I hurry, hurry to get things done...

"Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day."~Elizabeth Bowen

I am so ready for spring.  So ready.  Yesterday a sign as a flock of sandhill cranes flew over head with their unmistakable call.  I ran to the door, to step out onto the porch, looked up to see their formation overhead against a clear blue sky.  My heart sang. 

I look out the window now at a clear day…and oh so much brown and grey yet.  The landscaping this year is going to be a challenge, and a chore.  There is so much to do! I am excited by it and feeling slightly overwhelmed.  I did my usual January/February perusal of some gardening sites, made a list of plants, thought about pots and planters.  Walked around the yard to begin a list of the areas to concentrate…can I just put down “four sides of the house”?

We just returned from a short vacation, business related, to Jamaica.  To see bright colors, hear moving water…glorious.  Inspiring even and that may be why I am feeling it so much today…that itch to get outside and get started.  I hold myself back on these “Fooled ya!” early springlike days to keep from digging into the dirt but oh, I plan.

I hope to surround the house in color this year.  There will be loads of dirt and rock to contend with but also plants and flowers.  I am starting completely over in the moon garden area as the soil there needs a bit more help, and well, we’ve lost a couple trees over the winter which is going to change the sunlight and I hope will give me a couple more options for planting.  This area is really important to me, however, so its made its way back to number one, may two,  on my list. I’m also going to be using a “dry creek bed” design for one of the downspout areas and have, oh maybe 50 pictures saved on Pinterest.  Hubs keeps reminding me he has to drive the lawn tractor through this area so not to get carried away.

 

Late winter always brings yard clean-up as the first activity..sticks, sticks and more sticks. The deer have been active in our yard this winter and leave their proof everywhere.  Raking, burning and more sticks.  Hubs and I started the perusal of the yard, the listing of the many projects we still have yet to finish and even had to call in a downed tree on the power lines yesterday.  More wood to cut up.  On top of the more routine annual projects we still have the deck railing and stairs to build. 2018 is going to busy it seems!  But, yet, it was gentle and warm enough before the sun went down last evening for us to sit down by the lake, watch the full moon rise and look out to a single, playful loon.  Nice to slow it down, 2018. Nice. 

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Do you boil?

Last week we went through a couple additional days of some very intense snow, maybe another 12 to 14”.  It wasn’t, as the weather man reminded us, a blizzard as there was no wind, no whiteouts, but it was cold and lots and lots of snow.

That did not deter us from having a family get-together, share some seafood and good times.  This particular event is better outside, I must say, as it is kind of messy.  But, it was also lots of fun and good eating.  For those of you who see my Facebook page a couple of these pictures may look familiar.  It’s not the first time we have done a seafood boil, and also not the biggest crowd.  I didn't realize I was on a two-year schedule with these boils but that's what Facebook tells me. Key to the seafood boil is friends, family and a willingness to eat with your hands!

I have a few non-seafood eaters in the family.  I know, right? We had pizza for the kids and adults (1, there was 1) that didn’t want seafood.  There was also a fair amount of wine and beer, which is perfect with seafood, and homebaked French bread, which was also perfect.  I did all the shopping ahead of time but in the past have folks bring a bag of shrimp, crab legs or smoked sausage to dump in.  I included corn, onion, lemon, crab boil seasoning and new potatoes.  We served 13 adults and there was some left over, but, I admit…this is not good leftover stuff. Keep in mind the shrimp and crab are already cooked so I just thawed those bags of goodness and layer on top, maybe long enough to steam up a bit.  (Full disclosure.  This time I used two roasters and one had better shrimp than the other as it was in the boil less time.)

After layering the dining room table with paper and removing all the chairs…that’s right, you had to stand, and providing plates for those that just really wanted/needed a plate, and three rolls of paper towels.  A big bowl, huge, a hand me down from my late mother-in-law, in the center for shells and corn cobs, half eaten potatoes.  Yes, the potatoes with your hands, too.  Just grab it and bite.  3 cast iron skillets for butter and a couple bowls of just mixed cocktail sauce.  You get the idea ~ it’s a free for all.

We had a good time.  A nephew discovered the key to removing large slivers of crab from the legs and handed it to others gathered around the table, to make sure everyone had their fill, cause he's like that, bless his servant heart.   We were barbarians.  The Olympics on in the background, kids supervising kids, and life is good, folks, life is good.

