Tag: Nonfiction

Monthly Check-In May

Monthly Check In: May

sundaydutroLeave a comment

I don’t even…Seriously, what is up with 2020? May has come and gone. Have I done anything productive, yes. Have I maintained my NYR’s, almost entirely no.

Continue Practicing Gratitude

I continue to ask myself what I’m grateful for at the end of each day and I continue to send people thank you cards to maintain my gratitude space. I’m technically in the black on this one but I feel hollow.

Continue Spending Time With Family and Friends

Much laughter ensues. Obviously this is not happening, because #COVID.

Continue My Self-Care Regime

My self-care regime is now limited exclusively to binge watching This Is Us at the end of each day.

Spend More Time Outside

We spend an unbelievable amount of time outside and because I almost don’t believe it myself, I’ve taken a photo of our 1000 Hours Outside Challenge so you can see how far we are and roughly how many hours a day we spend outside. It’s crazy, and wonderful, and the only thing keeping me somewhat sane.

Write for One Hour Every Day

I’ve been writing in my journal every day and I continue to write letters to friends/family every week. It’s not the sort of writing I intended when I set out to #writeonehour, but it’s literally my best right now.

Submit at Least One Piece for Publication
Each Month

As discussed: not happening.

Read at Least One Book a Month

I have read zero books this month. There is only one book I want to read and I don’t have the energy to make it happen.

Take a Stained Glass Making Class

I still plan on being able to make this NYR happen this year but it’s not entirely in my hands right now. All dependent upon quarantine.

Summary

We’ve been camping in our trailer in our front yard all month and it’s been amazing. We spend way more time outside and we are all sleeping better (as a life-long insomniac I cannot tell you how incredible this change has been for me personally). We’ve been using this time to repair a bunch of stuff in the house that we could never get to with two kids running pell mell throughout the space. The house literally looks brand new in most places and where it doesn’t we’re actively trying to figure out a way to make it new, too. It’s super exciting.

Other than working on the house, hanging with the kids, writing letters and doing a spot of yoga everyday, and bingeing This Is Us every night, I have not done anything. And I’m okay with that. Sometimes our dreams need to simmer. Especially when the world is imploding before your eyes.

How are you doing on your New Years Resolutions? Are you meeting your goals? If you’re having trouble, take a look at my post on Achievement and let me know if it helps you!

Monthly Check-In April

Monthly Check In: April

sundaydutroLeave a comment

How did April come and go and we’re still in this bizarre new other world? Sigh.

Continue Practicing Gratitude

I completed the Yale course, The Happiness of Well-Being. It is free and I highly recommend it. You can find it here. I continue to note things daily that I’m grateful for, although sadly/happily my gratitude jar has been packed away (more on that later). I’m in the black on this one.

Continue Spending Time With Family and Friends

This is a joke, right? Okay, in all seriousness, I’ve spent more time with my immediate family of husband and sons than ever before and it’s awesome. I’ve literally never been happier surrounded by them all 24/7. And also, please, for the love of all things selfish, I need a day to myself. We didn’t get to see family live-and-in-person, but we did do a FaceTime with my mom and brother and his awesome family. I send cards to friends/family once a week; silly cards, thank you cards, all kinds of cards. Just things to let people know I’m thinking about them. Since that’s kind of all we can do right now, I’m in the black here, too.

Continue My Self-Care Regime

With how hot it’s been I’ve stopped getting in the sauna three times a week. When it’s hot it’s just too much of a chore for me. I do, however, maintain self-care by practicing yoga, meditating, and watching The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu because I just need to disappear from this reality for awhile (even if it’s for an even creepier and also not-that-hard-to-believe reality). I’m in the black on this one, too.

Spend More Time Outside

We have been spending so much time outside in our yards, y’all won’t even believe me. We literally spend a minimum of four hours outside every day, and it is actually much closer to eight to ten. And it’s been wonderful. The more we are outside the better the kids sleep, the better I sleep, the happier we all are in general…Outside: it’s where it’s at. I don’t have an updated pic of our 1000 Hours Outside Challenge but it’s easily one-third full. Crazy. We’re in the black on this one, too.

Write for One Hour Every Day

Super in the red on this one. I’ve spent an hour writing every day, but not here. I’ve made a few April posts on my blog, but most of my writing has been in a journal and in cards. I’m in a bit of a fiction writer’s fog right now, a little too overwhelmed by everything to sit and write calmly at a keyboard. In fact, this little bit of sitting here typing is sending me into a bit of an anxiety attack. I literally want to be doing anything else.

