Iced Tea Chat: Oh Just Lots of Things

Hello everyone!  How are you doing this summer  almost holiday  weekend?  Come on in and let's chat a bit.  There's a Raspberry Pomegranate sun tea, and good old fashioned black tea.  There's mint fresh from my herb bed, lemon or lime and plenty of ice to go in any drink you might choose.  

Let's try this once again.  I had a post well started but it turned into a short complaint list, couched in humor, but complaints nonetheless.  Not at all where I meant to go nor where I want to go this day.   I was stopped short by a phone call that  shifted the axis of our world every so slightly more to the tilt-a-whirl space it's been in all of 2020 and then suddenly I was like "Phooey on you too, July," shrugged my shoulders and totted it up to just one more 2020 occurrence.   Seriously, this year has tossed us this way and that thus far and after a while it does begin to seem just a bit more normal every day, what the hey, here we go.  Why get in a kerfuffle?  I settled instead to making a few phone calls, had a conversation with John and then came in and had lunch.  

And that's when I decided it was time to start my iced tea chat afresh and give up the complaints.  So I erased all that went before and we'll start over.  

I was up about 8am this morning and made the bed right away.  I got dressed before I left the room.  I've found more and more that I am far more motivated to get to work if I take time to do these two things.   It's amazing how well it works.  Just let me slip from my room into the kitchen sitting to have coffee in my nightie and I promise you I will suddenly become aware it's pushing on towards 10am and I've done nothing all morning long.

Now I might well take my time with coffee once I'm dressed but I seem to get busy a whole lot sooner, being aware that I am officially 'up'.     

This morning I was making oatmeal for breakfast and  I went right ahead and started that before I sat down to have coffee.  John has a habit of asking me at night what we'll have for breakfast in the morning.  Well, honestly 11pm isn't necessarily the best time to ask me what meals I've planned for the next day but it so happened I had given it thought.  I had decided I wanted oatmeal, something we eat a lot less in summer than in cooler seasons.  I haven't yet made the overnight oats but I'm not sure how John would take to those.  He's not a complainer but he can be a bit picky about foods that are in different forms than he's accustomed to see them.  

For instance, just today I made a roast beef salad out of cubes of beef, pickle relish and mayonnaise with a touch of horseradish.  I've seen the 'recipe' for years in older cookbooks and I thought it sounded like something we'd enjoy eating.  Typically I serve sliced beef with mayo and horseradish and pickles.  When John asked 'What's for lunch?" and I told him, he asked me "Why?  Why do you experiment on me?"  I asked him, "What about this is experimental?  You LIKE roast beef, you LIKE pickles, you like mayonnaise and horseradish.  It's just mixed up together instead of being layered separately on the bread."   And for the record, after lunch, he did confess "Well that was pretty good."

Now I'm rather used to this.  Maddie has been good training for me.  I have never fed this dog any food I wasn't perfectly willing to eat myself, but offer her anything other than her favorite dry dog food and dog biscuits and she curls one side of her lip, lets her tail drop to the ground, lays her ears back, looks askance at me and backs off.  Seriously, I ask her, "And I've poisoned you how many times thus far in 13 years?"   I kind of want to ask John the same.  "I've served you crappy food how many times in 28 years?"  Two.  He can tell you both recipes and we've never ever had them again.  Considering that for the greater majority of our years I put out three meals a day, seven days a week, that's a pretty doggone good record!

Will I serve him roast beef salad again?  Yes.  We have one serving of it left,  but not likely again any time soon once that is gone.  We don't eat roast beef that often in summer...This meal was John's idea (the beef one that I used leftovers from) and not my choice.  I was just trying to use up the leftovers in a more summer-y sort of way. 

This week has been a week.  I've noted that the last two weeks seem to have run by me at a faster pace than they have in months now.  I was dropping Caleb off at home and I said "I'll see you on Monday..." and Chad said "What?...Wait today's Friday.  The week has gone by fast!"  I agreed with him.  John and I had said the same thing that morning.  I can honestly say it again today, now this day is nearly done.  The week has gone by quickly.  

I had a very quiet day to myself on Sunday, and that was my third time in a week.  No, John is not working at all anymore but he went off to run errands with Chad twice and then mowed Sam's yard on Saturday.  It was kind of nice to have time to myself.  I worked hard one day, slipped out to go thrift shopping one day and then on Saturday had the day to myself at home.    The nicest part was having the TV turned off completely.   Quiet is hard come by.  It's very restorative.  I needed that very much.

