it. Instead, Scott let it climb up onto his hand and walked it over to the plants by the window. We named her Lady Agnes and she’s now living somewhere in the apartment. Not being allowed to have pets will do crazy things to people.

On the boardwalk in Long Beach, New York. They take their patriotism seriously.

At a wedding on Long Island, as a waiter clears away the evening’s champagne glasses.

When I was little, no more than 3 or 4 years old, I had a book called New Blue Shoes (I actually still have it and am balancing it in my lap as I type this). In it, a little girl named Rebecca is taken to get a new pair of shoes. She insisted that she get, “new blue, nice blue, nice new blue shoes.” As you might guess, soon after being read this book, I started requesting my own new blue shoes.

Despite that early conditioning, these days my tastes run more to red shoes than blue. I have a number of pairs and those up there are my current rosy footwear infatuation. I got them a few weeks ago at Target. When I moved to put them in the cart, Scott raised an eyebrow at me and asked, “Do you really need those?”

I smiled winningly and said, “It’s not a matter of need exactly.” And so I got my new red shoes.

This little print was a gift from my friend Olivia the year I turned 22. That birthday was the same week as our college graduation and so my birthday got tangled up in the busy-ness of those final days of school. I was always touched that Liv remembered and that she gave me something she had made.

I’ve been meaning to get this lovely little print framed for the last 9 years and have never quite managed to do so. Because of this, it’s gotten a bit tattered. However, I love it in spite of the mild abuse its suffered and I hope that I can coordinate getting it in a frame before it turns ten years old.

In the meantime, it lives on top of our newish bookshelf.

With all the canning I do this time of year, there are some nights when I step into the kitchen at around 6 p.m. to make dinner and then spend the bulk of my remaining waking hours in those 80 square feet. Tonight, it was nearly 11 p.m. before I settled back down on the couch.

But all that sweet cherry jam cooling on my kitchen counter is worthwhile reward indeed.

I got up this morning about fifteen minutes earlier than I typically do for work. Instead of taking my 4 minute walk to the office, I hiked up Chestnut Street to catch the BoltBus to New York. After just a bit of bus stop confusion (for the Philadelphians who are reading this, the BoltBus stop has been moved from 30th Street between Chestnut and Market, to 30th and JFK, closer to 30th Street Station) I climbed aboard and settled in for the air-conditioned two hour ride.

In just a blink, I was at the Javits Center, wandering the floor at the summer Fancy Food Show. There was so much to see and taste that I spent most of the in a fog of people, cheese, cured meats and sugar. To see some of my favorite things from the day, check out the slideshow below (admittedly, they’re nearly all foods that come in jars. You well know of my jar-centric predilections).

Scott and I have been talking about getting me a new computer for several months now. My MacBook (vintage December 2007) was beginning to show a little age and honestly, I was just hungry for something speedier and lighter. We found ourselves unexpectedly at the Apple store in the Cherry Hill Mall today and decided to pull the trigger on a new machine. In a matter of fifteen minutes, I had a new MacBookPro in my hands.

I’m not one to keep my computer quarantined from real life and so today’s photo is true to how I behave. Dinner sidled up right next to this sleek new laptop.

Last fall, soon after Scott and I got married, my dad’s cousin got in touch to tell me that she had something for me. It was a necklace that my grandma Bunny wore at her wedding, and it’s been passed along to the oldest female in each generation as they’ve gotten married. It arrived today, still packed in the envelope that Jolie received it in back in 1973.