Submit at Least One Piece for Publication
Each Month

As discussed: not happening.

Read at Least One Book a Month

I’ve only read two books this month. Two. More than my one book a month goal, but surprisingly few with how voracious a reader I am normally. But I just can’t, y’all. I can’t. The only way I can focus enough to disappear right now is visually with movies/shows. But at least I’m in the black on this one for this month.

Take a Stained Glass Making Class

I still plan on being able to make this NYR happen this year but it’s not entirely in my hands right now. All dependent upon quarantine.

Summary

So, here’s the thing: we’ve been BUSY. We decided that since we are “stuck” at home, we might as well do all the things we’ve been needing to do to the house: renovations, paint, that sort of thing. This is nearly impossible to do with kiddos in the house, sooooooo, we moved into our trailer and are camping in our front yard. Ha! I say “moved into” but we still go into the house to go to the bathroom and shower and stuff, so we’re really just sleeping in the trailer and eating our lunches at the little bistro table out front. It’s been wonderful for the kids because they spend tons of time outside now from sun-up to sun-down, and because it helps them take their minds off the fact that they haven’t been to the library or park (or anywhere) for so long. They love that we’re “camping.”

My husband and I spent a few weeks packing up the majority of our things to get them out of the way and then selling all the stuff we found that we’ve never touched in five years. It’s been a fabulous kind of cleanse and purge and has helped sincerely with my feelings of overwhelm as it’s given me something to focus on besides the pandemic.

How are you doing on your New Years Resolutions? Are you meeting your goals? If you’re having trouble, take a look at my post on Achievement and let me know if it helps you!

The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale

sundaydutroLeave a comment

Yesterday was my day to be completely overwhelmed. My anxiety was through the roof. I finally realized I just needed an extreme crying session. A massive sob fest. I needed to empty my bucket. Since I couldn’t just let go on my own, I’d been holding it in too long, I decided I needed a movie to help me.

Reaching out to my online support network I received a barrage of suggestions for movies that are “spectacularly sad, guaranteed to make you sob.” Sadly as I tried to find the first couple of suggestions on all the options we subscribe to I was unable to. And then I came across a suggestion for The Handmaid’s Tale.

The book The Handmaid’s Tale is spectacular. Phenomenal. I read it before it was required reading in school, again when I got to that place in school where it’s required, and then again shortly after 2016. I love this book. Because I love this book I had no interest whatsoever in watching a series that would butcher it (since I automatically assume a beloved book will be butchered in the filming).

What the hell, I figured, I might as well try it and see….

While it was absolutely the wrong thing for me to start watching when I was already tense, anxious, and overwhelmed, it is stunningly good. I’m only half-way in to the second episode of the first season, but I am completely engrossed and can’t wait to get back to it. The acting is amazing and they are sticking to the book really, really well.

I’m much more of a reader than a viewer, but (so far) this is one instance where I would say you can watch the show and not lose the soul of the book.

Time To Myself

Time To Myself

sundaydutroLeave a comment

Sometime in late February or early March I remember thinking to myself, and perhaps even saying out loud, “I just need a few hours to myself!” I was feeling overwhelmed by all the bad weather we’d been having, the kids being trapped in the house for days, not sleeping well because they weren’t burning energy during the day, and we were all just going a bit stir crazy. I remember wishing for time alone.

This isn’t what I meant.

See my husband is immunocompromised and needs to stay home with the kids on the one day every other week or every third week that I leave the house to go do all of our errands: grocery shopping, mail pickup at the post office (we have a PO Box), stopping at my mom’s house to drop off whatever food I was able to get that my mom wasn’t able to on her shopping trip, picking up whatever random item we need from the hardware store now that we’re always in the house and using/breaking things constantly.

These errand days used to happen once a week every week. Only I brought the kids with me. These errand days were literally the longest days of my life every week because they took so long to complete and the kids and I were all exhausted by the time we were finally on the road back home.

Now these days happen once every other week or every third week and I’m no longer getting kids in and out of carseats, in and out of shopping carts, cajoling them to please take a deep breath cause we’d be done soon, and even without all that, I’m completely exhausted by the time I’m finally on the road back home.

