Tag: Life changes

Day 6: Hands

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My hands are not adept at drawing or painting, although I wish they were. My hands are fairly adept at writing, though, or at least they were. I find that lately, I’ve been doing less writing. I don’t mean to imply that I haven’t been writing poems and stories (although I haven’t actually been writing much fiction), because I have, but I’ve been doing a lot more typing than normal lately and a lot less actual picking-up-a-pencil-and-writing-something-down.

I take a lot of pride in my handwriting. It’s small and neat, and my cursive is pretty. I get a lot of complaints from my husband that it’s too small to read, but that’s a matter of opinion. 😉😄

I have the time for writing at the moment, though, so I really should be doing more of it. But there are so many other projects that need attention…If I could afford to retire tomorrow, I would definitely not be bored. I have more than enough projects and story ideas to keep me busy for a very long time. But retirement is a dream, and a far, far away one at that (especially with the market in the shape that it’s in – I just got my quarterly IRA statement and I’ve put off opening it for a week because I don’t think I can handle that much negativity).

Besides, right now my hands are needed for cooking and playing games with the kids and so many other things. Writing will still be there when they’re all grown. Writing will always be there.

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Day 3: Song

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I’ve lost count of the number of emails I’ve had from my church today regarding Palm Sunday and Holy Week. When you’re stuck at home, regardless of why, the days tend to run into each other like paint, the colors bleeding and swirling together till you can’t tell one from another and it’s all a big mess. I had forgotten that Palm Sunday was this weekend till I received an email from my church about deliveries of blessed palms.

One of the things that I love most about the Easter season (and the Christmas season, of course) is the music. So as I sat here pondering today’s prompt and the flood of emails that arrived in my inbox this morning, I couldn’t help thinking about some of the hymns we sang in church growing up. Lenten music isn’t exactly upbeat, nor should it be. Lent is a time of penance and self-denial in preparation for the celebration of Easter. But Easter music is triumphant, and there is no better word to describe the songs that popped into my head today as I considered this prompt.

“I Serve a Risen Savior” has a lovely, bouncy rhythm that just makes you feel good as you listen. It’s a song of hope, and I feel like hope is something we all desperately need right now. The other song I thought of was “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” which is equally triumphant. If you’ve ever heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing this particular hymn, you’ll know what I mean. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s regal…it’s a fanfare fit for a king. In a similar vein, I also found myself humming “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” because no one tugs at emotions in quite the same way as Beethoven. Whether he wanted his listeners to feel soaring joy or abject sorrow, he was a master at using music to evoke those feelings.

And now that I’ve thumbed through half a hymnal, I think I’ll dust off my trusty flute and play a few tunes. What are some of your favorite songs and why?

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Day 2: Open

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They say that love is an open door, but it’s not right now. Right now, love is a closed door. Right now, love means having to say you’re sorry, but you’ll have to cancel that birthday party, that game night, that concert. Fish fries, first communion, Easter, confirmation, prom, graduation. All the things that people so look forward to in the springtime—gone.

Right now, love is an open heart. An open mind. Right now, love means doing your best to stay healthy when so many others are ill. But right now, sometimes, health is hard to come by.

When I had Bubbles, I wanted nothing more than…

Day 1: Joke

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I like bad jokes and I cannot lie. But for some reason, I’m having trouble coming up with any jokes to share today, good, bad, or otherwise. Maybe it’s because I had the stomach flu yesterday and am still not quite myself yet. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the better part of the last 36-ish hours trying to make up for all the sleep I didn’t get Monday night because I was too busy trying to talk my stomach into a better mood. Or maybe it’s because life right now feels like the worst possible kind of joke.

I think I’m gonna go with that last one.

While it is nice to be able to spend more time at home with my kids, I still miss getting out of the house. I’m fortunate to live in a rural area, so if I want to go for a walk, I have plenty of space in which to do so without having to worry about running into anyone else. I’m fortunate that no one in my family has been afflicted with COVID-19. I’m fortunate for a lot of reasons.

I am not, however, fortunate enough to be a good teacher, and that bothers me now more than ever. Trying to work from home and keep my kids up-to-date with schoolwork is a Herculean task, and schoolwork has largely fallen by the wayside. I worry that when school eventually resumes, they’ll be behind on things.