I also got lost in a good book, which was one of the things I wanted to happen.  It was lovely.  I mean that sincerely.  I don't know about anyone else, but for me, it's been hard these last few years to get lost in a book.   Bess' mom had sent me a paperback copy of Winter Solstice , the only Rosamunde Pilcher book I hadn't read.  I enjoyed it so much.  It helped a lot that the bulk of the book takes place just about Christmas...Have I shared before how very much I like to read wintry sorts of books in the heat of summer?  Well, I do.  I find it keeps me from thinking about how hot it is.

Admittedly it wasn't really hot those two weeks. If I recall aright one day it was barely 70F outdoors all day long.   But Monday it heated up and went over 100F...That was the day to begin a good wintry read but I had started two more books at that point and didn't want to pull out a third one to begin.  My attention span has it's limits.

On Monday, I  found, buried in a drawer, a set of paper dolls I'd forgotten I even had.  They are Mary Englebreit and some of them were purchased as a set but the bulk were torn from the back of her magazine which I'd subscribed to for a year once upon a time.   I'm taking my time cutting them out and dreaming of the days when the little girl me had a big deep shoebox filled with all sorts of paper dolls.  I had Barbie paper dolls that were clipped from coloring books of my childhood as well as a set of very old fashioned baby doll paper dolls and a whole set of Little Women dolls and oh so many more!  I spent hours and hours playing with my paper dolls.  

Neither of my girls were interested in playing with them.  I don't know that my granddaughters will ever love them as I did.  But I did and I decided it was worthwhile to go ahead and cut them out and play with them myself.  

I came to another conclusion as well.  Years ago, after hearing how much Mama had loved a china doll she had as a little girl, I purchased a lovely china doll and gave it to her for Christmas.  It is truly a lovely doll and Mama gasped when she opened the box.   However, she gave the doll back to me a couple of years ago.  John's cousin came to visit and brought a baby doll bed that their grandfather had made.  My doll fits in it just beautifully.  The bed is an old fashioned canopy framed bed.  There's the doll and the bed.  Not one granddaughter or grandchild cares one whit about that doll or that bed...but I have decided I'm going to make bedding and a few clothes for my doll and I'm going to play with her a bit myself.  Why not?  

I'd love to find a doll house and furnish it for myself too.  No, I'm not interested in reliving my childhood, most decidedly not, but I would like to have a little play time.

Monday I spent a lot of time working on Gathering My Fragments.  I got the idea from Amy Maryon who has made it an almost weekly feature.  Her goal is to clear her fridge and freezer of odds and ends that might go to waste, or go unused and at the same time, she tries to create meals that will carry them through the weekend.  She will spend all Friday morning in the kitchen prepping and then she has a weekend off cooking which is a major feat when you're feeding 8 or more.

Well my results have fed us most of this week with ease.  I've only cooked one other meal this week and that was last night's requested meal of  boneless beef short ribs cooked as a pot roast.  I used an entree from the freezer for another night but for the most part, our meals have come from the food prepped on Monday and I think that's pretty good.

Mostly I find myself at loose ends.  I'm either terribly busy with the house or terribly frustrated at my lack of ability to get to the bigger tasks done in yard or home.  The truth is that old adage remains as applicable to this stage of life as it was to any other: If you have plenty of money, you haven't got the time and if you've got plenty of time, you haven't got the money.   And there we are.  

There's a season of being busy coming up.  Katie's nursery closes for three weeks in summer usually but is closing 11 days early so for the next month I am baby sitting Caleb.  He's not a troublesome baby but I don't feel over inclined to drag him about and do things during the days I'll have him.  So I'll be home even more than usual this month.  And I expect I'll be a little bit busier, too, because he's rolling about these days and he enjoys moving.  

I'm going to have the boys tomorrow morning for a play date.  I'd planned to have them once a week here in July and I may still try that but I'll see how it goes.  I'm learning more and more at this age that sometimes, it's best to wait and add on slowly rather than decide to add in lots of things at once.  I say yes if I can to the things that require an immediate answer and wait on those that aren't emergency situations.     

