Friday Quote Day

‎My greatest fear has always been that I would be afraid – 

afraid physically or mentally or morally 

and allow myself to be influenced by fear 

instead of by my honest conviction.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

As I said a couple days ago, fear-fear-fear is what drives the news these days. Both liberal and conservative outlets are guilty, although in my humble opinion the right wingnuts have perfected fear-based rhetoric and found a wide, unsuspecting audience. (I think it's delicious that the Speaker of the House is so afraid his debt bill won't pass that he called off the vote. But I think it's childish for the Tea Party to hold us all hostage.)

Like I also said, giving up watching the news has been a very good decision. I'm not burying my head in the sand; I'm simply getting my news in tiny snippets from the internet. And then I'm moving on, to read your blogs or find new zucchini recipes.

I'd love to say I've been walking every day this month. Instead, the heat has beaten me into submission. I can work a couple hours in the garden every other day or so, and I count that as a workout, but it's not miles. Counting the number of weeds pulled is not as satisfying as racking up miles.

I've been keeping a loose count of the pounds of produce I'm harvesting. Ten pounds of tomatoes and two of green beans, so far. I didn't weigh the peppers. Today I need to pick the plump edamame pods, before it's too late. There's a short window of opportunity, if you miss it you might as well let them dry and use them for next year's seed.

The snap peas I planted late are doing pretty well, I should have enough for a stir-fry soon. Peas of any kind don't care for hot weather, and I feel like I'm torturing them, but they're producing anyway, bless their little pea-pickin' hearts. Heh. (You have to be of a certain age to remember that phrase and who said it.)

Don't forget: Sunday night, 7 p.m. EDT, is when the current and final giveaway ends. You have until then to leave a comment to win The Good Carb Cookbook.

In the meantime, have a good weekend.