brightsiding

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Good Things

We are in the middle of Day 5 of nearly solid rain. Rain is great, don’t get me wrong. And I’ve really leaned into it by making soup and spaghetti sauce for dinners and crawling back into bed with my computer instead of working at my desk in my (chilly) office. But even with these accommodations, it’s not the most uplifting of weather patterns. Plus, you know. There’s all the… You know. * Broad gesture toward the rest of the world. *

Let’s focus on some Good Things, shall we?

  • Questions. Carla has been SO inquisitive lately, like all of a sudden she’s achieved Peak Curiosity, and so we have been investigating some of her queries in the car line in the morning. (While parked. Because of the strict way Carla’s school is controlling crowds and monitoring students’ temperatures, parents cannot release their kids until eight o’clock on the dot, so if we get to school a bit early, we are just sitting in line, waiting.) Yesterday we looked up a.m. and p.m., today we learned the difference between tiaras and crowns. It’s delightful, the things that pop up in her brain to wonder about. I hope she always, always shares her questions with me.
The other day, Carla was so full of questions that I started writing them down so we wouldn’t forget any of them. Just in case you wanted a peek inside a typical morning at my house.

  • Décor. We finally put up our Halloween decorations, and I love them so. I don’t really know what I was waiting for? I adore Halloween – it’s such a low-pressure, high-fun holiday – but I was really resisting the act of decorating for some reason. I think the delay helped build up the anticipation for Carla, though. And then! Joy of joys! She HELPED ME put them up! Like, she was actually helpful and very careful and had Strong Opinions about where to put our collection of glittery pumpkins and how to hang the wall bats. It made the whole process both easier and more enjoyable. 
  • Outdoor explorations. Despite the rain, we went on hikes/walks both Saturday and Sunday of last weekend, and I’m still feeling happy about them. If there’s one good thing to come of this pandemic, it’s that my little family has spent a LOT more time exploring our local park system than we ever have before, and it’s been really fun. A good excuse to get outside in the fresh air, a good excuse to move our bodies, a good excuse to be together. Saturday was sunny and we went on a walk that took us up over a river valley, with some really spectacular views of the river and the fall foliage. Sunday was rainy, and yet we trudged through a deliciously creepy forest until we reached a beach and then walked on the sand and skipped rocks in the pounding surf while the rain pelted us. We got absolutely soaked but I think that made it feel more like an adventure. I’m already looking forward to our next excursion. 
A break in the rain.
  • Target drive up. This continues to be one of the best innovations of the pandemic. It is so easy to order something from the Target app in the morning, and then swing by Target after I pick up Carla from school. They have really fine-tuned the system so that the staff member is walking out of Target with my purchases almost immediately once I’ve arrived. And sometimes lately they have been adding little free samples of things to my bags. It’s very convenient and I love that if they don’t, in fact, have your item in stock, they will ship it to you for free. Do I wish that they offered more food items for drive up? Or anything Lysol-related? Or hand sanitizer or bleach spray or sanitizing wipes? Yes, obviously. But I understand why those things aren’t available, or are so quick to fly off the shelves that they don’t even try. It’s still a very good thing. 
  • A full night’s sleep. I’m in the midst of one of those wake-up-every-morning-at-3:30 sleep patterns. And worse, I have been unable to get back to sleep after I wake up. Sometimes I lie awake for hours, going through all my Get Back to Sleep strategies. There’s nothing worse than finally drifting off to sleep at six, only to have your alarm wake you up thirty minutes later. The whole thing is AWFUL, is what it is. It leaves me bleary and teary and crabby. But! Last night! I fell asleep at about ten o’clock and didn’t wake up until six! (Well, okay, I woke up around one to pee, but I don’t count that because I was able to get back to sleep right away.) One night of solid sleep will do wonders for a person’s soul. 
  • Mums. It seems like all of September I kept seeing mums everywhere. Mums for sale! Mums on porches! Mums hanging from hooks! Mums in fluffy rows outside of grocery stores! So many mums! I got serious mum envy. So a couple of weekends ago, I finally decided that I needed some. I’m not so great at keeping flowers alive; my landscaping preferences tend toward easy and low maintenance. But I found some mums – and, so late in the season, they were HALF OFF – and bought four burgundy mums and two yellow ones PLUS two decorative kale? kales? heads of kale and I am just so PLEASED with them. I have two big planters in the backyard where I planted some as-it-turns-out NOT deer resistant flowers during the summer, and I added one burgundy mum each to those, plus a head of kale. And then I put four smaller planters with one mum each on the front porch – burgundy and yellow – and added a couple of pumpkins. If I were to do it again next year (which, why not?!?!?!), I might try to get some fun fallish grasses or something, to fill out the bigger planters. 
Neither my mums nor my kale; mumspiration
  • Fall toasties.  I made these WONDERFUL fall treats this past weekend: a slice of sourdough bread spread with some apple and onion jam, topped with a slice of apple and a slice of brie, baked until the brie has melted all over the top of the bread and apple. SO GOOD.
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Good Things

