Hey friends welcome
Hope this finds you doing well.
This week in between work, ferrying the teenagers to what feels like the other side of the earth and back everyday AND sideswiping a bollard in the McDonalds drive thru (yay me), I’ve been tinkering around in my kitchen rearranging a few things, planning more shelves and painting the one I finally put up before Christmas. It’s good medicine to keep the January blahs at bay and my favourite kind of self care. What’s your equivalent of painting a shelf?
As always, I hope this weekend we all find simple ways to rest, recoup and celebrate
Lets start here – – –
A Good Word
A Good Look
I’ve had this screenshot in my phone for about six months and it makes me dreamy happy time every time I come across it. The vibrant colour, the gorgeous mismatched lamps, the wall art and of course the camel in the room!
The owner of this home says “Do you ever have those moments where you ask yourself, “what am I doing with my life?” Well yesterday I drove two hours to a farm in the middle of PA on dirt roads to pick up a very rare vintage Italian camel side table. And rather than question my choices in life, I patted myself on the back for trusting my instincts. It was the unicorn I thought it might be!! Yesterday as I drove my prize home, I literally laughed out loud thinking what the guy in the truck behind me must have thought seeing a grimacing camel in the back window looking him dead in the eyes. Maybe it inspired him to question, “what am I doing with my life?” Because, maybe he thought “That lady in front of me looks like she is having the time of her life and is carrying a random porcelain human-sized camel in her car!” Moral of the story – Life is short. Buy a camel”.
See more of this gorgeousness here
A Good Idea
by Ashley Hales
Yesterday we skied. Then we stopped and walked on a frozen lake and stopped for a drink on the way home.
My children coaxed me to come out on the frozen lake. I was quite happy in the pub — but as with many things, it is the beckoning call of another that helps me practice play and delight.
I wrote in my book “A Spacious Life” how play uncouples us from the cycles of production and escape. How play helps us to remember our deepest identity is as dearly loved children. But play is risky. It feels scary.
Do you have the courage to play — even in this pandemic season?
How could you practice delight in the midst of darkness and never-ending duties?
If you don’t have a frozen lake to cross and look down at trapped bubbles, might I suggest a walk? A run? A YouTube tutorial to try your hand at something new?
We need to be called out from our languishing. We need to both embrace this season of diminishment and figure out how to live in it.
Where could you practice play? I’d love to hear what you’re trying.
Remember it needn’t be large.
It can be as small as reading a chapter of a novel or a new recipe.
A Few Good Reads
From Cabin Granny
Snow Daze
It starts to snow midday as we get ready for our first errand together since recovering. We might have cancelled, if it weren’t important. It hasn’t snowed here since Christmas, yet my first reaction is a vague trepidation. I’m doing the driving until my guy gets stronger. He’s the snow driver. The roads are still gray and wet, the temperature high enough to prevent their freezing . . . so I just breathe. When we come out of the bank the sky is swirling with fat flakes! It is impossible not to be dazzled by them. I look up ‘til I’m almost dizzy.
I think of our first winter trip up to the cabin years ago. Our daughter is visiting us in Boise with her two little girls from the Bocas Islands, Panama. We leave Boise unaware of the storm warnings. It is before our iPhones. My husband had checked the weather the day before, but he’s pretty easy-going about these kinds of things. “It could change two or three times before then.”
We drive out of the city and across farmlands in bright winter sun, then into the woods and along the rivers toward the cabin. We’re nearly halfway in a ten-hour trip. We’ve had lunch and I’m sitting in the back between two car seats telling the girls, “It will be cold when we get there, and we’ll turn on the furnace and Papa will build a fire in the woodstove. We’ll make some popcorn and hot chocolate . . . and wear our sweatshirts over our pajamas and socks this first night, and snuggle to keep warm . . . but by morning the cabin will be all toasty.” It’s still a grand adventure.
It begins to snow. Thick heavy snowflakes, curled like feathers. In minutes the sky disappears into whiteness – – – keep reading
From the New York Times
10 New Year’s Resolutions That Are Good for the Soul
I accomplished zero percent of my New Year’s resolutions last year. I’m obviously no sage of discipline. But I’d argue that the chief value of resolutions is not found in our success or failure at keeping them. Instead, they help us reflect on what our lives are like, what we would like them to be like and what practices might bridge the difference. There is goodness then in the very process of making resolutions. There is hope in the idea that we can change — that we can keep growing, learning and trying new things. This hope of renewal is the point of resolutions for me.
For 2022, I became curious about what resolutions I might adopt that would help my soul. The practice of spiritual resolutions is not new. In the 18th century, Jonathan Edwards, known for his fiery sermons and his mention in “Hamilton” as Aaron Burr’s grandfather — the “fire and brimstone preacha – made a list of spiritual resolutions and reviewed them weekly.
They began, “Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions.”
So with Edwards’s caveat and prayer as my own, I asked for help in thinking about resolutions that would benefit our souls, as individuals, or that would help the “soul” of our nation and our world. I asked friends who are pastors, writers, scholars and spiritual leaders to offer suggested “reSOULutions” for 2022
– – – keep reading
It’s summer here but we’re having a lot of coldish wet days that have me all confused so soup seems like a good idea. The picture convinced me this one will be my next fav. Let’s see
From Alison Roman
PORK NOODLE SOUP WITH BROCCOLI RABE AND FENNEL
While I haven’t had bangs since I was in my early 20’s, I frequently have the urge to “get bangs.” I don’t mean literally get bangs (this face could never), I mean something I can do that’s in my control at this very moment that will have a relatively meaningless yet immediate and significant impact.
Yesterday, while I didn’t actually get bangs, I “got bangs” when I manically removed all the hardware of my old IKEA cabinets, then took it one step further by removing two of the cabinets themselves. I love using a power drill, it gives me a fantastic sense of accomplishment. So powerful! So much drilling.
I fantasized about doing this nearly every day– I was never that comfortable with the “new” fixtures of this otherwise old-feeling and absolutely dreamy apartment. The clean-looking cabinetry is there to hide the mess, sure, but also hide the things that make me, me. The half-used jars of coconut oil and ghee next to the popcorn and nutritional yeast, the scratched-up melamine bowls courtesy of my insomnia-fueled Etsy purchases. The glasses I spent too much money on but enjoy drinking my water from as it really elevates the experience, the stacked measuring cups, the mismatched plates, the 82 different types of beans. I love to expose those things, proud to have them on display despite the chaos and disorder and disfunction they may belie. Oh god– I’m using the cabinets as a metaphor for myself and I am sorry!
Anyway, just like getting bangs, I don’t *think* it was a huge mistake, I think it looks better, I think I like it. It looks sort of unfinished, a little unkempt, a bit like a mistake– but also more lived in, warmer, more like “me”. It’s still a work in progress (JUST LIKE ALL OF US, I’ll stop), but a good fix for someone who doesn’t want to commit thousands of dollars to an apartment they don’t own – – – keep reading
That’s all for now friends. Have a beautiful weekend. Rest up. Do something you luv. xx
Water Into Wine 