- The bubbles that come to the surface of boiling water when I drop a package of dried tortellini into the pan.
- My son working hard and completely independently on his Halloween costume.
- A homemade waffle straight out of the waffle iron.
- Discovering that the audio book I randomly pulled from the library shelf is a completely wonderful and entertaining book.
- Finding a simple solution to a nagging problem. (The basket of sports uniforms that now resides in the living room has cut down the wails of “Where is my whatever?!” by 98%.)
- I am annoyed that I saw what would have a been a perfect present for my mother’s 70th birthday when I was visiting in New Hampshire this summer. However, I was too stupid to just buy it at the time.
Now, how about you?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ll play!
1. A fine cup of organic coffee.
2. Supper already on the stove — a new stew recipe is simmering.
3. The most colorful autumn leaves in several years are shining outside my windows. Even the rain is pretty.
4. Ironing handkerchiefs. I buy facial tissues for the rest of the family, but my frugal luxury is to use old, hand-embroidered hankies.
5. Yesterday was a warm meeting of the parenting group I head up. I love supporting other moms in their vocation.
and my one *other* is a balky computer that interrupts the flow of whatever I’m reading or typing to announce that “IE cannot display that page.”
I love knowing dinner is already taken care of. And if I can smell it all day long? Even better!
Katy
Good!
1. mmmm hot baked potato with butter, salt, and pepper
2. cool glass of water when I’m sooo thirsty
3. crisp, sweet, and juicy apple on a warm fall day
4. climbing into cool crisp line dried cotton sheets on a warm night
5. picking up big acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, and pecans on my walks and putting them under my tree and watching the squirrels from the window as they cart them off.
Bad(
People who think that a green light means they can run over the person in the crosswalk…..YEILD, it is a word right?
Can you order it online or call the store and have it sent? I did that once, called a little shop, after passing up a special necklace while on a trip.
1.) A police pulling us over for an unknown brake light that was out turning into a wonderful homeschool lesson
2.) Lunchtime dinners meaning light lunches in the evening with no evening dishes as they are done early at lunchtime!
3.) Springtime weather with a beautiful rain and thunder
4.) A house full of food
5.) talking with both my mom and dad by phone today
Bad- the mother of my grandkids husband went on life support from a blood clot and heart attack at only age 24
So sorry to hear this. Your families and most especially those kiddos are in my prayers.
Hey, Katy. It’s not too late for us to send Kris on a road trip to New Hampshire and fetch that “perfect thing”!
Five things that make me happy:
1. Reading Katy’s post
2. Homemade chai tea
3. Getting some spinning done
4. Making a list of all the things that are overwhelming me and breaking them down into doable parts
5. Figuring out that I don’t have to do it all.
What is annoying me? That I am so hard on myself.
Thanks Katy.
Mmmm, let’s see
1) Picking free Asian pears from a friends tree. Gonna try making pear honey
2) Making brownies with my granddaughter
3) Enjoying watching the goats lay in the backyard
4) Watching it rain, while I’m warm inside!
5) Spending the whole weekend with my 7 yr old granddaughter, She’s the best.
1) The fact that we used the Easy bake oven for the brownies, and it took 2 hrs. AHHHHHH.
Oops! Forgot to include this week’s 5 and 1 “Things”:
1. A dozen soon-to-be-past-prime apples baking in the crockpot.
2. Houseplants (including our 50-year-old orange tree) that vacationed outside all summer cleaned up, repotted, and returned to their sun porch home.
3. A storeroom full of stuff not worth storing hauled to the curb for recycle pickup.
4. Autumn red and gold that has invaded our neighborhood.
5. Sleeping under a down comforter on crisp, fall nights.
AND
1. REALLY disappointed we won’t be in Portland for your Mother’s seventieth soiree.
1. My daughter voluntarily going through her room and tossing out things she doesn’t want/need/love. Thrift store here we come!
2. Myhusband helping to disassemble my daughter’s old loft bed without grumbling even though the game was on.
3. Looking forward to starting new 5 th grade reading groups at school tomorrow.
4. My cat just because he is sweet. Ok, not so fond of him at three in the morning.
5. A butt load of cherry tomatoes waiting to be picked.
Really tired of hearing everyone’s opinion on the upcoming election. The talk is really polarizing when in all honesty, most of us are in the middle.
What was the gift in NH? Maybe I can get it for you? I’m also curious what book you are listening to.
What a fun post:
1. Pumpkins…so festive and so orange.
2. My three cats…in breezy windowsills, nibbling on pots of lettuce growing indoors, headbutting for attention and of course, curled on my lap.
3. Spreading compost that my helpful husband hauled to a new bed dug this spring to enhance our curb appeal…and stealing a thank-you kiss.
4. Getting a happy text from my daughter at college and getting hugs from my teen daughter who is in high school.
5. The warm glow of a candle and strings of white lights on the mantle, decorated for fall. Did I say pumpkins?!
Commercials on network TV…much prefer DVD’s from the library!
happy-making:
1) That the kids and I had a totally free and very fun afternoon courtesy of a local college’s festival
2) that we walked to the festival
3) that #1Child made some careful and fun decisions about what to buy at the church rummage sale yesterday and paid for the purchases herself
4) that I made a very delicious batch of guacamole this afternoon
5) that I was able to sign up for a food swap coming in the next few weeks. I’ve never done one and I’m really excited.
pissing me off: that every time Other Adult goes to the gym, the dirty gym clothes come home in a garbage bag (provided by the gym, so a different bag each time) and that the garbage bag gets thrown away. I pick them out of the trash and reuse them, but come on!
