A Friday ritual: a single photo, unaccompanied by explanation, which captures “a simple, special, extraordinary moment…I want to pause, savor and remember.” ~SouleMama
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If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.
March in VA is pretty unpredictable. The other day, it was a balmy 70 degrees, this morning we awoke to an inch of snow on the ground! But, since we do live in VA and our state isn’t as good as others in handling snow “emergencies,” my work always operates under a delayed opening to give VDOT a little more time to clear the roads. Which is great, since it gives me a few more hours in the morning to do farm chores!
I normally don’t get to feed the chickens in the mornings during the week because they’re “lazy” and don’t come out of the coop until the sun comes up. And if I throw food out to entice them to carpe mane (not sure if that’s a thing or not, but just roll with it) the pigs eat it instead (they know how to carpe mane). So this morning I was able to give the kittens and pigs food and fill up watering apparatuses, come back inside and eat my own breakfast, and then feed the chickens after the sun finally came out. We were also able to get some more seeds started!
So here’s to small victories, in hopes that spring will be here to stay! Enjoy a shot or two of whisky (as opposed to green beer) in celebration and remembrance of the “saint” (technically was never canonised, but he was still a good dude).
A Friday ritual: a single photo, unaccompanied by explanation, which captures “a simple, special, extraordinary moment…I want to pause, savor and remember.” ~SouleMama
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If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.
A Friday ritual: a single photo, unaccompanied by explanation, which captures “a simple, special, extraordinary moment…I want to pause, savor and remember.” ~SouleMama
**********
**********
If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.
“A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.” ~SouleMama
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**********
If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Well, today was a pretty productive day, especially for a Saturday. As you can see, I’m actually writing a blog post!
So here’s the day so far:
We woke up at 7:30 am. Not just L, but both of us! This never happens. Most of the time I have a gig on Friday so I don’t get home until 3, so my normal Saturday wake up time is around 11ish. But last night I had no gig – we made dinner, caught up on some Stephen Colbert, and went to bed at a normal time.
So L made coffee (Mobjack Bay Coffee) and left to go to some garage sales, I whipped up some bread batter and set it aside to let it rise, pulled out a copy of my thesis that my advisor had scribbled red ink all over, and began to brew beer. A couple weeks ago I purchased a new brew kettle – 8 gallon capacity, stainless steel, with a spigot. I’ve been itching to try it out but hadn’t had much time (stupid thesis…), but I have been working pretty hard lately and figured I could address the red ink issues with one eye while keeping the other eye on the kettle. I got the water heating up and began to work on my edits. After a while, the water had reached 155 degrees (F), so I added my grains for steeping, set the timer, and continued to work.
WV woke up around 9:30, but he wasn’t all that cranky so I changed his diaper and let him run around the kitchen in his walker until L got back (and she made delicious pancakes and sausage patties). After the wort was finished boiling, I took it out on the porch to let it cool while I took a trip to the dump. Don’t worry, it was covered so nothing could get in the beer. By the time I got back home from the dump, the wort had cooled enough where I felt comfortable transferring it to the primary fermenter. All I had to do was open the spigot and let it go!
So now I’ve got a batch of pale ale fermenting, two loaves of bread ready to go into the oven, fixed the red ink issues, and the trash and recyclables are out of the house. Doing an acoustic gig tonight, then I get to spend tomorrow with my family (and maybe work on my figures).
This weekend was quite full. It can be separated into two, admittedly mama-biased, categories:
1. WV said his first legit word.
2. Everything else.
First word: DADA!!!
Oh laws, I can not, I can not! I’m just busting with pride.
We say, “Walter, can you say ‘dada’?”
He smiles. “DADA!”
We say, “Walter, can you say mama?”
He gives a coy look, “DADA!”
So, erm, we know he’s responding, and it’s technically a word. Buuut, I don’t think it’s attached to dada yet. The thing that really differentiates it from other babblings and cooings and gushings is that he is doing it on purpose, after we ask and he knows he’s repeating something we specifically say to him. We’ve had “back-and-forths” before, but it was more of the “gah, gah, snort, burble” ilk – cute, fun, he’s learning, but no real words. I’d had tried a while back doing vowel sounds to see if he’d mimic them back. Nope. Oh well. This time, he’s repeatedly repeating back the word. So. Dang. Proud.
And onto “everything else.”
It’s been a quiet, productive, cozy weekend.
W’s been working hard on his thesis – every now and then he’ll emerge from his office to rant about test-grids and phi-lines merging with Cartesian coordinates while pointing to a blow-up globe I gave him.
It was raining hard when I woke up on both Saturday and Sunday, which has been less than delightful. But later during Saturday morning the rain did pause and I quick found a garage sale on line that started at 10am. Perfect! I left the boys sleeping in bed, made a few wrong turns, but found it. Spent exactly $1 on a Daffodil Festival poster, which I am pleased to own – the Daffodil Festival is a Gloucester springtime tradition. Gloucester, didn’t you know, is the daffodil capital of the US! There’s a craft fair, zillions of daffodils sold in bunches and an accompanying 5k that my best friend and I have run several times. The posters are always wicked expensive so I never buy one, but now I have a happy souvenir to remind me of all the Daffodil Fest 5ks we’ve done. I think maybe I’ll sign me and The Walters up for this year’s 5k come to think of it. We have to break in our Bob running stroller!
