Hey, blogger friends, regular friends, and creatives behind the scenes at WordPress 🙂
The timing of this writing prompt is weirdly perfect for me on this calm Tuesday morning here in Minnesconsin.
I haven’t published a blog post in a couple of weeks or so for a million good reasons, none of which are that I haven’t wanted to.
But right now, in this moment, I feel at peace. The house is quiet, the doggies are too (which is liable to change any second now).
The only sound I’m hearing this morning is the soft snoring of the little babe right next to me.
Yes, I’m watching our 6-week-old grandbaby Levi today while his Mommy goes to work (her second day back after maternity leave) and his Daddy attends to some important personal business until later this afternoon.
Watching him is absolutely mesmerizing to me. Those little fluttering eyelids and occasional smiles as he enjoys his sweet baby dreams. The little bit of drool escaping his perfect little rosebud lips. Those soft cheeks that are getting chubbier by the day.
Any thoughts I had upon waking this morning about what needs to get done on my ever-evolving “to-do” list have evaporated. This babe with spit bubbles forming on his lips is all that matters right now, and I’m going to soak up this beautiful peace this morning and let things be.
The thing about summer is that it’s so fleeting. It comes up so fast and before you know it, the leaves are changing and the temps are dropping. Boats are put away for the season and kids are getting back to school.
Here in Minnesconsin, it is just now starting to feel like a proper summer. We have had so much rain it’s ridiculous. And if it wasn’t raining, it was in the high 90’s. As a result, we’ve been spending more time indoors than we had hoped to.
Today, however, it’s in the mid-70’s with nary a cloud in the sky. Mr. NOA and I are planning to take a cruise on our pontoon once he’s done with his workday.
I have a history of being that person with lots of grand ideas about cramming as much fun into the summer season as possible. I’m determined that this summer, with our newest grandson about to be born (daughter is being induced on Friday!), things will be less frenzied than summers past.
There’s no big travel plans on the horizon, save for a few days visiting my side of the family in northern Minnesota. We are, for the most part, staying put.
But staying put doesn’t mean fun isn’t going to be had. The fun, however, will be localized and simple.
Things like making homemade ice cream with the fancy machine my awesome SIL got me for Christmas. As many pontoon rides as possible. ‘Smores over the campfire. Putting ice cubes in the kiddy pool for Radar and our kid’s two dogs to play in on a hot day. Drinking wine on the patio at our local winery. Seeing a summer blockbuster movie in the theater. Playing croquet in the yard with our 11-year-old grandson. Gardening and further beautifying our outdoor space. Getting out in our kayaks.
And of course, rocking that baby.
I’ve created a Spotify playlist for our pontoon excursions this summer. It’s filled with “yacht rock” style music, mostly from the 70’s and 80’s. I’ll be adding this one as soon as I hit the publish button on this post.
Please share what’s on your summer bucket list in the comments!
It was a personal life update sorta deal that I would do periodically. I leaned in on words like “current” (which is a state I prefer to live in and write about) and “rocking” or “rolling”.
Anyway, for today, I’m going to just revive that if you please.
Thanks to the support of Mr. NOA, my sister, and my daughter’s “bonus moms”, our daughter and future son-in-law’s baby shower went off without a hitch. We had plenty of room in our shed (which I’m now and forever referring to as the “we shed“) to hold the approximately 30 people that came to celebrate the imminent birth of baby Levi.
The food was a hit and there was plenty of it. It warmed my heart to see our daughter’s friends show up to support her. She and her fiance now have virtually everything they need to welcome baby Levi home this summer.
And the best part?
Just look at those happy faces!
How was everyone’s Memorial Day weekend?
Did you do anything fun?
Did you spend it with people you love? Did you go anywhere new?
Yesterday was our 35th wedding anniversary. Not that we didn’t feel this warranted a big, splashy celebration, but we chose to stay home together and have a simple weekend. As today is my regular day off from work, and yesterday was a paid holiday for us, we’re on day 4 of this little “staycation” here in Minnesconsin.
It’s been sweet.
The kids all came over yesterday afternoon and we had a little picnic lunch and a ride on the pontoon. Mr. NOA wore his “Call Me Captoon” t-shirt for the event, which I loved. Our 11-year-old grandson caught a fish (not quite a keeper, unlike this kid) using a bit from the cherries I had packed in one of the coolers.
Mr. NOA and I, earlier in the weekend, drove over to one of our favorite stores for supplies we needed to start giving our yard and gardens some love. If you’re from the Upper Midwest like we are, you’ll know the name of the place by these words “Save Big Money at….”.