And the thing is, it is unbelievably easier to do all the errands now. I can literally accomplish the same number of errands or even more and it takes less than half the time. Less.Than.Half. And the entire time I am keenly aware of how much emotional pressure I’m under, how grateful I am that I can leave my kids safely at home, and how terribly much I miss them.

When I finally do arrive home, I bring in all the things and sanitize/put them away, then dump my mask and all my clothes directly into the washing machine, then go scrub myself in a hot shower with soap, then come back out and start the washing machine, before finally picking up the baby that’s been waiting for my boobs to come back.

These days leave me drained.

These days leave me in invisible tears.

This is not what I meant.

I take it back.

Chick-Chick-Chickens

Chick-Chick-Chickens

sundaydutroLeave a comment

The last several nights have seen me spending my hour of writing time on other things (utter failure for my monthly check-in when I will clearly not have written every day for one hour). I finally got to see The Biggest Little Farm (Hulu) and it was epic. I loved every minute of it. I laughed and cried and it reminded me of my dreams ten years ago. Dreams I’d given up on, and now have sparked back to life, but in a different, more achievable/manageable form.

My family and I have been talking about moving for four years, and moving specifically to Oregon for three years. Every year we think we’re going to make the big move and every year we end up putting it off, there are just too many other things to do, there always are. It’s like when people want to have a baby but are always saying “now’s not a good time.” Hey, guess what? It’s never a good time. A Good Time is a mythical construct meant to make you feel better about not achieving your dreams.

Or at least it was for us.

Not anymore. This virus has been awful for so many reasons, but it’s also been a bit of A Good Time for us in that we:

  • have loved being all together as a family every day
  • decided there was no better time than now to paint the house and list it for sale
  • are looking at property to purchase in Oregon once our house sells
  • decided to create a mini-farm, a self-sustaining/organic/biodynamic farm

I have been caring for chickens for over ten years, so while I know a lot, I don’t know everything. One of my favorite things to do before making a big decision, like purchasing the chicks for a new flock, is to go back through and research all my options. I’m always glad when I do because I learn of new breeds, or remember that I have always wanted to have Cuckoo Marans but could never find them, etc.

In other words, I’ve been spending my time researching chickens (again!) and it’s so intensely gratifying and exciting and optimistic. We will likely wind up with a flock of only ten or so laying hens, which seems woefully tiny, especially when I once had a flock of nearly fifty. Going through and finding out which birds to purchase soothes something in me.

I can’t wait to do the research on the pigs…the cattle…the goats.

I miss having goats so much. Not ducks or geese, but goats. Sigh.

Off to research some more….

Love

Love

sundaydutro3 Comments

My husband is a god. I don’t know how I got so lucky. He appears to be a normal man, all the right body parts and all the regular farts and burps. He even has his faults, like being stubborn and impatient (faults I share with him). But for all that, he’s an amazing man.

I first fell in love with him as a partner. Children were not something I thought were in the cards for me and I’d given up on that aspect of life. So when I fell for this man, it was because of who he was and what he offered as a lover. I fell in love with his kindness, this enormous heart of his that surprises me with it’s intensity. I fell in love with his humor (although I tell him all the time he’s not funny), his ability to bring joy into even the most mundane situation.

When we found out I was pregnant, I was given the great honor of falling in love with him as a parent. He would read books to my swelling belly, wiped tears when he heard the first heartbeat, and swore under his breath “oh balls” when we found out we were having a boy. Since the kids have arrived I’ve fallen even more in love with this man, their father, who is occasionally stubborn and impatient, but is also kind and hilarious.

When we decided to get married I got to fall in love with him as a husband. A man who is constantly trying to improve himself, who is always putting me first even when I don’t recognize it right away. A man who is equally up for adventure or another day on the homestead. There seems to be no end to his ability to awe and inspire me and his gift for seeing things as they could be is one I’ve come to envy and attempt to emulate.

These last few weeks in quarantine have been wonderful. Yes, the stress and the fear and and and (he’s immunocompromised, so there is a lot of fear). Getting to see him interact with the boys every day has been the absolute best thing ever. Being nearby to pop in and steal a kiss or drop off a smoothie or let him know the family dance party was starting in three minutes…I wouldn’t trade any of this for the world.

