Bountiful and blessed

What started off as a very lame weekend ended up a great one, with us visiting Dad at the lake, going fishing, relaxing and just drinking coffee and visiting with him, playing around with the wood lathe he bought recently.  And then we stopped for supper and a visit with my in-laws on the way home from the lake too. As a huge bonus, after supper I got to pick raspberries in their garden - they have 2 HUGE hedgerows of raspberries and I came home with all kinds of garden fresh goodies in the end - tonnes of rhubarb, about 18 pints of fresh raspberries (they get that much every 3-4 days for all august, can you imagine??), some fresh peas and baby potatoes, and even some jams, pickles and sausage she had made earlier...I felt guilty at how much I came home with, but they insisted. They were happy to have me come and pick and she even picked with me so I could have a LOT to take home for freezing for jams and such...cuz I have a freezer now. He heh. Bazinga!
I plan to make some small batches of rhubarb and raspberry mead, as well as some jams. Soon there will be much a brewing and canning at Casa Geo. Oh yes....This has given me the itch to go berry picking next weekend too...it's time for the local u-pick farms to have lots of saskatoon berries and strawberries to pick, so I can get another bounty for the freezer and future wine cellar then too. Bwahaha! I want to try a bunch of small experimental types of wines so I know what is good to make bigger batches of next year...
This sort of thing makes me crave a garden. Reminds me of gardening with my mum and grandma and there is NOTHING like garden fresh veg. Next year I will have raised beds in my front yard for planting and I can't wait....my own carrots, beets, peas, lettuce and tomatoes? Yeah!!!
Got me so pumped that this morning I decided it was back to basics again. We are done holidays until at least mid-september and I honestly have done not much at all this July exercise wise and so now, thanks to the help of the plyo box I made with my dad, it's back on. Beast mode. Working consistently with healthy diet for a while to get back on the level. I was really starting to notice how my mood and ability to deal with stress is significantly reduced when I am not working out or eating clean, so for the good of me and my slowly shrinking muscles, it's back to things again.

This morning was a try at Day one of the DailyHiit Week of Insanity workouts. Solid. 30 seconds work and 10 seconds rest (5 rounds through) of: box jumps, box step up elbow to knee (L), box jump up and back, box step up elbow to knee (R), mountain climbers, birddogs with ab crunch L side, birddogs with ab crunch R side. I used my 10 Lb weight as much as I could for the step ups and made sure I went all out for the intervals and it felt great to be sweaty. It was hard...I can tell that I've lost a bit of strength, but now I feel great.
The box worked well - it's 14" by 22"  so I have a few height choices and it seems we built it strong enough. It has the unplanned bonus of my cat going inside the bottom of the box contentedly and curling up in it when I have it tipped to use the 14" side while I workout - it means that I don't run the risk of stepping on him while I exercise (he tends to get underfoot and I don't want to step on his old fuzzy butt).
Now? Well, I've had my oatmeal with maple syrup and fresh raspberries (so very very good...) and I am ready for the day.