Almost Midsummer Already?

It's been a while, since late spring a couple of weeks ago, and now it's summer. Something ate one of the two teeny eggplants in the garden, and the zucchini are still in flower, with a few tiny squash turning up. A few tiny green tomatoes are emerging. The knitting has been on two sweaters, so not much progress to report. I'm really enjoying Hjalte now, and I don't feel like each row takes half an hour now that I've gotten used to it. It's still a BIG project, though. And it looks like my boring version of Tussie Mussie is really going to make the jump from swatch to sweater, since I'm at the increases past the waist. I will have to shop for a fun closure to make it a more interesting piece, but a light sweater will be useful here. Hjalte is my complicated knitting and Tussie is my mindless knitting (I actually knit in the dark at outdoor-with-a-fire book club, until someone said something funny that made me drop a stitch), so I'm not starting anything until those are finished. Well, we'll see. I have quite the queue on Ravelry, almost all involving stash yarn (except Fifi, which Amy enticed me with), so I won't be bored.

Reading: I'm re-reading Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, one of my all-time favorite reads. I've been really moving through books for the book blog, and it's amazing I've gone this long without re-reading these.

Writing: Yes, indeed, the writing nook has not seen this much action in...ever. I've been up here a lot, noodling around. Not a lot of page count progress to report, but a bit of poetry, a few half-formed ideas, and a line here and there are certainly better than nothing.

Cooking: Wow, lots of cooking. We finally got our grill our third summer living here. You know what's awesome? Grilled pizza. Mmmmm. I did make it with the fennel and the super-easy, delicious tomato sauce. Matt had pepperoni on his instead. I didn't share the Gruyere for the pepperoni pizza, but made him use mozzarella. I'm still sort of afraid to use the grill, so I did all the prep and Matt was in charge of the grill. I have to get less intimidated by the grill.

More Strawberry-Black Pepper-Mint preserves. What else? Oh! The Great Mojito Truffle Experiment! I had these in my head for a while, inspired by the huge patch of mint in the yard, and I finally did the first draft. And they were a hit! I did one batch with a creamy white chocolate-based center and a bittersweet chocolate version (because that's what I like the best). I think the white chocolate were more what I was going for, but I really liked the bittersweet. I used my book club as guinea pigs, and the truffles were well-received, with the group pretty divided on which version was best. I have to type up my recipes before I forget what I did...