My strongest hope is that we continue to appreciate one another, to grow and evolve together, to keep sculpting this incredible family we’ve created. I want to wake up in thirty years, roll over and watch the sunrise with him. From making coffee for me in the morning (he doesn’t drink the stuff) to bringing up wood for the fire each night. From bringing me tea when I’m at the computer to grilling up steaks for dinner. From taking the baby in the morning so I can get another hour or three of sleep to taking out the trash.

I want to appreciate all the little things, because they’re really very big. The little things are the things a life is built upon. The things a love grows from. The things that make you fall in love.

Lemonade

Lemonade

sundaydutroLeave a comment

A friend recently posted that she’s becoming exhausted making lemonade out of lemons every day. I think we are all feeling that way. It is exhausting. It’s exhausting if you’re single, it’s exhausting if you’re married. It’s exhausting if you have kids, it’s exhausting if you have pets. It’s exhausting if it’s you, and only you, and no one else. But the thing is, it’s never just us, alone. There is no such thing as just us alone, unless of course you happen to live alone off-grid somewhere and you don’t even realize there’s a pandemic going on like that family in Russia (link here, it’s a fascinating read from 1978).

The thing is, we put so much pressure on ourselves to be everything to everyone and to do everything for everyone and all that time we aren’t caring for ourselves. And no, this won’t be another self-care blog, because you can find plenty of that everywhere, I probably did one, too. By now you know you need to make yourself a priority and if you’re not there’s nothing I can say that will change your mind.

Here we are in the middle of chaos and we still have expectations for ourselves that are ridiculous. Whether anyone else is saying anything or not, we have this belief that we need to be better, do better, do more.

Stop. Just. Stop.

If you get out of bed in the morning, that’s awesome. If you get out of pajamas and into clothes each day, good for you! If you set your kids in front of the television and let them watch whatever they want for eight hours straight, give yourself a pat on the back. If you make yourself a cup of coffee, drink it, and go back to bed, way to go! If the “only” thing you’ve accomplished all day is to breathe and make it to tomorrow, you’re winning!

Yes, there are TONS of things you could be doing because so much is free right now. There are courses and operas and movies and games and and and…. It’s all so very overwhelming.

There are also people dying, every day, and if you’ve lost someone my deepest sympathies to you.

It is okay to grieve.

There is nothing wrong with simply existing until this over. Because nothing about this is simple.

You do not need to have earned a doctorate when this over.

Give yourself the sort of love and kindness and empathy you would give a friend or a loved one. Give yourself the gift of acceptance. Accept where you are and how you’re feeling and that you want to spend the day (or the next three weeks) in pj’s in bed with Netflix.

Save that lemonade for a day when you can drink it with friends.

Today, tomorrow, just be.

Turmeric Ginger Honey

Turmeric Ginger Honey

sundaydutroLeave a comment

My hubby has an autoimmune issue and is always on the lookout for things that will boost his immune system that don’t taste like ass and that actually help. Awhile ago he came across this idea that if you mix turmeric root, ginger root, and honey and drink it in tea that it’s super good for you. If you make the mix properly, it tastes good too. So we started making it at home.

If you are able to find fresh, organic roots, it’s much easier as you don’t need to peel them, just wash/scrub them like you would a potato or mushroom.

We have found the tastiest ratio to be 3/4 turmeric root and 1/4 ginger root.

In other words, you can use any amounts you want to get the desired final quantity, but the best ratio for taste it to always have 3:1.

I wash and scrub the roots, cut them into relatively large chunks of about half an inch or so, and throw them in a food processor. I suspect a Vitamix would work even better and will likely attempt that the next time I make this.

Let them get chopped up until they are just little itty bitty pieces, but not liquified.

Get jelly jars or any smaller glass containers you have with lids. Fill the containers almost to the top with the root mixture, but don’t tamp it down tight, leave it loose. You want to leave about a 1/4 to a 1/2 an inch of space at the top. Then pour in some honey and let it start to steep down into the root mix. You can help it along with a spoon. Add more honey and keep moving it around so the honey can get down in there, filling all the air pockets.

When you’re done you should have a jar that is easy to stir but not soupy. It’s definitely going to be thick. When ours has sat in the fridge for a few hours and the honey separates to the bottom you can see that there really isn’t much honey in there. Maybe like a 3:1 on root mix to honey.

Which means 3:1 is the handy thing to remember in all this.

At any rate, once you’ve filled your jars and stirred them all up, throw the lids on and put them in the fridge. They will keep for about a month, possibly more, we don’t know cause we always use it.