1. My first ever successful Craigslist sale!
2. Cleaning out the garage
3. Happy meat and veggie stored for the winter
4. A great deal on a new freezer (we did look for used and scratch n dent)
5. Free cycle
Piss off – my children did not do what they were asked this weekend. Had to ground one.
1. Freshly juiced apple juice with “seconds” apples from a local orchard
2. Five Brooks Brothers shirts found at Salvation Army for $4 each
3. Halloween costume of scrubs to be a nurse found at Salvation Army for $4 each
4. Purging an equal number of items from our apartment after shopping at Salvation Army
5. Baked Potato-Broccoli Soup with Cheese
And what’s ticking me off: That I still have 19 days until my vacation!
Things that make me happy:
1. The weather is at least trying to cool off here in the deep south.
2. The local Methodists are selling pumpkins again. I love to see the big orange pumpkins piled in the church yard each Fall.
3. I can finally enjoy hot tea again — or at least, I will as soon as it gets down to the fifties in the mornings.
4. Wearing old passed down costume jewelry that reminds me of loved ones who have passed on.
5. Sitting on the porch in the evenings with my husband, relishing the peace and quiet and watching the late-season butterflies and the hummingbirds.
Things that tick me off:
Someone coming along in his vehicle with the radio blasting filthy lyrics out his open windows, destroying the peace we had on the porch.
felicitious:
1. re-purposing my toddlers’ plastic baby pool as a sandbox for the fall/winter/spring
2. having a deep tissue massage
3. taking a chainsaw to my woody and overgrown boxwood hedges and accidental hackberry trees, and having hubby help me haul everything to the curb in time for our city’s brush pickup
4. spontaneous ping-pong playing in a friend’s backyard – on their ‘new’ $35 garage sale find
5. watching my twin toddlers squeal and chase each other around my friends’ yard with ping-pong paddles.
foul:
my father’s recalcitrance about cleaning up his hoarded house in preparation for my grandmother’s funeral luncheon. At the same time I appreciate that my need to purge comes from his need to ‘collect.’
I love stuff like this!
1. My two hours of total peace and quiet in the morning.
2. My morning cup of coffee made from freshly ground beans.
3. doodling.
4. Baking and sharing!
5. When I resist the urge to spend money on a want.
One thing that’s pissing me off:
I don’t get “pissed off”, so…something that makes me cranky:
People who wander in the grocery store like they are the only shopper there!
Long time reader, occasional commenter and a heavy Non-Consumer (is that an oxymoron?). I’ve never done one of these before, but then I’ve never had such good reasons to participate…
1. Last July, I used my vacation hours to spend time with my sister, who was finishing radiation treatment following breast cancer. The same sister who gave her husband a kidney last year. When I asked her if she didn’t want to ask God “Why now?” she replied “If this had happened a year ago, I couldn’t have given Don my kidney.” Yeah, I am proud to be her sister.
2. While waiting during radiation treatments, I was reminded of the life lessons learned (but half forgotten) when I had cancer over thirty years ago. Life is short, live it well, tell people you love them, don’t keep a job you hate. I vowed never to forget them again.
3. I promptly started dating an old friend who was a recent widower.
4. Said friend became my love and recently proposed. My sister made me promise that she be my witness, whenever, wherever we actually got married. Did I mention I’m 54 and never been married? Last Wednesday, we planned to get an it’s-good-for-90-days-so-why-not?marriage license. At 3:00 pm, someone pointed out that the next day was 10-11-12. We got the license and discussed the date over dinner. We decided to go for it, just for fun and so we would never forget the date.
5. On Thursday morning, we put on our best clothes, called my sister and the City Hall in her town, grabbed my 85-year-old neighbor, swung by a florist (Costco wasn’t open yet), ran by a jeweler’s to get my ring temporarily sized and drove to my sister’s house two hours away. She pulled together her husband, some of her kids and a photographer friend. We called my brother and he met us there. He had arranged for a friend with a nearby restaurant to host a champagne and cheese reception for us as his gift. By the end of 10-11-12, we were Mr. and Mrs! (We’re from a large, close family, so we’ll host a big party in the spring.)
Can’t think of anything that’s pissing me off, so can I skip that part?
Congratulations, Diane! I’m adding your wonderful comment to my list of things that’s making me happy today.
Here goes….
1. Seeing my dog Remi playing with our rescue dog Penny and our friend’s dog Leah. He was once so frightened he wouldn’t go near any other dogs.
2. Sitting on my deck with a beverage – hot in the morning, cold in the evening.
3. Watching my daughter playing sports-she’s continuing in college! Yay!
4. The first bird songs in Spring.
5. Anything my husband cooks. He’s wonderful!
And the thing that is irks me: when someone sticks their nose in others’ business and throws the whole place into a funk.