every day, one good thing: May 2017

5/31: rock and water

I woke up to sad news. Chris said we should go to the cascade at Woolly Hollow in the afternoon. It was a good thing to do.

5/30: finally

...going to a new micro-brew place we've been meaning to check out.

5/29: reading & seeing

Reading to a dear neighbor, and trying to be a peaceful presence in a difficult day.

Seeing peonies blooming along the north wall of the Schwab gardens just before leaving Loretto.

5/28: working

...on some hats I helped my mother design for Beauty and the Beast. And the director liked a picture of one of them that my mom sent him.

My mother, our long-time neighbor, and I went out to dinner at a Greek restaurant we've gone to whenever I've been in town over the past few years. And then we came home to play Quiddler, which we're all newly hooked on.

5/26: cordial kits

The first of the dandelion cordial kits were made and shared today: syrup, cans of seltzer, a lemon, and the directions for making lemonade with it all. And I got to enjoy some myself while chatting with a childhood friend before taking one of the kits up to her parents at their house.

5/25: the lake

It's been windy and/or rainy for most of my time in Loretto: not the right weather for visiting Lake St. Francis and taking water photos. But yesterday there was a space of clear weather and low wind after dinner so I took a quick walk down to the water. The light was low, but the bank of cow parsley across the water was lovely.

5/24: gutenberging

I finished May's proofreading for Project Gutenberg with some pages from Alfred J. Church's retelling of the Iliad for children.

5/23: cooking & baking

...to celebrate my mother's birthday. The day started with our cooking cloud eggs as part of a fancy breakfast and moved into baking a chocolate garbanzo bean cake for dinner's dessert.

5/22: done

...with the last of the bureaucratic tasks for the 2016-2017 school year.

5/21: helping

...a friend with her laundry. (Okay, I wasn't much practical help, but at least I kept her company at the laundromat.)

5/20: sharing

...the dandelion cordial with my mother and two friends!

5/19: wisteria

...on the Schwab estate.

5/18: picking dandelions

...for dandelion cordial.

5/17: walking

...in the older part of a small village cemetery with an old friend.

5/16: reading

...some secondary scholarship about versions of Beauty and the Beast and enjoying thinking about the ideas involved.

5/15: compliments

...from really nice people on my favorite suit.

5/14: forest morning

Chris wanted to show me a flowering bush in the woods this morning, and as I took pictures of it I realized that if I focus on something far away while having my camera set on "microscope," I get a great bokeh effect. I think this captures the feeling of being in the springtime morning forest:

5/13: turning the day

The day--and I!--felt glitchy into the afternoon, but then I decided to try to work myself into a better way. I spent time hanging out with Chris, had tea on the porch with the cats, helped a little bit while Chris made me a great tilt lamp that looks like fireflies in a jar, made vegetarian poke bowls for us for dinner (a first for me and I'll definitely make them again in the future!), and went kayaking after dinner (my first outing on the lake of the season).

5/12: digital and analog

Today I set up the Altered Odysseys website to display some of my students' work for a creative project they did over the past year. It feels oh so good to have it up and running--it was something that I was finding hard to do during the semesters. I also posted a call for submissions on the International Union of Mail Artists website, so I hope we get some other contributors.

And this afternoon I spent an hour cutting and pasting low-pressure collages with a friend at a coffee shop.

5/11: before the rain

A trip to Woolly Hollow was disappointing this afternoon: the creek and cascade are still blocked off due to damage and overflow from recent rain--and then on the way home we got a flat tire. Luckily we weren't far from home when it happened, and also luckily Chris was great at changing the tire before the rain poured down (I read him the directions from the manual).

Here's a rose that I paused to take a picture of before heading home from Woolly Hollow:

5/10: stopped in our tracks

We paused on our evening walk to look at some blossoms that had fallen to the ground, and then we heard some light popping sounds. It was the tree letting go of a lot of the blossoms at once and the blooms falling to the ground! We'd never heard anything like that before.

5/9: two

...students came up to my office after our last class meeting to say goodbye and thanks.

5/8: grading

...Latin tests and Myth tests (though there's still plenty more of each to do). I got a lot of the Latin grading done while the students were working on different parts of the test (an unexpected goodness), and some of the Myth answers were really interesting to read (which is always sweet).

5/7: forgoing flying

...to write the Latin final exam. Though I was sorry to miss out on a beautiful day in the air with Chris, it was the right thing to do to head to school in the afternoon and put together the Latin test in quiet and calm. I'd have been much less collected if I had waited to do it this evening.

5/6: chris laughing, chris defending

Laughing: at The Man Who Came to Dinner. It's one of my favorite movies, so Chris has seen it many times over the years. But it had been awhile since our last viewing, and Chris suggested we watch it this evening as a way to combat some physical woes. It was great to have him laughing next to me, and it did make me forget my physical woes!

Defending: Trollope. I read a reference to Trollope as an author "in the first rank of the second tier" or something like that, and it made me really sad and mad. I mentioned it to Chris and he jumped right in with indignation of his own.

every day, one good thing