midnight and windy
One of the side effects of this better health journey that I am on is what I call my gerbil periods. I am struck with a need to do things, sometimes in the wee hours. Way more often than I was struck by that need in the past. I was a great one to overlook a closet that should be cleaned or a shelf that needed dusting. What has come over me?
This morning, I woke up at 4 and started cruising Pinterest (my electronic hoarding place) for home organization ideas. I was most interested in ideas for tiny kitchens although our kitchen is not tiny but I love to cook and storage space is short. I recently have begun to try to keep my counters tidier so moved two large pots full of utensils to a drawer. Now I have a mess of spoons and spatulas in the lowest drawer...not convenient at all. I visited a friend who had hung antique utensils in her kitchen window, almost like a curtain. So, there you go. Rod on its way, hooks ordered, a new plan is in place.
I also had the need today to clean out the kitchen broom closet. All the years we have lived here, it has been a jumble of stuff: a crate on the bottom held things that were never used. The mops and brooms were tangled together on top or jammed in the sides. I took everything out, discarded the stuff that was way past prime, moved things out that are used infrequently, and organized the rest with small nails and one crate. Now, happily, the water bottles and the vinegar that used to reside out in the open, have a place to live.
I cleaned up the back porch in preparation for Thanksgiving. The new bench with the lid was moved out there. The teak bench with the red seat cover was moved to its old spot in the living room, and the short bench was moved to the sitting area with the small fireplace. In a little house, your places of comfort shift with the seasons.
At 2 o'clock this afternoon, the pile of things to go to the basement was almost as high as the refrigerator...seasonal things, not things we never use. I have another pile of boxes to go to the thrift store. I have a couple small piles of messiness that need to be sorted and stashed but the big things are where I want them. I have a need for order that I have never felt before.
Ella came after school and we visited with Joanne, made a chicken and vegetable stir fry, and had a tea party with apple cake and tiny cups. She loves Thanksgiving so we talked menu. She is an adventurous eater and even though she pronounced the stir fry sauce as "smelly" as we were mixing it, she loved it. We always talk about the corn and blueberry salad and how she didn't like many of the separate ingredients, she really likes them together. Happens often with food, I said.
We're making lefse tomorrow so the grill, the rolling pad, the ricer, the stick are all ready to go. Ella and I made the potatoes tonight and they are cooling on the porch as Edna did and Vi did. My two lefse mentors. I have both of their recipes out on the counter waiting for tomorrow.
I went to Michele's yoga class this morning, an experience that has left me weepy more than once for a reason that is difficult to explain. Maybe it's because we are a group of aging women who love books and colorful shoes and big buttons and scented soaps. Maybe it's because the yoga work and Michele's sweet voice take us to a place of such peace and tranquility that it is, quite literally, like setting down a bag of sand. One time, I fell asleep during the shavasana. (The yoga practice is a form of ritual. In the closing of the practice comes an integration phase, where the effects of the practice are allowed to take hold and penetrate deep into the self. Shavasana is the primary vehicle of that process.)
My writing group was small today, only me, but that is fine. I sat with my coffee at the coop and worked on a poem about the last oil blending party I had. Then I got a text from a friend on whose step I thought I had left a turkey roaster yesterday. Not her step. I had to leave and track down the roaster, right where I left it on the porch of the wrong house), then take it to the right house where I was hugged around the knees by a darling tiny girl with blonde curls. Ah, life is so good.
This morning, I woke up at 4 and started cruising Pinterest (my electronic hoarding place) for home organization ideas. I was most interested in ideas for tiny kitchens although our kitchen is not tiny but I love to cook and storage space is short. I recently have begun to try to keep my counters tidier so moved two large pots full of utensils to a drawer. Now I have a mess of spoons and spatulas in the lowest drawer...not convenient at all. I visited a friend who had hung antique utensils in her kitchen window, almost like a curtain. So, there you go. Rod on its way, hooks ordered, a new plan is in place.
I also had the need today to clean out the kitchen broom closet. All the years we have lived here, it has been a jumble of stuff: a crate on the bottom held things that were never used. The mops and brooms were tangled together on top or jammed in the sides. I took everything out, discarded the stuff that was way past prime, moved things out that are used infrequently, and organized the rest with small nails and one crate. Now, happily, the water bottles and the vinegar that used to reside out in the open, have a place to live.
I cleaned up the back porch in preparation for Thanksgiving. The new bench with the lid was moved out there. The teak bench with the red seat cover was moved to its old spot in the living room, and the short bench was moved to the sitting area with the small fireplace. In a little house, your places of comfort shift with the seasons.
At 2 o'clock this afternoon, the pile of things to go to the basement was almost as high as the refrigerator...seasonal things, not things we never use. I have another pile of boxes to go to the thrift store. I have a couple small piles of messiness that need to be sorted and stashed but the big things are where I want them. I have a need for order that I have never felt before.
Ella came after school and we visited with Joanne, made a chicken and vegetable stir fry, and had a tea party with apple cake and tiny cups. She loves Thanksgiving so we talked menu. She is an adventurous eater and even though she pronounced the stir fry sauce as "smelly" as we were mixing it, she loved it. We always talk about the corn and blueberry salad and how she didn't like many of the separate ingredients, she really likes them together. Happens often with food, I said.
We're making lefse tomorrow so the grill, the rolling pad, the ricer, the stick are all ready to go. Ella and I made the potatoes tonight and they are cooling on the porch as Edna did and Vi did. My two lefse mentors. I have both of their recipes out on the counter waiting for tomorrow.
I went to Michele's yoga class this morning, an experience that has left me weepy more than once for a reason that is difficult to explain. Maybe it's because we are a group of aging women who love books and colorful shoes and big buttons and scented soaps. Maybe it's because the yoga work and Michele's sweet voice take us to a place of such peace and tranquility that it is, quite literally, like setting down a bag of sand. One time, I fell asleep during the shavasana. (The yoga practice is a form of ritual. In the closing of the practice comes an integration phase, where the effects of the practice are allowed to take hold and penetrate deep into the self. Shavasana is the primary vehicle of that process.)
My writing group was small today, only me, but that is fine. I sat with my coffee at the coop and worked on a poem about the last oil blending party I had. Then I got a text from a friend on whose step I thought I had left a turkey roaster yesterday. Not her step. I had to leave and track down the roaster, right where I left it on the porch of the wrong house), then take it to the right house where I was hugged around the knees by a darling tiny girl with blonde curls. Ah, life is so good.
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