Shaking the Zombie

Sunday morning, I arose in a zombie-like state.

Granted, this is how I usually arise in the morning, but Sunday was particularly painful for which I blame Dan Brown. Yes. That Dan Brown. It's all his fault. He just had to write another Robert Langdon novel. He just had to make it equal parts exciting and terrifying to the point where I stayed away until the wee hours of the morning reading it.

I had no choice.

And, while I've trained the children to make their own Sunday breakfasts, I've not yet gotten Elizabeth to understand that I don't need a play-by-play of the activity. So, I was in a zombie state.

I stumbled into the kitchen to brew a pot of dark, bitter tea and stood, leaning against the counter and yawning while I waited for my eyes to adjust to the sunlight streaming through the window. I picked up my phone, that additional appendage, and checked my messages.

Olallieberries were available at Jack Creek.

Olallieberries! Olallieberries are never available in the stores, so when I have the chance to taste their sweet tang, I jump on it.

Side note: Sometimes I wonder how much more delicious all food would taste if it all, like olallieberries, was only available at certain times during the year. While I try to live according to the seasonal food calendar, when I have a yen for strawberries, I know I can run to the store in December and pick up a carbon copy of the summer fruit. 

I sent a couple texts and within an hour, I was loading up the kids and meeting friends at a berry patch covered in bird netting and sitting under a warm summer morning sun.

We picked berries until our fingers and mouths were stained purple. We carried our bounty to the store and brought home enough to make two batches of olallieberry jam and one batch of olallieberry syrup to top ice cream.

We sat in the sun and basked in the delicious breeze while eating apriums and watching the kids blow bubbles that floated into the sky, swirling to a pop. 

And I was a zombie no more.