Considering that we are now officially out of eggs – not that we typically eat  eggs, apart from using them in baking, but it’s still making me feel panicky – and considering that Carla came downstairs before my husband and I woke up and made A Glitter Project (i.e. there was glitter all over the counter, the barstools, and the ENTIRE kitchen floor), and considering the ongoing stress of Absolutely Everything Else, I figure it is time for another post about the Good Things.

Easter Bunny Cupcakes

Carla and I did a baking project this week, and I think they turned out to be very charming. Carla very specifically wanted chocolate cake with white frosting and they had to look like bunnies, so we used this recipe for the cake and this recipe for the frosting/bunnies. I only made a half portion of the cake batter, but even so, it barely made seven cupcakes (the full recipe supposedly makes 24). Seven cupcakes is a good amount of cupcakes for our family of three. I have not yet tasted them because it turns out that my quarantine cravings do not include chocolate bunny cupcakes; I’m still on the crunchy-veggies-with-ranch bandwagon and also am enjoying the hell out of tortilla chips dipped in melted American cheese and hot sauce.

Bike Riding Achievement

This week, Carla allowed her father to remove the training wheels from her bike and now… she can just… ride a bike. It is one of those Childhood Milestones that feels so triumphant and important – like learning how to walk, almost – and I know these milestones will be fewer and farther between. It was wonderful, that day, to watch her figure it out all on her own, at her own pace. And then the next day, when we returned to a nearby school parking lot to practice, to see her do it again and crow with jubilation, “I can really ride a bike!” as though the previous day’s achievement might have evaporated with the morning’s unexpected snowfall. It’s given us new purpose for “Exercise Time,” too, which I dutifully plot on Carla’s daily school schedule and then sometimes “forget.” Now, Carla is eager to get outside to ride in great sweeping circles around the empty parking lot, singing Descendants songs under her breath. We have also visited a local nature preserve to walk/ride bikes along the paths… although I find it oftentimes more nerve-wracking than pleasant because there are So Many People doing the same.

Signs of Spring

We’ve been seeing little glimpses of spring for a couple of weeks now, but this week, it arrived in full force. The blooming magnolia trees along our street, the “popcorn” trees with their fluffy white blossoms, the daffodils that seem to be absolutely everywhere – it’s such a cheering and welcome sight. There are some yellow-flowering bushes along our regular walking path that I just love; I think they are forsythia and so the final joyous stanza of C.D. Wright’s “Two Hearts in a Forest” springs to mind every time I pass them.

ForsythiaCD Wright

 

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I don’t know if finding and naming the Good Things is doing anything. For instance, I have been watching John Krasinski’s “Some Good News” show every week and my reaction has been… confusing. I mean, John Krasinski is adorable and charming and the things he shares and the surprises he arranges are SO lovely. But I mainly feel terribly sad when I watch. It’s kind of the same with forcing myself to find/write about my own Good Things. It feels like so very little, and, therefore, heartbreaking in its smallness. These tiny rays of sunshine are up against such a vast expanse of darkness.

However, there’s also HOPE in the good things… and it’s useful to remind oneself that not EVERYTHING is tragic and awful. And it’s good practice for the brain, I think, to prod it into looking through the wreckage for things worth saving. I don’t know. I’m keeping up with it, just like I’m forcing our whole family, at the end of each day, to list a thing — big or small — that we were grateful for. But I certainly don’t think that these Good Things compensate for the bad ones. And I think it’s 100 percent okay if YOU can’t — or don’t want to — find any good things in your day right now.

Anyway, I still feel compelled to find the good things. To record them. To share them. Maybe it’s just useful to remember that there are good things. That there will be good things again.