June has felt like a jumbled trinket box. So many mismatched, beautiful things tumbling around, difficult to organize or describe. Instead of trying to sort through all of it, I’ll take you through the whole trinket box with me.

It’s cherry season, and most of the orchards that surround us have already been harvested. There’s always some left over to glean, and the farmers don’t mind if we go through and take the fruit that was missed.

I canned up six pints in light syrup so we can have cherry cobbler in the winter months. There’s nothing better than warm cherry cobbler. I’m also planning on gleaning more and making a few pints of cherry jam.

I have been harvesting my lavender as it blooms and making lavender simple syrup for coffee and cocktails. It’s been a delight to sip lavender lattes in the mornings while watering the garden or playing with Michael on the porch.

My home brewed kombucha is finished: and it was delicious. I made two flavors: lavender, and blueberry honey mint. I’m already brewing a second batch.

After taking a break from spinning, I finally finished the yarn I’d been working on for weeks. This is a 2 ply, fingering weight Rambouillet fiber, dyed by threewatersfarm on Etsy. The colorway is named “Teal Wins”.

I wanted to challenge myself and spin a thinner yarn than I usually do. It was definitely a challenge, but I succeeded. My goal is to never have an empty wheel, so I started a fun spin using a dyed Falkland fiber from Nest Fiber called “Spring Ahead”. It’s bright and colorful and a joy to work. I’m spinning it much thicker, and planning on making this my first chain ply yarn. That means it’ll be a self-striping yarn once I knit it up.

I somehow found a way to stuff yet another bookshelf into our tiny cottage (Jake knew I was up to trouble when I was carrying around his measuring tape). I’m organizing my book collection by genre, and also trying to scan them all into LibraryThing. I look forward to the day our home library will be organized and catalogued, but I fear it’s a long way away.

But now, after organizing and purging a few books that don’t really belong to my library, I have four empty shelves (in bookcases not featured in these photos). I can now justify my impulsive used-bookstore visits.

I really missed reading. In With All Her Mind, writer Haley Stewart likens reading to conversations with authors and ideas throughout the centuries. On the days where I have very little adult conversation as I play with my toddler and attend to my different household duties, reading nourishes my intellectual life.

I’ve been continuing to read in the evenings instead of scrolling through my phone. The tech detox was only for the month of May, but I’m still figuring out the rules I’ll set with technology and social media in my daily life going forward.

Technology is a tool that can be used well. But so much is working against us using it well, trying to get us to spend as much time (and money) as possible on our devices. This article really shook me: The People Who Don’t Want You To Sleep. As the author quotes:

You can try having self-control, but there are a thousand engineers on the other side of the screen working against you.

former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris

So I’m still grappling with the role technology should play in my life and the questions that come with it. What does a healthy relationship with technology look like? What limits are good, and what limits are draconian? When does its usage cross the line from tool to addiction? What does my phone usage do to my soul and my journey towards holiness?

I’m trying to reach for books or writing or knitting or spinning instead of my phone, or just sit with quiet hands and listen to the birds or the neighbor’s goats or my child babble to himself as he plays. And yet, I still find myself itching to check my email or scroll Instagram. When did it get so difficult to do nothing? To embrace silence and leisure?

These are the questions I’ve been grappling with as I try to determine what my relationship with technology will be going forward. Some of these questions and my thoughts on them will be making an appearance on my Substack in the following weeks. But in the meantime, I will mother and clean and garden and work with my hands, and remind myself that this work is just as beautiful and good as writing.

Postscript

I had almost all of this post written, and then on Sunday night I was using a mandoline to slice vegetables and accidentally sliced a lot more than just brussel sprouts. My middle finger is missing a very sizable chunk. I’m grateful for my cousin, who answered my FaceTime when we couldn’t get the bleeding to stop after ten minutes, and who walked us through the best ways to care for it.

So these are the last knitting and spinning and canning updates you’ll see for a bit, unfortunately, as my finger heals. Pray for me: almost all my favorite hobbies are off the table as I heal, and I’m not someone who enjoys sitting still…