As the two of us are on a mission this summer to intentionally invest in and nurture the land we live on, we bought rose bushes, multiple bags of mulch, landscaping cloth, and blueberry bushes. Thankfully, we’ll get an 11% rebate! #iykyk.
Then we got to work.
Rose bushes were planted on either side of the garage door. Grass seed was sprinkled on some bare patches in the yard. Landscaping cloth was laid down, with mulch placed on top and then evened out. Blueberry bushes were planted in a special spot where I can see them from my kitchen window (a feature my dear father-in-law wisely noted three years ago, when we were house-hunting here in Minnesconsin, that I would personally most appreciate in any house we bought ).
So, as cheesy as it may sound, today I say “Life is Good”.
And because online this morning I read a beautifully written, heartfelt story written by the artist Michael Franti. It was about his two moms, who both recently passed away, just 6 weeks apart from each other. One was his adoptive mom, and the other, his birth mom. I’m going to share a song from him because I love his music.
This song, in particular, feels to me like a great choice for ushering in summer.
The Thanksgiving holiday is upon us! In honor of that, I’d like to take a moment today to talk about gratitude.
I recently found myself reading Brene Brown’s “The Gifts of Imperfection”. In it, she talks quite a bit about gratitude. She found in her research, which largely consisted of one-on-one interviews with people who practice “wholehearted living”, that practicing gratitude was a major component of these peoples’ lives.
This made me remember that many years ago, I bought myself this little book by Sarah Ban Breathnach titled “The Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude”. It’s a journal to capture what you are grateful for each day for one year. I missed days or even a week or two here and there, but for the most part I wrote down my gratitudes daily. I still have this journal, and I’ve been reading through it.
Reading my entries reminded me of the sweet and simpler times when our kids were young. I recorded such gratitudes as having a nice, long phone conversation with my mother-in-law, having our checkbook balanced correctly, having Mr. NOA come home earlier than expected from work, and the simple joy of watching our oldest chasing a butterfly.
One of many lines from “The Gifts of Imperfection” that ring true to me as I ponder what I’m grateful for right now is “it seems that gratitude without practice may be a little like faith without works-it’s not alive”.
Makes me think I ought to start a new gratitude journal right away.
So, here I go with a few of the things I am truly grateful for these days:
It goes without saying that what I’m the most grateful for is my friends and family and the strong bonds we share.
Yet, there’s lots of simple things I am grateful for too.
Like:
Having an array of sweatshirts, comfy pants, and fuzzy socks to wear when I’m chilly.
Working appliances. I can bake a cake if I want to. I’m able to do my laundry without having to drive to a laundromat, rolls of quarters weighing down my purse.
Having a job that allows me to help my fellow community members in a concrete way.
Dogs I love who do silly things like run in small circles and bounce up and down with happiness. At the moment, we are dog-sitting for our daughter and her fiance (did I tell you they got engaged over the summer? Yet another gratitude).
Our Radar and his friends Dash and Max (aka Radar-ling, Dash-ing Ding-Dong, and Sir Maxwell Butterball)
The music of Brandi Carlile. She is often my go-to when I’m putzing around the house or making supper. The woman can sing anything.
The teachings of Brene Brown. As a former social worker (still one at heart, for sure) and a writer, I appreciate her wisdom so much.
Family movie dates. We caught the movie “Twisters” in the theater together last summer. Next up is going to be “Wicked” next month.
Words. The ones that are strung together in the form of song lyrics. The ones I read before I go to sleep at night. The ones that come out of the mouths of the people I love. The ones I use to express myself in writing.
Laughter-or more specifically, the things that get me laughing. I get one of the local papers delivered weekly, and something in last week’s edition had me and Mr. NOA cracking up. The following question was asked of the kindergartners at the elementary school: How do you cook a turkey? A few of their responses:
From a kiddo named Emmett: I will go in the forest and shoot a turkey. I will find him on a tree. Before I cook the turkey I need to get the meat out by cutting his skin off. Cook the turkey at 40 degrees for 40 hours. The turkey is done by checking the grill. When it’s beeping I take the turkey out. I will eat hot sauce with my turkey. For dessert I will eat Halloween cupcakes.
From a kindergartner named Cheyenne: Go fishing for a turkey. Put it in the oven when its like super hot, or just a little bit hot. Just for 5 minutes. Actually just 2. Put gloves on and grab it out of the oven when it’s done.
And from a tyke named Jasper: You got to get a turkey from the garden shed. Then cook it with the oven for 30 hours. You can have squash and mashed potatoes with your turkey. You eat it with a spoon and a fork. For dessert, I would eat Gushers.