All I can really do is hope that when we all come out on the other side of this, that we won’t be much worse for wear. And in the meantime, at least I have plenty of poems to write (it’s NaPoWriMo!) and we have plenty of Star Trek to watch.

How are you staying sane during this period of isolation?

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Adventures in the kitchen

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So what do you do when you can’t go out and do the normal things you would do on a Friday night? Well I don’t know about all of you, but I tried out a new recipe, and boy, are my feet sore!

(Tile floors + thin slippers with no support + a long night = very sore feet.)

I absolutely adore Panera’s French onion soup, and there was recently a recipe for said soup included in one of the New York Times newsletters I receive. I bought most of the ingredients earlier in the week, but I didn’t get a chance to try it out until last night.

The recipe…is behind the cut!

I need ALL the coffee!

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I think this about sums things up:

I had intended to post this on Monday. It was absolutely fitting after a weekend spent building a bookshelf. I may not have done any of the heavy lifting, but I did spend Sunday cleaning, and for some reason, it wore me out more than normal. Monday morning was rough.

Then I thought I’d post it on Tuesday. That didn’t happen, either. Nor did it happen on Wednesday. Or yesterday. Tuesday we went home early. Yesterday we went home early.

Today we worked from home, but I still didn’t get to sleep in because I had to drive Seymour to work. Today, I needed ALL the coffee.

So I had some. And now I’m sharing this lovely nerdy meme because coffee is the finest organic suspension ever devised (even if I haven’t beaten the Borg with it).

And also because I’m trying a new recipe and something that was supposed to take roughly an hour and a half is proving to be much more labor-intensive than I’d originally thought and now I need more coffee, but it’s getting late and if I have more coffee, I’ll be up all night and that probably wouldn’t be good.

So.

Perhaps tomorrow morning, I’ll indulge in another cup.

How are you all doing? Are you safe? Are you sane? Are you ready for the schools to reopen again? *hugs*

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Every time…

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So this happened…again…

*sigh*

I feel more exhausted today than I did yesterday (and yesterday I was pretty doggone tired). How are you coping with the loss?

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

New year, new challenge

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One of my friends posted a video today showing a brief look at her life over the past year. She made it with a video diary app called 1 Second Everyday, which allows users to capture videos one to three seconds long. I thought it was a pretty cool idea, so I downloaded the app and decided to try it myself. Of course, since it’s late, there wasn’t actually a whole lot going on at my house except for visits from my kitties:

Since it’s a video diary app, there’s also a section to record your thoughts on the day:

Days spent antiquing are so much fun, even if some of the really cool things have to be left behind. But kitties don’t care about tiny typewriters of pretty stained glass. All they care about is food. And water. And ear scritches. And getting inside the house again.

I’m really hoping I can stick with this challenge. I’d love to be able to create a video similar to my friend’s this time next year. And if nothing else, it’ll give me a brief record of my year, since I’ve been so rotten at keeping up with my actual diary the last few years.

Do you keep a diary of any sort?

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Momentum…I don’t has it

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I had hoped to carry my November blogging momentum forward into December, but that didn’t happen. I could blame the holidays and being sick and all kinds of other things, and I wouldn’t be wrong, exactly, but I would be just making excuses. Because the truth is that if you really want to do something, you’ll find a way (and the time) to do it.

It’s not that I don’t want to blog, because I do. But my project for this month fell flat in a hurry.

See, I had this idea to document my Christmas spirit. Last year, one of my coworkers questioned my commitment to festivity, so I proved my love of Christmas by wearing something festive every day I worked for the entire month of December (and if I’m not mistaken, I may have started between Thanksgiving and December, but that’s not really important, I suppose). I only worked three days a week for most of the Christmas season last year due to my class schedule.

Apparently, however…

Day of Darkness

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I went Black Friday shopping this year for only the second time ever, and the first time in over a decade. I didn’t get much, and the two things I did buy weren’t on sale. *sigh*

Story of my life.

What about you – do you go Black Friday shopping? Why or why not?

(c) 2019. All rights reserved.