I call this sort of behavior, "Giving myself grace..."  Rather than beat myself up because I'm over tired and over strained and everyone wants something right now, I am taking it slower.  If I feel the need to sleep in a little in the morning, I sleep in.  If I don't feel well, I will give myself permission to have a much slower day than I might otherwise allow.  If I don't have time enough to do something, I say "No, I'm sorry," and I don't let guilt even think about rearing it's ugly head.  If I don't feel up to making a meal, I'll offer up something that's easy on me like nachos or sandwiches, even if we did have such at lunch time.  

In the past, if I was asked to do something, only 'Yes' was an acceptable answer.   I felt compelled to serve three hot meals even if I had put out two meals already.  I pushed to do things even when I felt really lousy and resented the task and everybody nearby even while I was the only one pushing me hard.  I stewed in my own upsets and guilt and resentments and for what?  For absolutely no good at all.   So yes, I've come to realize that grace is not just something we need to extend to others.  It's something we need to extend to ourselves, as well.   I've not been my worst enemy but I have been one of my own enemies for years.  I'm tired of being at war within myself, I am truly.  There are enough battles in this world that must be fought without fighting yourself 24/7.  

Playing, reading, quiet, music, flowers, plants, grandchildren, good food, homemaking in the sense of making a place look pleasant... These things I enjoy and most are available for little or no money.  I can't purchase landscape material just now or big pots or even perennials but I can afford seed.  I planted a second lot of flower seeds and I'm nursing and tending tenderly to those things that I've been able to grow or keep alive over winter.   I'm keeping my eyes open for free or thrift store finds that might well be used in my yard or home.   I have a load of books on my Kindle as well as on my shelves and I am reading.  Sometimes when I need a longer break from things, I'll sit on the porch and listen to the birds sing.  I'm looking at more creative things to do, like making doll clothes and pretty aprons.   I'm puttering around my home trying to adjust what I already own so that it is truly pleasing to my eye.  It's helping me to withstand the floods that threaten to push me under and keep me there.  

But I wasn't in that place two weeks ago.  No indeed.  Things had gotten pretty hard with me and I would find tears pouring down my face at the least little thing and sometimes for no reason at all.  There was a day or two when I seriously considered crawling back in the bed and staying there until the next day showed it's sunny face.   It got to the point that I honestly considered finding a counselor and going through therapy.

I have nothing at all against therapy.  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt...but I didn't want to go back there for various reasons and the biggest one of all was the great amount of effort it would take to explain myself to yet another stranger.  To dig through all the history and the hysteria and the breakdowns and the depressions and the sheer volume of things we've faced in the last 6 years...And that was the deal breaker.  I don't want to go through it all again for the benefit of another to understand me.  I've been through it all and enough is enough.  

By the same token, I was not giving in to that old black cloud of depression either.  And so I had to renew my knowledge with what I know I need, as in need.  Not what I want, not what I think I want but what I've learned over the years I need in order to feel secure, quietened and peaceful.  They aren't connected to our financial state nor our circumstances per se.  They are, for the most part there for the taking in one way or another.  And that's grace, too.  Reaching out to take the things that are there waiting.  

The feel of warm sun upon skin, the sound of a Quail's mating call and the return call that has a soothing rhythm.  The glorious emerald or topaz of a dragonfly.  A flower opening and releasing it's scent.  The quiet meditative work of folding clean clothes that smell of fresh air.  Or clipping about a paper doll's dress.  Appreciating the summer blue sky with white clouds piled high.  The freshness that comes with rain.  A meal that is both nourishing and delicious, with an added pleasure if you know it's a seasonal and frugal one, as well.  Taking time to undo all the homey things that have been mildly irritating and rearranging them, adding to or eliminating items ,until you know it's just right.  The wonder of turning something grungy into shining cleanliness.   These are the grace notes of every single day.  

I lamented not long ago that it had been a great while since I'd seen anything magical.   I was wrong. That very week I stepped out on the back porch at dusk and seen the most awesome sunset sky and fireflies so bright and big that they seemed unreal.  And then Bess stepped in the gap between the trees and walked across the yard with Millie strapped to her chest and my heart swelled.  That was magical.  It was a wondrous moment and it was shared with someone I love dearly.

And then the day we went on a picnic, in the rain yet, and watched Bald Eagles fly about the lake.   I've lived 61 years and been to the river and lake many times but never once saw a Bald Eagle, but I saw two that day.

I guess I'll wind this up here.   You all will think I've been super chatty, posting three posts at once here but truly this was meant to go out last night not today.  We shall see how the rest of July goes.  I've a little boy to keep for the next month during the days.