Everything that Rain Promises

I must admit the last month or so has been full of some not so happy surprises. I complained once to a friend that I wanted a "boring life" for once - the kind of boring where you just don't have anything to say to people about what is going on in your life because everything is the same and everything is good. My friend said he couldn't imagine me living a boring life and that since I seem to be one of those people who things always happen to, I would probably get tired of it quite soon. However, since I have been through many life phases where it seems like every time the telephone rings there's more bad news I am adept at taking the little things in life and appreciating them for all they are worth. So here are some of the things I am enjoying this summer despite it's challenges (just in case you thought I was getting whiny):

Lyle & Mormon Lakes - a hike taken in the rain with both my sister & Life Long Friend

- being back in Colorado means the opportunity to go hiking and reconnect regularly with old friends & my sister
- being able to spend time with my sister all alone for the first time since she had kids (since 2002 in fact)
- getting to spend more then holiday time with my niece & nephew...which includes lots of wandering in the woods with baskets in search of anything edible or otherwise collectible.
- getting re-acquainted with old friends
- super sweet blogger friends who not only keep stopping by to visit but also give me generous awards even though I have clearly been absentee this summer (they will be passed on soon!!)

the first mushroom harvest of the season, from top left: a fabulous bright pink fungus growing on a wild gooseberry (not edible), golden chantrelles & coral fungus, mysterious white fungus (who is leading me to make all sorts of acquaintances) & more chantrelles, puffballs & boletes (otherwise known as leccinium)

- taking my niece, nephew, sister, and friends mushrooming in Colorado! How exciting is it to find orange chantrelles when the most common ones in Alaska are dark purple (commonly known as pig's ears)
- getting to eat fresh picked mushrooms
- fresh fruit! oh peaches! Oh apricots! oh plums! (I survived the lack of fruit in Alaska due to TreeThings, bless their hearts, who brought fresh fruits by the crate load up from California just for us fruit deprived Alaskans. There was also the abundance of wild berries which helped immensely but nothing beats buying fresh fruit from the orchard roadside stand.)
- getting to make hard cider (yes, that's with alcohol) & wine with said fruit with my dad
- lovely fresh garden produce .... homemade pizza (mine) with only the crust made of ingredients not grown or harvested by ourselves
- nightly entertainment by the Disreputable Cat who makes sure that everyone has their dose of cheer even if it means she has to swat them on the nose (most often this has to be applied to the Parental Dog who takes things quite seriously)
- having the Disreputable Dog at work as an official bookstore greeter

Here are the Parental & Disreputable Dogs being cute together.

*Note: the name of this post was liberated from the name David Arora's mushroom book Everything that Rain Promises and more... which is a good book for the beginner mushroomer and highly entertaining to boot