News Trend Keep Life Simple |Actual

Now, it's a well-established fact that none of us have ever experienced anything quite like this planet-wide Covid-19 crisis we've got on our hands.

Granted, we handled 9/11. That was a doozy. The whole world has dealt with terror on a large scale in the past few decades.

Before that, you'd have to go back to World War II to find a multi-continent catastrophe that compares in scope and scale. And most of us were not around in those days.

So there's no doubt that we are all on new and shaky ground as we tiptoe through this pandemic.

Upstairs in my bedroom, I keep a triangular shelf. Several years ago, I saw it at Target and fell in love. So I bought it. The fact that it was designed for children did not bother me one little bit.

But in a way, on a more personal, private scale, anyone who's lived for more than a few years has experienced some similar kind of emergency existence.

Illness.

Accidents.

Divorce.

Joblessness.

Disasters.

Death.

Definitely life throws us a variety of challenges that force us to retreat into a protective posture, that demand that we make some terrible predicament our highest priority, that drop us to our physical, emotional, and financial knees.

That is yet another nice thing about living longer. These gut-punching traumas lose some of their power when you've already survived a few.

What we learn from our previous challenges helps us face the new ones ahead.

And of all the things I've learned, one of the best is this:

Keep life simple.

At first, I imagined that I would fill the clever little shelves with a variety of treasures. My mind's eye saw small wooden boxes, miniature cats and dogs, a handful of air plants, and some of my beloved rock collection.

From what I see, we are all quickly picking up on that.

My husband told me today that there's a nation-wide jigsaw puzzle shortage.

My social media feeds are full of chatter about the joy of making things.

My grocery store struggles to keep flour on the shelves as home bakers kick into gear.

My neighborhood streets are jammed with walkers, bikers, and scooterers.

My own life is slowing and shifting and settling down.

For a year or two, I struggled to bring that vision to reality. But I could never lay my hands on the tiny treasures that apparently lived only in my mind. Several of the shelves sat empty, and the air plants I bought starved for sunlight on this shelf so far from the window, and in the last few months of winter, I gave up and moved them closer to their beloved son.

In the meantime, my rock collection kept growing and while I kept my favorites here, the extras had no place to call home.

Because here's the thing.

We don't need any more stress.

We've got plenty of Covid-related things to worry about, so the rest of our lives should be as streamlined and simple as possible.

So my wish for the world today is this:

Keep life simple.

Let go of what feels complicated, if that's possible.

Trust that everything is going to be okay.

Remember that sometimes the things we fear most end up being blessings in disguise.

Take this time to love the people who matter most to you, and to live in the moment.

Then one day last week, it dawned on me: I was making this way too hard. Impulsively, I emptied the shelves and gave them a spanking good dusting. The non-rock treasures were moved to a new, much smaller home which they took to immediately. Then I gathered all my rocks together and gave them the run of the place.

This new arrangement is so much simpler. And so much better.

Though sometimes it's hard to believe, this wild coronavirus ride will not last forever. Sooner or later, we will all throw open our front doors, leap into our cars, and head off into the world. Normal will come again.

But in the meantime, keeping life simple will help us all survive.

* * * * *

Read more stories about life with Covid-19 here in suburban Seattle:

Sitting Pretty

Scenes Of An Ordinary Easter

Our First Church

Silver Linings

Hopes And Dreams In The Silverware Drawer

Life Of A (Socially Distant) Math Teacher: Midterms

Keep Life Simple

What I'm Doing Lately

Do Dinner

Covid Cleaning

Gracie's And My Daily (Socially Distant) Walks

Life Of A (Socially Distant) Math Teacher

Miracle Of Light

Social Distancing In My Dining Room

Social Distancing In My Kitchen

We're On The Road To Shambala

Sunshine And Disco Balls

Feel Better

Covid-19 Is For Real

A COVID-19 Update

Checking In From Coronavirus Central

News Trend Do Dinner|Actual

"Dinner is not what you do in the evening before something else. Dinner is the evening."

