Not easy, but fun

We've been incredibly busy lately, working 4 10s last week so that we could take off Friday morning for our friends' wedding in Palmer. Thankfully, we found friends to carpool with so the economic and environmental toll of that trip were somewhat mitigated. (And it was more fun!) More on the wedding, and wedding stuff in general, later.
Shane's gone for more field work this week. He was frustrated by the fact that he had to drive back up from Palmer only to turn around and drive to Homer today, but he would have missed out on all that paid time if he'd stayed in Palmer. (And it'll be overtime, which is compensated at his regular rate of pay plus vacation time--we need the vacation time for our honeymoon!) But I'm trying to think of this as a week to get things done around here. The local raspberries--tiny and so sweet!--are ripening and I need to pick them while I can! I'll end up freezing most of them, because wild berries don't keep as well as cultivated ones. For tips on how to freeze just about any fruit or vegetable, I recommend this site. And in addition to making yummy things with them all winter (like smoothies, pies, coffee cakes, sauces, etc.) Shane re-discovered recently how good it is to use frozen fruit as ice cubes in drinks. It works well in almost any fruity drink as well as in drinks with clear liquors. (Gin and vodka are the two he's tried recently--I'm not a huge fan of the taste of alcohol so I don't drink much, but I had a sip and agreed it wasn't bad. High praise from me for a drink with alcohol.) Frozen nectarines worked really well, but even frozen rhubarb was pretty good.
My next concern is that we're starting to run out of freezer space! We have lots of meat and fish (just not enough to see us through all of next winter) and not so many fruits and vegetables. I'm working on those, though, and wondering where we're going to find the space for it all?
I suppose I should mention that I'm no longer cutting carbs out of my diet. Short-lived, right? My reasons for wanting to are still valid, but I realized that not only would I rather cut off my own arm than continue not eating bread, if I did keep going I'd whine a lot and irritate the crap out of Shane. Not sustainable (for me) and not worth it for either of us. I think I ate a whole loaf of (locally made, delicious!) bread by myself at the rehearsal dinner on Friday. :) (Don't worry, it was a small loaf!) So I need to make more bread tonight. I'm thinking honey-oat bread. Yum!
And since I'm not dieting, I've re-committed myself to more exercise. I've been taking the dog running, which she LOVES. (Maybe if I take her running enough she'll be too tired to misbehave while Shane's gone?) We went for a long run last night, which was wonderful after the long (5 hour) car ride. (I was stuck in the middle, both ways, the whole time.) But Pepper's old problem of bleeding paws came back. This happens sometimes, notably after the first snowfall of the year (it's better now that I have booties for her) or any time we go on an especially long ramble. She doesn't seem to mind, but it's sad to me. Tonight I have softball, so her paws will get a nice rest. I'll see if rubbing some lotion on her pads helps, too.
On the way to softball tonight I'll take out the recycling (it's been sooo long--no curbside pickup around here) and stop at one of the sports stores to get a resistance band. I told Shane, "Hey, then I could read while I work out!" He said, "Wow, you're trying to Americanize working out." To which I responded, "Silly, Americans don't read!" (Believe me, I'm trying to read enough to make up for everyone else's lack of reading!)