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Abundance

Is a Five for Friday by any other name just as sweet?

  1. Sara/hs: I was adding a new Sarah to my contact list and realized that I have an abundance of Sara/hs in my life these days. Growing up, I knew a Sara when I was in daycare and then a Sarah in high school, then I worked with a Sarah for a few years. That was it for a long, long time. Now, I am suddenly swimming in Sara/hs! I love how names sometimes come in clumps like that. Possibly there’s a regional element to it. For instance, I never knew a single Leah, Colleen, or Corrine until I moved to my current city… and now I know multiples of each. When I was in middle and high school, the cute boys were all named Josh; I can remember four in my grade alone and at least one in the grade above me. Yet I don’t think I’ve encountered a Josh since college. Was there a preponderance of Someones in your class growing up? What about now? Have you ever wandered into a cluster of Sara/hs? Which name has the most entries in your contact list?
  • Flowers: My flowers are FINALLY blooming. The best thing about the persistent cool/grey has been that my irises stuck around for a much longer time than they did last year, and really put on a show. Now, finally, my peonies and roses are getting in on the action. I am loving my walks lately, because there are begonias and clematis and dogwood and allium and salvia and it’s wonderful wonderful wonderful. 
  • Supplements: I mentioned this already, but I am suddenly taking so many supplements. Mainly in an attempt to address the sleepiness/sleep issues, although I’ve lost track of what’s supposed to do what. A doctor tells me to take something, I add it to the pile. With my allergy pill and my anxiety medication, I am now up to seven pills a day. I hate swallowing pills. I am terrible at it. Some people can throw a handful of pills into their mouth and swallow them all at once. Some people can – hork – dry swallow a pill. I have to have a whole glass of water at hand, because I require lots of water to get a single pill down. Still, often they get stuck, in my mouth or my throat, and I have to deluge them with water to get them to where they need to go. I abhor it, thanks. The very worst pill I take is not, surprisingly, the magnesium – which is a giant tampon-sized monstrosity. The magnesium is a capsule, so it goes down far more smoothly than the B6 tablet which I can almost never swallow on the first try. Yuck yuck yuck. My B12 vitamin is a chewable, so I use that as a chaser. It definitely helps eliminate the sour B6 taste. I feel like, at 44, I should be able to reliably swallow a pill. Alas.
  • Couches: Until we moved into this house, my husband and I had never bought a couch before. What a lucky, carefree time. My in-laws passed down a total of three couch sets to us over the years and since they were perfectly reasonable couches and also free, that’s what we used for the first 20 years of our life together. But they are old and also not really our personal style. So when we moved to this house, we promised each other we would get new couches. We got a new couch for our basement in 2024, and we finally finally got a new couch for our living room last week. The thing is, we still have the old couches. It is surprisingly difficult to divest oneself of couches, I’m finding. The old basement couch is ripped, so not appropriate to donate. We will end up trashing it. Our trash collection website says we can make an appointment for the collectors to pick up and dispose of a couch, but it also bafflingly says that all trash needs to be divided into four-foot sections. Does that apply to couches, too? How am I to apportion our couch in that matter? Using what implement? A question for the trash collectors, clearly, except they never answer their phone. The old living room couch is getting picked up by a thrift store. But while we are waiting for the question about the former to be magically resolved without a phone call and for the latter to be picked up, they are both living in my piano room. They’re not even usable, they’re so jammed together. It’s… a lot. 
  • Kitty Photos: My phone is jam packed with photos of the kitten. He is so very cute.
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Seven for Saturday 

It has been a fine week, with lots of good things, and nonetheless I have been alternately crabby and weepy all week. Thank goodness for Elisabeth, who, through her F.I.G. Collective, is encouraging us to find joy in gratitude, every single day, all month long. 

Saturday, February 1: 

  • I spotted tulips for the first time this year in the grocery store and bought a bunch. Not only do they brighten up my kitchen, they remind me that spring is on its way and soon my yard will be full of blooms.
  • My parents came over so my dad could work on a school project with Carla, and my mom and I got to go for a long early evening walk. This is one of the unexpected joys of having them nearby – they can just pop over for a couple of hours! We can simply go for a walk together! We had a nice talk and moved our bodies and enjoyed the crisp February air. 
  • When we returned, Carla was hanging out with my dad while he told her stories about his childhood. Oh, my heart! 

Sunday, February 2:

  • We got caught in a snowstorm on our way home from an epic back-to-back Costco/Target spending spree, and the whole world was magical again for a few hours. I don’t love driving in inclement weather, but I love it when everything is coated in white.
  • My dad came BACK to our house for the second half of the school project. He and Carla were making chocolates as part of a request to showcase a family tradition. My dad has been making chocolates for decades, and when I was a kid, I would make them with him at Christmastime to hand out to friends. We started with rolled truffles, like the ones he and Carla made, and eventually branched out into dipped and filled truffles. It was a tradition I loved and have managed to execute once or twice with Carla. (I found a photo of the three of us dipping truffles back in 2015! Carla was so small!!!!) I love that she remembers making truffles with her grandfather and that this was the tradition she wanted to share with her classmates. 
  • Carla, her dad, and I snuggled up together to watch Groundhog Day, which was more poignant than I remember. My goodness do I love Andie MacDowell’s hair in that movie. Between Andie and Julia Roberts and Keri Russell, the 1990s were full of such amazing hair.  

Monday, February 3:

  • After the grocery store (yes, if you’re keeping count this is three days of shopping in a row), I got in a good strength training workout, which always makes me feel strong and healthy.
  • I had an online writing session with a friend! This is so inspirational and motivational to me – to set aside time with a friend explicitly for writing, to discuss our concerns and writing triumphs. I also love it because we set aside a few minutes before and after we write to gab about other things and THAT is delightful in a totally different way.
  • I had a hankering for pasta primavera, which I’ve made before with limited success. But I tried this recipe and it turned out great! I also tried a new type of pasta (I am such a sucker for variations on regular old Barilla) (which I love, don’t get me wrong) and it was just as good as “normal” pasta. 

