Ten Days of Little Celebrations - August 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for August 2014.

The weekly pickup at the CSA. Somehow the pickup every Wednesday afternoon become something to look forward to….a celebration of the food bounty near at hand.

Weight. I decided to take off about 8 pounds and am thrilled that my diet/exercise plan I used a year ago to take off a pound a week...still works. I am celebrating the loss of over 4 pounds so far!

Tomatoes of any varieties are abundant in the CSA shares now. I find myself drawn to the tomatoes that are a change of pace from the traditional red one. Somehow the large yellow or purplish heirloom tomatoes seem extra special….worthy of continued celebration.

Fruit beety. This was on my celebration list last month too. I had frozen a batch I couldn’t eat right away - and I enjoyed eating it this month!

 Watermelon. I discovered that watermelon, mint, and frozen cucumber smoothies are one of my favorite summer afternoon treats…and it is even better because it fits on my weight-loss diet.

Home again. Being away from home for two weeks in late July/early August caused me to appreciate returning….a homecoming celebration.

Photography class. I celebrated the online photography class from several perspectives: the learning experience, a new source of courses, and as an activity I shared with my husband.

Symmetry and tiles. The Symmetry class I am taking on Coursera has led to other activities and I am still getting more ideas!  I am enjoying the course plus the historical books about tiles I found on the Internet Archive plus I’m going to take a local class on tiling to enable some creative projects! I’m celebrating the serendipity of it all.

Centennial Lake. My husband walks around the lake on mornings when the weather is good. I went with him last weekend and celebrated the place: the natural beauty, the wide diversity of people enjoying the path and fishing….and the prospect of seeing the leaves turn over the next few months.

Robin. The robin that has become territorial about my deck may be misguided….but I appreciate the bird’s presence. She has become part of the place. 

Fireworks

One of the communities near us sponsored a fireworks display last Saturday. We had gotten a postcard in the mail several weeks ago and agreed to go but forgot until we heard the fireworks begin. Fortunately we were able to drive to a good vantage point quickly - only missing the first 10 minutes or so. Fireworks and celebration are almost synonymous!

I grabbed my camera as we dashed out of the house and was pleased with the results. The Canon Powershot SX289 HS does a reasonable job of image stabilization. All the pictures in the slide show below were hand held!

The finale was a series of rockets that streamed upward in tight formation creating giant ‘sparklers’ in the sky. I couldn’t resist a picture of the super moon  after the end of the fireworks; it is included as the last image in the slide show. It looks like it is balanced on the tops of a tulip poplar and a pine.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - June 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for June 2014. I’ve categorized them into 4 groups: outdoors, food, and courses and people.

Outdoors

Oak trimming (and discovering the oak marble). Finishing the annual trimming of the oak was worth a celebration but it was made even better this year with the finding of the oak marble. It was the first time I had ever seen anything like tit.

Therapy bush trimming. There is always some to be learned about myself during time spent trimming the bush. I celebrated that it happened this month (and look forward to at least one more time during the summer).

Brookside. We walk around Brookside at least once a month and it is always enjoyable but with the construction going on this summer we are looking for alternatives. I celebrated June’s visit since it will be the last one to Brookside for a few months.

Green tomatoes. My deck garden has gotten off to a reasonably good start. I have 11 tomatoes on two plants! I’m celebrating their progress and hope to report other colors soon (and then move them to the ‘food celebration’ category.

Food

Community Support Agriculture. My first experience with the CSA has been worth celebrating. The fresh veggies are getting eaten.

Watermelon. I didn’t wait for the local melons. The grocery store had a bin and the one I got was excellent.

Kale chips. They taste good - and are nutritious too! Even my husband - not usually big on veggies - liked them.

Courses

Thought provoking classes - The Paradoxes of War class I started this month on Cousera has been very thought provoking….and I am celebrating that I signed up for it.

The survival of people in harsh reality - The Nubians survived harsh climate and the Ancient Egyptians to produce their vibrant culture - that’s the main take away from The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Nubia course that I just finished on Coursera. I am celebrating their accomplishment; they help us realize that the ancient Egyptians were not the only ancient people to apply extreme creativity toward improving their lives.