Let’s all be grateful that these kindergartners aren’t in charge of our Thanksgiving dinners, right? We’d end up with our houses burnt down or salmonella poisoning if that were the case!
I hope you, my readers, will take a moment to ponder what you’re grateful for right now. Sharing in the comments would be appreciated too, as always.
I love the word “lollygagging”. I don’t know where it came from, but let me Google it to satiate my curiosity.
For me, it means lazing about. Taking one’s own sweet time. Such a luxury when we can do that, right? Just going at our own pace without the pressure of having to get something done in a set amount of time.
Yep, I’m right. It’s akin to dawdling or dilly-dallying (two other words I adore). It’s an Americanism that first appeared around the 1860’s.
From dictionary.com: “To lollygag is to dilly-dally, dawdle, loaf around, or goof off. If you’re lollygagging, you’re wasting time by moving slowly or doing something less important than what you should be (or doing nothing at all).
Lollygag is primarily used in the United States. It is synonymous with the very similar spelled lallygag, but lollygag is more commonly used. Both are very informal.
Example: Coach yelled at Spencer for lollygagging at practice.“
I’m so damn good at doing lollygagging. It’s like a skill of mine. Only it’s not useful-though it could be argued that it’s useful on a personal level in that it calms me. It gives me a sense of peace. Especially if there’s no other human in my midst to disturb my dawdling, lollygagging joy.
My favorite and most natural space in which to lollygag is in the early-ish morning hours while I’m still in bed. I’ve never been one to jump out of bed, ready to rock when the alarm goes off. My body is completely relaxed. I’m by myself (Mr. NOA is a life-long early riser), so I can do a big ‘ol stretch and not push anyone to the floor in the process. Sometimes, my brain is still hanging on to the last images from the dream I just had. The opaque sheers are blowing slightly against the bedroom windows, prompted by the air coming through the floor vent underneath it, as if breathing. The room is quiet and semi-dark. I’m sleepy and beginning to vaguely ponder what the day may have in store for me. I yawn and glance towards the end of the bed, where my beautiful boy Radar is laying and yawning too.
It’s luxurious and blissful and quite possibly my favorite part of the day.
On another (musical) note, let me share with you a song I heard recently for the first time. It is certainly going on my summer playlist to enjoy when we’re out lollygagging on our pontoon.
The Tuesday before last, while Mr. None of the Above (my husband, AKA my “hubs”) was out of town for work, I had myself a lovely day.
My work schedule (it makes me so happy to type those words, you guys) is 9-4 Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This means on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I am free to do as I please, especially when the Mr. is out of town.
I was so grateful for that day.
That Tuesday was the first day of the fall season here in Minnesconsin that felt like fall. It was overcast and about 60 degrees out.
A perfect day to do one of my very favorite things in the world: bake.
This past summer, I published a blog post about the rhubarb patch in my front yard. I found some great recipes for said rhubarb, which included a delectable and simple-to-make rhubarb sauce. In that post, I mentioned a recipe I found for orange bread. It was handwritten by my mom, bequethed to her by her father. Grandpa Frazer, it turns out, was quite the baker. I wrote about how I’d like to make that orange bread “one of these days” and pair it with the rhubarb sauce.
A slice of the finished product!
So, on that sweet Tuesday, while listening to some chill tunes on my Google nest, I did just that. Gosh, it was such an enjoyable experience. A simple pleasure. Very K.I.S.S. of me.
The bread, as well as the rhubarb sauce, was delectable. It was a beautiful pairing of sweet and tart.
Here’s the recipe:
Mix together 1 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon shortening. Add 1 egg. Add in 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Once that’s all mixed up, add 1/3 cup (and per my mom’s instructions, add water to make 1 cup-or just add 2/3 cup of water-ha ha!). Grate some orange peel and add it to the mix. Once it’s all nice and mixed up, put it into a greased and floured bread pan and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.
Now, for the rhubarb sauce:
There’s not much to it at all, as you don’t need to do much measuring.
Put 1 1/2 to 2 cups diced rhubarb, a little sugar, a little water, and a bit of orange or lemon juice. Cook it up on the stove, smooshing the fruit as it cooks (unless you like chunky fruit in your sauce). I added some sliced strawberries for a little extra sweetness, but it’s not necessary.
As I said earlier in this post, while baking that Tuesday (I made banana chocolate chip muffins that day too), I enjoyed listening to some chill tunes. Along with some of my favorites (The Avett Brothers and Dawes), I hummed and sang along to songs from the great Minnesota rock band, the Jayhawks.
Pollyanna's Path 