Tuesday, February 4:

  • Even though it was quite slippery outside, I met up with a local friend for a walk. Neither of us fell, for which I am very grateful. 
  • After our writing session, I was still in a creative groove. Then, my husband texted to say he would be done with work early and offered to pick up Carla from school, which was on his way home. Yes please! That saved me a whole hour of driving and allowed me to keep writing and writing.
  • My husband and I started watching a new show, which is extremely well done.

Wednesday, February 5:

  • My husband took Carla to school AND picked her up from school! That is TWO HOURS of extra time, right off the bat. I was able to get a sweaty HIIT workout in before eight…
  • …and then my local writing friend came over for our second writing session of the week. 
  • Since I didn’t have to drive Carla to and from school, I had two extra hours in my day and ended up doing tons of laundry, vacuuming the house, going for a quick walk, AND getting a ton of writing done. Such a productive day! Then, to make up for not getting much time with my kiddo, we spent extra time reading our book before bed. We are getting so close to the end, so pretty much every page is exciting.

Thursday, February 6:

  • This morning, I met up with a friend for tea. Due to kid illnesses, call schedules, and various other obstacles, we hadn’t seen each other for a very long time and had a LOT to catch up on. We talked and talked until she accidentally looked at her watch and we realized we’d been chatting for two hours. Whoops!
  • Today was my scheduled call with another long distance writing friend. I am so lucky to have THREE people with whom I can share ideas, complain, brainstorm, and discuss the ups and downs of trying to put your story into words.
  • My husband and I met with our new accountants, and they are so awesome I kind of want to be an accountant now??? and then we picked up Carla together and spent a pleasant hour at the mall, smelling perfumes.

Friday, February 7:

  • My parents are coming over for the Super Bowl on Sunday, and I stopped in at a local gourmet food shop to pick up some snacky treats. I am VERY excited about trying them. 
  • The sun was shining, so I got in a nice long walk in the bracing cold. 
  • The tulips I bought last Saturday still look gorgeous! 

If I were to summarize what I’m grateful for – at least this week – it would be creative time, time moving my body (especially outdoors), and time with the people I love. When I look at the abundance of those things in my life, it makes a lot of the bad feelings seem very small. 

Thank you, Elisabeth, for helping me find joy and gratitude during a week that felt unaccountably bleak.

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Fall Photos Friday

Elisabeth’s walking challenge has been surprisingly challenging for me this month. So far, out of 25 days, I’ve only managed to take a walk on 15 of those. (I plan to take a walk today, but it’s early yet.) I’ve spent a lot of time berating myself: how hard is it to take a ten-minute walk? Especially when you have access to a) a very walkable neighborhood and b) beautiful walking paths and c) A TREADMILL. Comparison is the thief of joy and all that, but I feel like an utter failure compared to someone like Engie, who has a full-time job and still manages to walk multiple times a day. Perhaps I need a dog. 

This week has been much better. (And I did walk on Wednesday, with two friends and a dog. I have a clear memory of programming “outdoor walk” into my watch, but seem to have done something to prevent it from recording.) 

The weather – which has been beautiful beyond belief – makes me want to be outside all the time. It’s been the best of all seasons here: warm and sunny, but not humid, and flowers are still blooming, but also the trees are a panoply of vivid colors. Mornings and evenings are cool enough for a jacket, the days are warm enough for tank tops and even shorts.

I keep goggling at the leaves, trying repeatedly to capture their vibrancy with my phone, and failing. It’s a beauty I’m unable to adequately translate to digital imagery. Every time I’m outside, I’m drinking in the colors, trying to store them up for winter’s bleak monochrome.

I keep pointing out trees to my daughter on our drives – “Look! Look!” – and she has been humoring me, and pointing out especially beautiful specimens herself. The other day, my husband picked her up from school, and apparently wanted to stop to photograph some startlingly red trees on the drive home, and my daughter moaned, “You sound like Mom!”

Carla has been “hired” a few times to puppy-sit for one of our neighbors. It’s now dark when she goes to do his bedtime routine, so I’ve been accompanying her. (I don’t go into their house at all; that would be weird. I just lurk outside in the dark, looking at my phone, which is much less weird.) She and I take the puppy on a final evening walk, both of us inhaling deeply of the night air, tinted with the promise of winter, both of us gazing up at the stars. Carla tries to get the puppy to admire the moon; so far, he is unimpressed.  

My husband, not usually one for walks, has initiated two! walks! this week alone! Fall is his favorite season and I wish it would last forever just for the opportunity to trudge through the fallen leaves with him, hand in hand, talking about all sorts of the mundane things you discuss with your partner. 

One of my favorite things about fall is stepping on acorns. The crunch under my heel is so satisfying. I am a little reluctant to do so when I’m walking with others, though – there’s something a little childish, a little embarrassing about doing so among friends. Perhaps that’s why there’s so much joy in it, because it feels like a call back to childhood? Another thing I love about fall is the cloud cover. It’s not oppressive, as in winter. It’s joyful and painterly and somehow distinct from the sky in other seasons.

I have been obsessed with a bank of trees I walk by frequently. It’s a copse of ALL the colors, their brightness cranked up to 11. We had a windy day the other day, and they are beginning to release their leaves to the inevitability of time’s passing, and I’m trying not to see it as a loss, but as a harbinger of the austere beauty to come: snow and ice and bare limbs scraping a cloud smudged sky.