People

People. There are so many people related celebration days this month that were highlighted by Father’s Day, telephone calls from (and to) family members and meeting new people.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - May 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for May 2014.

Daughter’s visit. What’s not to like about having a daughter around! It was a very short visit - every part was a celebration of family.

Jack-in-the-Pulpits. This was the first year I found them blooming at the forest’s edge in our yard. These plants always seem special to me because I saw them only in pictures until I moved to the east coast.

Getting seedlings planted. I got all the seedlings planted and celebrated they were all thriving (until the hail battered a couple to oblivion last week. Still - enough are growing rapidly in there pots on the deck that I am pleased with the results of my efforts to get them started early.

Wall of green. Every my I celebrate the return of the wall of green view from my office window. The tulip poplar and maple trees are through the spring greens and looking as lush always get in summer. The sycamore that I see from my kitchen window is a little later unfurling; it’s leaves will continue getting larger and larger all during the summer.

Blueberries and yogurt. It is my favorite mini-meal in May and June….a way to celebration almost every day.

Driving neighbors. I thoroughly enjoy volunteering to drive senior citizens to their appointments in my community. What a joy it is to have them stay in the community where they have lived for years!

Hiking in the forest. Spring is one of my favorite times to hike: wildflowers, not a lot of biting insects, water gurgling. It was wonderful to be outdoors after the cold and wet!

Phone conversations. I find myself celebrating the normal ebb and flow of conversation with people far away. Sometimes it is the ordinary that turns out to be a treasure.

Birdbath and iris. Every time I go by the front door of my house (either outside or inside) I glance and the view and celebrate!

Chives. Here’s to celebrating plants that just come up every year on their own….and taste wonderful in salads!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - April 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for April 2014.

Home again. It’s always sweet to come home after being away no matter how much I enjoyed being away.

“New” clothes. I am tired of winter clothes so I celebrated a warm day in April when I needed to raid the summer clothes for something to wear. I am looking forward to getting out all the summer wardrobe and doing some focused purchases in May.

Outdoor projects. Our April was pretty cool but we did some sprucing up outside our house. We put new mulch around the trees, got the gutters all cleaned out and mowed the lawn for the first time. It felt good to be out and getting things done.

Indoor to Outdoor projects. There were several projects that appealed to me that started indoors and will be moved outdoors in early May.  I am celebrating that all the seedlings I have in small pots are growing very well and will be ready for the garden soon. The bins we buy cat litter in have worked well as pots that I’ll just move to the deck and let the seedlings grow to maturity; reusing rather than recycling is very appealing.

Spring blossoms. The cherry blossoms were the highlight of April….big celebration. Dandelions bring more mixed feelings; the yellow blossoms are cheery but they are way too plentiful!

Outdoor volunteer gigs. There is always a serendipity celebration when I combine being outdoors and doing something good in the community.

Anticipating travel. In April is celebrated the anticipation of traveling to Rhode Island next fall and a vicarious trip to Hawaii through my daughter. I started looking at web sites and reading books (current and very old). I like the before and after of travel as much as the travel itself!

Photography adventures. This month I continued my explorations with the loupe and been very pleased with unfurling leaves and minute flower parts. The other adventure was an initial foray into time lapse photography with the seedlings. I always celebrate the successes….and try to forget the images that didn’t quite work out.

Sunny window. I like sitting in a sunny window on cool (or cold) spring morning….celebrating that I have the time and place to do it!

Spring events. Howard County sponsored a WomenFest in April. I exceeded my expectations!

Memories of my Maternal Grandfather

My maternal grandfather was born in the very early years of the 1900s.  He died many years ago but I am thinking of him today because his birthday is tomorrow.

He was the most daunting of my grandparents because he was quite tall and could look rather fierce. I think when I was very young I steered clear of him….until I got to know him a little better the first time I stayed with that set of grandparents without the rest of my family. From then on I realized that he was a big instigator of ‘fun’ for the grandchildren, in particular during the summer.