To use, take a spoonful and add it to your tea as often as you like. We only drink tea once a day in the evening before bed, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to do it more often, you just have to remember that honey is a sugar and should be taken in moderation.

There are a whole host of things this stuff is supposed to help with from immune boosting to allergy relieving. I don’t know how much I believe all the hype, but it tastes good, it doesn’t hurt, and it’s easy to do.

I hope you enjoy.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

Fresh Food

Fresh Food

sundaydutroLeave a comment

Tomorrow is shopping day. It’s been over two weeks and we are down to nothing. We could probably scrape by for another day or two if we had to, but pickings are slim. I never used to worry about shopping day, or even think about it really. If I forgot something on the list, no big deal, just grab it the next time I’m out or the following week when I go shopping again. Now it’s different. Trying to only go shopping every two weeks or less makes things tough.

There’s this added stress of being sure not to forget anything. There’s the added stress of getting to the store and realizing half the stuff you need isn’t available anyway. There’s the stress of going to multiple stores just to get enough food to feed your family of four for two weeks, especially with the limitations many stores are putting in place.

We run out of the fresh stuff right away, of course. And that’s fine. We can limp along on frozen veggies and fruit. Not as delicious and probably not as nutritious, but totally doable. Still, for someone like me who lives a nearly vegan lifestyle for most of the day, not having that fresh stuff starts to really wear on me. Like right now, even though I just had a bite of Lily’s Dark Chocolate, oh my god so good, I’m still craving raspberries.

Why raspberries?

I have no idea. They aren’t my favorite. I rarely buy them because they tend to go bad immediately whereas the other berries seem to last at least a week. But the lack of fresh stuff has me getting these crazy cravings.

The other day we had zucchini that was about a day from needing to be chicken feed instead of people feed, so I made these “brownies” with them…epic. So freaking good. It got my kids and husband eating veggies and it was amazing. So definitely making those again. But the thing that’s weird is that no one else craves the veggies and fruit like I do.

In the mornings I have a breakfast of veggies fried up in avocado oil with some garlic, salt, and pepper. Then I put kimchi or salsa on top. So delicious. But I’ve been told it’s not breakfast. Why not? Because it doesn’t have eggs. Pfft. It’s totally a scramble or a skillet or whatever you want to call it, sans eggs. And it’s delicious. And I crave it.

Luckily even without fresh stuff I can usually get away with canned beans and artichokes, frozen spinach and broccoli, and then I throw in either frozen corn or peas or whatever. It’s a super easy thing to cook, I can eat a ton of it, and it has been keeping me full through to early afternoon when I can usually get away with a snack of nuts or something to tide me over til dinner.

Because in addition to only going grocery shopping every two weeks or less I’m also trying to only eat two meals a day. If I get a late start on breakfast or a huge breakfast, it usually works. It lets our food go a bit further and if I do the late breakfast thing then it’s good for my body as a kind of mini-fast.

What changes have you had to make to your eating with this whole pandemic?

~~~That’s one hour~~~

Quarantine Garage Sale

Quarantine Garage Sale

sundaydutroLeave a comment

For the last four years we’ve been downsizing. We pay attention to the things we use and don’t use and once a week or so we pull things out we haven’t used in forever, double check that we really don’t think we’re ever going to use it, and then set in the pile of stuff to take to the thrift store each week (our thrift store has a drive thru donation line and it’s epic!).

With the ‘rona in force our thrift store is closed. We no longer have access to a place that will take all the stuff we don’t use and don’t want. But we’ve continued to downsize. If anything, we’ve been downsizing even more because what else are we going to do safe at home with two kids and a dog?

So now with nowhere to take it, we have this ever amassing pile o stuff and it’s getting a bit unwieldy. So I had the idea of a Quarantine Garage Sale. I’m posting the things online and whoever wants them can come to my driveway on an appointed date/time and back their car up, pop the trunk/hatch/whatever and I’ll load up their goods, pick up the cash, and they can be on their way.

It’s a great way to practice social distancing while still getting stuff done and giving people something to do. I actually had one person comment that they thought it was kind of sad that the online garage sale was the highlight of their day. Ha! I actually find that fabulous; it brings me joy that someone is smiling cause of something so simple.

What are you doing to keep yourself entertained and moving forward with your goals?