Friday

It's the end of June already, and I've been enjoying our yard. Things are always so green and lush this time of year, but not so much when July arrives, and then things dry up and the yard gets crunchy.

We don't use our air conditioner much, if we can help it. I find that the air can get stale with it on, plus it's just so peaceful to have the windows open, and you can hear all the birds and squirrels. But when it gets super steamy, like it's supposed to this weekend, we will turn it on. Most days I open up the windows early in the morning so the cool air from the night can come in, and then close them up late morning when the heat starts to rise. It stays pretty comfortable for the most part, and then there is also the family room in the basement to sit in if it gets on the warm side. We didn't grow up with air conditioning, I suppose most people of our generation didn't.

Early this morning, I had a memory of my mom baking my birthday cake in the early part of the day before the house got too hot, and decided to roast a chicken! I roasted it in a bundt pan and pretty much all the sides of the chicken got crispy and brown, lovely. Into the fridge it went, and now we have delicious chicken to eat on for the rest of the week.

Speaking of which, roast chicken makes a tasty sandwich for lunch. We eat most of our food at home these days. Yesterday, I found some forgotten cookbooks (I have many), and now have some new ideas for supper! Yay for easy food!

Next week is the 4th of July, and Katie and Avi will come for a visit, I can hardly wait. 💕

Of course I will need to make more rhubarb dessert ...

Wordless Wednesday

Backyard Sanctuary

My friend, Pa, has a wonderful backyard. It's taken quite a bit of effort on her part to get it just the way she likes it, despite having to do battle with bunnies who nibble on her plants.

I like that she doesn't use chemicals either, her approach to things in life generally being natural and supportive of the earth and environment.

As I sat in that peaceful place, I watched her hang wash on the line to dry. And as we chatted and drank homemade sun tea, she brought out a sandwich for me to eat that Richard had made that morning, wrapped in a reusable fabric sandwich bag.

I could learn a few things from Pa!

Saturday Night Social

We were invited over to Lee and Terry's for the evening, and had the chance to meet some new friends. Terry made her famous "Corn-Tur-Bacon", a delicious and wonderful presentation. We had a tasting of Kahlua (LeRoy's Homemade versus Name Brand), and Bruce played guitar. Some of us even plucked up the courage to sing solo, a scary but energizing thing to do.

Cheers to Saturday Night Socials!

Father's Day 2019

We started out our usual morning routine, with travel mugs of coffee and sudoku.

Then I remembered that I had bought some silicon molds from Avon a few years back that you can make shapes out of with eggs or pancakes, one of which was a heart shape, and decided to make a special Father's Day egg sandwich for Bruce. It was a great idea, except the egg didn't stay in the heart like it was supposed to. Oh, dear.

The sun was shining, so we took a drive and stopped at the Dollar Tree to look around. They didn't have any Father's Day helium balloons that I was hoping to see, but we found some strawberry lemonade to embellish our dinner.

And, instead of giving Bruce flowers or candy, I gave him a bottle of Maple syrup! Which he loves.

I had decided that it was important to have a usual Father's Day celebration with Mom and Mark, especially since it was the first Father's Day since Dad passed away. Mom loves being able to come over and hang out in the house, but I could tell that she was missing Dad. It was a good thing that she wasn't spending the day all alone without family.

Nick made it home for dinner, good boy!

I had already made the Cherry Icebox Cake the day before, and it was chilling in the fridge. I tried a new crockpot mushroom recipe that turned out pretty good.

And of course we all ate too much, we always do.

Calming The Cluttered Mind

It really is amazing how a cluttered space can clutter up your mind.

How do rooms get so out of control so fast?

Well, maybe they don't, maybe life just takes it's toll. All I know, is that even with best intentions to keep things neat, things don't stay neat. And then I keep waking up to the chaos, and wonder what the heck happened. Will I ever have the energy to fix things?

I thought some baby steps could be helpful. And since Bruce was up north, the house was mine, all mine. 😂

I started with the lace panels over the bed. I figured that would be a good enough effort for the day. I pulled them down and put them in the drier on low air to get all the dust out. Then I saw how dirty the window sill was, and all the cobwebs on the wall up by the ceiling. (I had to stand on the bed to see all of this.) So, the vacuum moved onto the bed with me, and I ended up vacuuming and scrubbing things down. Much better.

It became obvious that the rest of the room was full of dust, too, so everything came off the furniture and floors and onto the bed. Yikes. What about all the books under the bed? They came out, too. There was no stopping now. It had to be finished.

Remember how I've said that all you have to do is to get started doing something, and then you break out of being stuck? So true!

Anyway, I finished before Bruce got home. Our room was peaceful again. And then I woke up this morning, and looked around, and felt ... calm.

I said to Bruce, why can't things stay this way?