• He was always on the lookout for rivers or lakes for swimming. Eventually his built a swimming pool.
• He built things too - a fountain and wishing well, a picnic table around a tree, a huge grilling pit, bricked benches and planters, a merry go round (wielded together) and a very tall swing with fat rope/large seat.  For years there were new things that had been built every time we visited. 
• The house was not air conditioned so sleeping outside in the summer time was the most comfortable. One summer he has a flatbed trailer pulled up behind the house; it became our raised platform for sleeping under the stars (we had to scurry in with all our bedding one night when it started to rain!).
• He had a big garden and involved all the children in picking and processing produce. I remember his tutorial on how to pick blackberries and not get caught up in the thorns. We shucked corn on the cob (that went into the biggest post I’d ever seen, so big it required two burners on the stove). Of course there were flowers too - in the part of the garden closest to the road.
• He did quite a bit of the cooking too. His main seasoning for just about everything was pepper rather than salt.
• There were chickens but the peacocks he raised were the attention getters.  Just before I got old enough that I didn’t visit as frequently, there was a summer that he had an incubator; hatched peacocks and ducklings.  What a learning experience that was for the grandchildren!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - March 2014

Over a year ago I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for March 2014.

STEM Fair - These spring events used to be called ‘Science Fair’ but the fair has enlarged to include Science - Technology - Engineering - and Math so they have changed the name. I have volunteered as a judge for our county fair for the past 10 years or so. It seems like every year is an improvement over previous years and this year there was a bigger improvement than usual! This year the middle school students were much more articulate about the statistics they were using (standard deviation in particular).

Great snowflake pictures - Some years we get snow in March and sometimes we don’t. This year not only did we get a good snow, the situation was ideal of snowflake photography. Of course, I celebrated with snow ice cream!

Raisins soaked in apricot brandy - I plumped some dried out raisins with apricot brandy for an apple - raisin - celery salad. Yummy! I may do this every time I make the salad from now on. Little culinary successes are always worth celebrating.

Volunteer naturalist classes - Last fall had did most of my prep for becoming a volunteer naturalist by shadowing people that had done it before; this spring I am taking the classes and enjoying them tremendously. I even won the drawing for the book give away - Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy. Wahoo!

Philadelphia buildings - I had a hard time choosing between the Philadelphia Flower Show itself and discovering the interesting buildings of downtown Philadelphia which will probably be the focus for my next foray into the city. Either way - the March day trip to Philadelphia was a daylong celebration.

The last two volcano lectures - I worked my way through a series of online lectures on material science related to volcanoes that stretched my memory of chemistry (from classes about 40 years ago) and was thrilled to get to the last two lectures that focused on how lab work is done with silicate glass and how all the research and field work gets translated onto geologic maps.

A clean car - With all the snow, my car became thoroughly encrusted with salt. Its shiny clean look coming out of the car wash was worth celebrating.

Lots of feathers - It was a little disconcerting to find a pile of feathers beside our house but then I realized that the presence of a predator was an indicator of a working ecosystem in our neighborhood….and  I enjoyed having the feathers for a photography project.

Pot luck lunch - I have always liked pot luck events. Sometimes there is a skew to desserts but this one had great variety. If anything, it was skewed toward fancy salads.

Work experiences to pass along - One day I was able to pass along two potential solutions to my daughter from my career: 1) Hotel too expensive for a conference? Room with someone. 2) Logo shirt required for an outreach event way too big to tuck into slacks? Wear it tucked into a skirt or belted like a short dress over leggings or skinny slacks. It’s worth celebrating any time lessons learned long ago are still relevant!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - February 2014

Over a year ago I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for February 2014. I’ve grouped my little celebration into 4 groups this month: weather, food, family, and loupe photography.

Weather

A warm day - In February - the occasional warm day is indeed something to celebrate!

Snow and more snow - I like snow days too, particularly when I don’t have to leave the house. I enjoyed hot tea with milk….and worked out a plan to photograph snowflakes. I didn’t even mind a certain amount of shoveling of snow!