The 2018 Indoor Crab Boil - 13 Adults and a good time. 

2016 Crab Boil - my pot overflows. 

2014 Crab Boil for 4th of July for about 30 adults -
with grilled asparagus even 

2012 - For family and visitors
with cod fillets instead of sausage

2010 First Crab Boil

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Journal Journey Part 2

Alright, so, I’m going to share some pages of my journal.  Don’t pay attention to the mistakes and the smears…that’s all part of it being okay.  Trying not to be too perfect as our days change, plans change, weather changes….all of that.  Just cross it out and make a new entry.

If you have looked online at some of the recommendations for journaling, you will see that they really get into doodles and design.  Now, I am a doodler from way back so have a bit of that incorporated but not a lot.   I expect that to follow, honestly, as soon as I get over the frugality issue I have with “ruining pages”.  Right now I also use titles on the pages, which, quite frankly is a waste of time as it is obvious what those pages are…but, you know, start big then whittle it down.  I’ve already whittled down many things to make it more functional for me, but, you get to do what you want.  Some people like charts and graphs, others like simple lists.  

I recently saw a new doctor and she changed a few things, wants to change some other stuff and introduced a new practice for me to monitor blood sugar.  She spoke quickly, had a beautiful European accent that took me a minute, and covered both what she wanted to change and what she was actually changing in the same sentence.  Because she also asked me a lot of “Why did they do that?” and “When was that change?” I knew I needed to write it all down as soon as she walks out of the room.  I also copied it into my new journal as soon as I got home.  Next time, I will take the journal with me to avoid having to do twice, but, because I think it may come up when I see my family doctor in March, I wanted to be able to reference it and be fairly confident I have the correct information.  There’s benefit to using an index you create along the way, too. So, number your pages!  

Finally, today the last thing I want to share, and I am not posting a picture here as it is a little more personal, is the word or brain dump.  I read an article recently that we all wake up with a jumble of  words in our heads, brain tangles, swirling around, interrupting our day, guiding our thoughts and can be stumbling blocks. The article suggested we write these words down, dump them on to paper, as soon as we wake up, or shortly thereafter, to get a clean slate.  I have thoughts that pop in to my head all the time and I think “Oh, I’m going to need to call them” or “I need to check on that” and poof, they are gone within an hour.  I use the word dump in two ways:  when I wake up, to untangle my overnight brain and throughout the day as thoughts or ideas pop up.  Now, for me, this can be a crazy doodle-filled page or pages…I simply leave the journal out and open, with a pen or pens nearby.  These pages would make little sense to someone who happened across it.  I am training myself to “write that down” instead of “filing it away for later”.  My files are full, people.  Follow up has always been a weak spot for me and it’s in direct conflict with being intentional.  (Interestingly, word dumping is a both a positive and negative term in writing a novel, for example.  Some use a brain dump for outlines and ideas - good. Actual writing which results in too much information at one time - bad.)  Your brain dump can be a list, or just explosions on a page, complete sentences or just one word.  It’s yours, do what you want, but,  get those ideas and thoughts out there! 

It really is all you, for you, by you.  One of my favorite things has been drawing out my calendar pages every month, so I like having a journal with blank pages.  Others might prefer to have formats already laid out for them; there are plenty of those out there, too.  I heard that Michaels has recently designated a new section of journaling aids…haven’t checked it out personally, but, I will. 

My March calendar looks different than my February because I separated the weekends out.  There's room for a task list, too, or reminders or menu ideas..whatever I want. 

I use both a monthly layout and a weekly.  I do not anticipate having this entire task list once I get my routine down but getting on top of my "shtuff" is what started the whole journal journey to begin with.  

             

This is a pretty rough page or two and is where I started.  I had gifts to return to stores, to mail and seldom purchased items to pick up (like double A batteries and floodlight bulbs).  I also was super bored with what I had been cooking so dumped all my recent meals and ideas.  Found out I really wasn't cooking the same three dishes over and over again like it seemed, but I was cooking similar things.  Time to shake things up. 

A continuation of my winter meal ideas and also a listed overview of the month of February.  This is the page I am not sure I will keep doing going forward.  And you can also see my haphazard doodles.  You also don't need all this color but you know me.  I'm a color junkie.  

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