Despite the dreary rain, there are some signs of spring just making me itch to go outside! Our yard is one perpetual soggy mess; I would love it to be dry enough to sit outside on the ground with WV, but alas. However, the garden is in progress in our bedroom instead – W rigged up a grow lamp and it has accelerated the process of seedlings peeping their shy first leaves out from beneath the soil. I think our March dual-post will be all things garden-starting, so I won’t say more. The spring peepers have started their cliche-ing-ly incessant crepuscular chatter, too, which is exciting and makes me think of balmy nights! And we’ve left the porch door open to let in the outside (and vice versa) and turned off the heaters a few times. I even sat with WV in the rocker out on the porch for almost an hour talking to an old VIMS friend, whom I hadn’t spoken with in a while! So great to catch up and breath fresh air.
We took a few dog walks, picking between the rain drops, and we (mostly WV) took several naps. He’s getting so big.
Of course, no weekend is a weekend unless replete with too many cooking endeavors: an insanely tasty apple chicken salad (from a fellow foodie friend – I’ll check with her to see if she’s cool with me broadcasting the recipe), whole wheat pancakes, 8 pizza doughs (to be pizza’d this week), to name a few. WV also had his first pork – I smashed it up with apples (he now eats them incorporated with other flavors) and breast milk and added avocados once and another time, carrots. I also made mushed (boiled, then finely shredded) chicken with broccoli and bananas for him. I kind of want to eat baby food from now on – it was all delish!
Hrm…some other housey things I did in my “free” time? I’m trying to keep up with my book group book, Einstein Never Used Flashcards, by reading while BFing. We drooled over a silly posh-farmer catalogue that showed up in our mail box and agreed we could make everything ourselves. For our farm. I also sorted out a bunch of baby items to consign and then proceeded to miss the deadline to sign up for the local kids’ consignment sale (in my defense, they don’t appear to state the deadline on their website). I bought a mini-tube of super glue and went about the house a-gluin’ all the things I had made a mental note to mend over the past, say, 2 years. It may sound mundane, but small but attainable goals run this household. On my list: a milk-glass (love!) candlestick my Aunt gave me that had cracked in half when the candle burned too low, a magnet that had lost it’s magnet with a picture of my sister spitting water (she’d kill me if I showed the actual pic), the ceramic knob that informatively says “shower” and turns the shower on and off which was broken exactly in half, and a large chunk of a plant pot’s drainage dish that I kept propping up and would continually get knocked off by an animal. 
Tonight, we stayed in, missing a sure-to-be awesome concert in Richmond that our friend’s band, Handsome Molly, was playing. But tomorrow I may go to Richmond to have brunch with her and mah BF! Looking forward to it!
Saturday mornings are sacred. You’re in the weekend – but most of it spreads languidly, invitingly before you. You wake up when you want. If I’m up early (99.9% of the time), there’s always a good (as I see it) reason. Coffee, glorious coffee. Preferably in my attitude adjustment mug. From May to November, I’ll get up at 7am to hit up the local farmers markets (Yorktown, Williamsburg) and then squeeze in a garage sale…oh, I love browsing through people’s stuff. It’s just that this area doesn’t have many ballin’ garage sales. Catching Car Talk and Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me (back-to-back starting at 10am on our local station) is one of W and my favorite things to do. When training for a race, those long pre-noon miles feel pretty darn sweet.
This morning I was up at 5:45 am because 1) it snowed last night, 2)WV needed a breast milk top-off, and 3) a parliament of owls were hooting outside my window. It was too magical to fall back to sleep. The snow began and intensified as I was on a walk with WV to the end of my favorite road yesterday. Snow-infused view of the York, white-out conditions obliterating the far Yorktown bank, it looked like the sea. W actually came looking for us because of our absence in blizzard-y conditions, thank goodness! WV was safely cush and cocooned in blankets and gurgling but my fingers were getting cold (still a half mile from home) guiding the stroller (garage sale find!) down icy Guinea roads!
Further explanation of above numerical list:
1)WV had a squash incident late in the evening which
necessitated a postprandial bath and my mamma instincts
said not to take a walk in “it” again by the time we
were done at 10pm – I watched W and the girls go out
and imagined what the house looked like from the snow –
our all-year round house lights blinking angelically
gingerbread. Ahh! I vowed to witness it before the
snowplow/sand truck dutifully ruined it all.
2) After WV was milkdrunk and nestled peacefully, the
extra reflective glow of snow out the window, I just felt
UP! I left the Walters to their zz’z.
3) I never, ever miss a chance to try to spy an owl.
They are creatures of endless allure. One night while I was pregnant, an owl, brief, silent fluff, buzzed me on an evening walk and it felt like a Harry Potter movie, no joke. Now I’m chasing that feeling. I tend to look at the crooks of branches just where they join trunks – for some reason (childhood cartoons?) that’s where I think they will be. No luck, yet, but hearing their call-and-response “who-who-whoooooo” is enough to keep that dream alive. It was the perfect auditory backdrop to watching the sun rise through the trees on the banks of the York.
A lovely Saturday to you!!!
True Love and Homegrown 