Birds - The changes in weather result in more birds be out and about when the weather is a little improved. We’ve seen juncos, cardinals, robins, chickadees and heard the crows!

Food

Graham Cracker Crumb Cake - Someone made a graham cracker crumb cake as part of the refreshments for a lecture I attended….and I liked it so well I looked for a recipe via the Internet…and made one myself. Yummy! I have always liked graham crackers and this is just one other form to enjoy.

Edamame - What a great way to increase the protein in salads! My grocery store had them already shelled!

Family

Phone calls - I celebrate the ease we can keep in touch with family that lives far away. It is not as good as living in close proximity…..but it enables us to sustain relationships until we can be together again.

Anticipating visits - There are two opportunities to see far flung family members - in March and May - that I am already anticipating…and celebrating.

Loupe photography

Snowflakes - I was surprised at how effective the loupe magnification is for snowflake photography. It is quite an adventure to discover for myself how unique and beautiful they are.

Buds - Buds are going to be a longer term fascination as they unfurl into leaves and flowers. I celebrated that I thought of the project early enough to get the bud before the unfurling!

Broccoli - I knew it was good to eat but the loupe gave me more reason to celebrate broccoli’s form and color.

Valentines: Celebrating Long Term Relationships

Valentines is a day to savor….the power of the team of two!

Memories of my Maternal Grandmother

My maternal grandmother would have been 107 today….and I am celebrating the part of her life I shared. The picture of her I am including with this post is from the mid-1980s when she traveled to visit me after I moved from Texas to Virginia. We sat on the patio - eating lunch and talking - while dogwood petals drifted down around us. The picture appeals to me because she was focused on the conversation rather than my husband taking her picture!

By the time I remember her, she was running a grain mill and storage. It was a career added after more than 20 years as a wife and mother - starting rather abruptly when her husband became ill and simply continuing on for over 20 years after he eventually recovered.  She had settled into the job by the time I remember going to the mill with her when my family visited during the summer. It was a special time when she and I could be together without the rest of the family crowd. There were tall stools to sit on behind the counter. Trucks filled with grain would come to be weighed….and then return after they had been emptied so that the weight of the grain could be calculated. People would come in to buy garden seeds; the drawers of seeds with their colorful picture labels were one of my favorite features of the office. Beside the back door was a large catalpa tree; I remember the long seed pods of the summer time tree.

She had never had formal training for her second career. I’m sure she applied everything she had learned in her 20 plus years of managing a household with 9 children before she started. Children and employees apparently accepted her authority without question.

My grandmother was a small person - not much over 5 feet - with white hair that appeared early on (I only know that she originally had black hair from old pictures and a portrait done in her late teens. She was always the smallest adult at the mill - and most of the time the only woman. She spoke calmly and softly. She was decisive and firm. Her style of management and leadership was effective….and ladylike…even in a business dominated by men.

I didn’t realize until years later how rare she was in the business world of the 1960s….or how much she influenced the way I wanted to be in my career relationships...and, now, the type of matriarch I have become.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - January 2014

Over a year ago I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for January 2014. I’ve grouped them into 4 categories this month: food, my past, looking outdoors and learning something new.

Food

Scones. I’m not sure why I thought scones were too difficult for my cooking skills….but I avoided trying to make them for long time until I saw a recipe that used a food processor for the hardest part! Now I make them a couple of times a month and vary the recipe. The original was pumpkin and ginger. The scones I celebrated this month were raisin and ginger (I like the slivers of crystallized ginger so they are part of the ‘basics’ for all my scones!

Baked Apples. I’ve always liked baked apples but I tend to forget about them. This January we had apples that needed to be used up quickly….so I got back in the habit. I had baked apples three days in a row! I bake the in the microwave for 2 minutes then add other ingredients before microwaving for another 2 minutes. My favorite ‘other ingredients’ are orange zest, pecans, and marmalade!

Homemade soups. Soup is my favorite food on cold days - and I never buy soups in cans these days. Many times I enjoy the leftovers used in soups more than the original meal they came from!

