Row 1: morning sunlight | paddleboarding | beach time; Row 2: Morning in Neel's garden | tomato pie

Well, the August migraines have begun, it seems. Who's tired of my bitching? (Waves hand madly.) I'd had a nice reprieve in July, but they're back in full force, and I'm reminded of how much I hate this time of year. Neel's work has turned up to a fever pitch (medical school classes start today), and he worked all weekend. As we look down the road, he has meetings and conferences that will cause him to miss back-to-school night and make our turn-around to get to Erin's wedding tight.

The thing I have most to look forward to in the coming weeks is Cal's birthday (15-- yipes!), but the moms among us will know that along with the joy there's all the stuff too. All the getting ready and the doing of things and managing of things.

So right now I'm grateful a quiet house (Cal's at a sleepover and our dogs are SO lazy). For the last two weeks of summer vacation. For #perception_collection which is gathering together so many wonderful photos and photographers, old and new. For another photography project I've become involved in (No Flowers, No Kids for the month of August) with a great group of women -- it's slowly pulling me out of my funk, in little fits and spurts. For a great visit we just had with my mom. For the feeling of finally clearing out some of the clutter that's been weighing us down. (Of course our whole utility room's worth of clutter is currently sitting in my living room, but whatever.)

I've been doing a lot of soul searching about my place in this online world and my feelings about this space. Annie calls it a Life Wobble, and I love that phrase so much that I'm totally stealing it. Truth is, I never blogged for page views and the word branding makes me shudder. And yet, I love this space and the (tiny) community that comes with it. I'm having a hard time making decisions right now; just trying to one-day-at-a-time-it. But, I'm sticking. Sticking around and taking pictures and cooking food and writing about my life. In the long term at least.

In the short term? The beach is calling, and my kid has two weeks of summer vacation left. I might not be around as much as I tend to the home fires. Thank you guys. Thank you, thank you. For always checking in. For worrying about my headache and for always reading and wondering what's going on in this little head of mine. XO

Somewhere along the way, I've developed a love of fruit and veggie salads. It's that combination of sweet and savory that gets me every time. This salad has been a go-to a lot this summer after I rediscovered it, and our produce-stand watermelon produced a wonderful watermelon and feta salad. (Get what I did there? The produce stand produced...). So when I saw a blueberry salsa, meant for fried catfish posted here by Patrick Evans-Hylton, a local, beloved chef, I was keen to try it.

Only we were having blueberries for dessert and we weren't having fried catfish.

Enter the blackberry. I figured if it sounded good with blueberries, it must also be pretty awesome with blackberries, right? And if it sounded good with fried catfish, it might also be good with grilled chicken right?

Here's what we did.

We marinated our chicken with Stonewall Kitchen's Roasted Apple Grille Sauce. Then Neel took over the grilling part. (He did some corn on the cob too. I can't seem to get enough of it this summer.) And here's how we did the salsa:

Blackberry Salsa, adapted from Patrick Evans-Hylton's Blueberry Salsa

2 10 oz. packs of blackberries
1/2 of 1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped fine
1 small red onion, chopped
2-3 small red and yellow sweet peppers, chopped
a handful of cilantro, chopped fine
juice of one lime
a couple glugs of olive oil (Evans-Hylton calls for 1/4 cup. I just glugged.)
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch of pepper

Divide the berries into thirds, chopping 2/3 and leaving 1/3 whole. Combine chopped berries with jalapeno, onion, peppers and cilantro. Add lime juice, olive oil and whole berries and gently stir. Season with salt and pepper to taste, chill and serve alongside chicken, fish or even pork or beef.

I just want to go on record that every time I try to type "fried" I type "friend," which feels appropriate.

weekend lookback, august 11

blackberry salsa {still + life}