My Past

Wedding Anniversary. I celebrated over 40 years of marriage this month. Noting the date always reminds me of the broader need to celebrate and appreciate the durability of our family ties overall.

Friend from Long Ago. Rediscovering a friend from a long time ago is such a pleasure. It is invigorating to rediscover that the kernel of our younger selves is still within us!

Look Outdoors

This January has been too cold here in Maryland to do much outdoors….but the views through windows have been intriguing.

Snow. The snow has stayed on the ground for a long time. At first it is pristine and there are bits on the larger branches of the trees. Then the tracks of deer and squirrels are evident the snow on the trees either melts or is blown away.

Fog in the forest. One morning the humidity and temperature combined to create a dense fog. The forest behind out house looked as if it were holding the fog in its branches.

Robins. The flock of robins from a few days ago was a pleasant surprise.

Learning Something New

The new semester on Coursera. I’ll write a longer post early next month …when I’ll have more experience with the courses. What I am celebrating right now is that the first week of the courses I’ve started has been so good!

Soil science. I went to a lecture on this topic and was surprised at how much I learned…..and that I followed up to check the soil suitability for my neighborhood (It was quite a relief to know that the soil was suitable for houses with basements!).

Memories of my Paternal Grandfather

My paternal grandfather was the oldest of my grandparents and he was the first to die. It happened over 35 year ago. I was still in college - old enough to have clear memories. I find myself comparing him to myself:

• He was more gregarious than me;
• He made an effort to be fair to everyone and he passed along that emphasis to me;
• He took care of household things so that they lasted 'forever'; I still have his hedge trimmers with his repair and  marvel at the other things I have around the house that are 40+ years old because I care for tools in the same way;
• Both of us only had one child and we were in our 30s when that child was born.

I look on the Internet Archive for books published around the time he was born and realize how much the world changed over the course of his lifetime. When he was growing up, farming was done with horses…then tractors. The farm houses had no electricity or plumbing but that too changed. He moved to town in 1950s because of drought that reduced the profitability of farming. He picked up odd jobs to supplement his savings. He was a quick study and a savvy one at ‘networking’ although he would have never called it that.

He was ahead of his time in another important way too: he bought me wooden blocks in a little wagon when I was very young. At the time, most people probably gave dolls to their little girls. He did construction projects with boards and nails in the garage with all my sisters too. He gave us the opportunity to enjoy activities that were not typically done with little girls and, by that example, showed us that our horizons were not limited by gender. Each of my grandparents probably contributed to that foundation, but from a different perspective and at different times of my growing up. My paternal grandfather was the first - when he gave me wooden blocks rather than a doll.

Today would have been his 113th birthday...and I'm thinking of him today.

A New Year Begins - 2014

2014 begins today. It’s a human designation that it is today so whatever meaning it has is also ours.

I like to get up for the sunrise rather than stay up until midnight. This time of year it is very easy to get up well before the sun comes up and I was thrilled to find a dove in our oak tree when I went out to capture the event this morning. At first the dove was quiet, but then it started cooing at me. What a gentle sound to start the year!

The first light of the new day synchronized with the first day of the New Year reminds me of the potential there always is - to savor the moment and grow into a satisfying future.

In years past - I made list of things I wanted to make different. Sometimes I made a lasting change. One year I decided to learn to use my mouse with my left hand rather than my right; that was almost 10 years ago and I have made the change permanently. Last year I decided to have one last sprint of weight loss and get down to the weight I was at 25; I did it by September and have maintained it easily since then. I started gradually increasing my reading goals beginning in 1985 and now I’m combining reading with taking online courses since they are so freely available; learning this way is one of my favorite pastimes so I need nothing to push me onward at this point. Travel and visiting family/friends is another favorite pastime; no encouragement needed there either. The volunteer gigs I started in 2013 are still lots of fun and worthwhile…I won’t be making a change away from them in 2014.

So I am left with a generic goal of exhorting myself to live more in the present in 2014…to refrain from over-planning (which I sometimes have been known to do)!