-Art Buchwald

"Dinner is to a day what dessert is to dinner."  -Michael Dorris

Those are fresh raspberries in the bowls on the table.

T he rest of the menu featured turkey burgers and grilled asparagus.

No, I get it. Life is crazy, and generally speaking, the average day gets crazier with each passing hour.

Once everyone gets out of bed and shoots off to where they need to be, mornings calm down and drift into reasonably focused afternoons. But as evening closes in, many of us find it a challenge to gather up the reins, get the day back under our control, and prepare - let alone serve and clean up after - an organized evening meal.

But it is so worth the effort.

I know it's easy for me to sit here with my adult daughters, two of whom live at home and help me with my dinner-making chores, and preach about going the extra mile, but hey, I served my time in the trenches. And while I won't pretend that every dinner I put on the table during my daughters' growing up years was performance art, I'll say this.

I tried.

Whether the sajian offered up a pricey roast or grilled cheese sandwiches - again - I somehow found time and energy to see that the table was set properly, to use actual serving bowls, to bring out the cloth napkins. To light a candle.

And while the parents' efforts at coherent conversation were often drowned out by a cacophony of giggles and general chaos, we kept chugging away at developing a proper dinner mood.

Now, as I look back, I'm so glad I kept trying. Sit-down dinners are worth the extra effort, and our meal times together helped to form the bedrock of our family life.

Last night, as I was stirring up the contents of  various pots and pans on the stove, I glanced across the room to see the table, ready and waiting for our meal.

In these crazy days of coronavirus upset, when every aspect of life feels jarringly off and strangely unfamiliar, and we can't help but grieve for the life we used to know, I take particular comfort in doing dinner.

* * * * *

Read more stories about life with Covid-19 here in suburban Seattle:

Sitting Pretty

Scenes Of An Ordinary Easter

Our First Church

Silver Linings

Hopes And Dreams In The Silverware Drawer

Life Of A (Socially Distant) Math Teacher: Midterms

Keep Life Simple

What I'm Doing Lately

Do Dinner

Covid Cleaning

Gracie's And My Daily (Socially Distant) Walks

Life Of A (Socially Distant) Math Teacher

Miracle Of Light

Social Distancing In My Dining Room

Social Distancing In My Kitchen

We're On The Road To Shambala

Sunshine And Disco Balls

Feel Better

Covid-19 Is For Real

A COVID-19 Update

Checking In From Coronavirus Central

News Trend Seattle Hailstorm |Actual

We Seattlites take a lot of ribbing from the rest of the world about our notorious and ever-present rain.

It's true. We get a lot of rainy days here.

But what most non-locals don't understand is that the rain in these parts doesn't fall like most rain.

It's a slow, soft rain, more of a mist actually.

On the average rainy day here, the drops fall so gently that they make no sound, no mad drumming on the rooftop or even constant patter into puddles as in most other parts of the world.

One surefire way to prove this fact is to look at any street full of Seattle pedestrians on a rainy day. We don't use umbrellas. A basic fleece jacket, or even a sweatshirt with a hood.is all we need to stay reasonably dry.

If there was only one thing I wish the world would grasp about the infamous Seattle rain, it's that we don't get more rain, we get slower rain.

Please, help me pass the word.

Important Seattle Weather Fact Number Two comes straight from today's headlines: especially in springtime, we get a surprising amount of hail.

Certainly, we are not known for extreme weather of any kind, but the truth is that every spring, we encounter a few episodes of bouncy white balls of ice falling from our skies.

Today's episode - the second in the past week or so - filled my yard with  icy pellets. I'd say they were about the size of the red rubber eraser on the end of a standard #2 pencil.

I love to watch hail fall. If they hit a soft surface, like the grass or garden, the hailstones drop quietly into place and stay put, but when they drop onto a hard surface - roof, patio, sidewalk, driveway - the crazy devils bounce with great abandon. I find it endlessly entertaining to stand at a second story window and watch them careen wildly off the roof and then ricochet around the patio.

Today, Gracie and I headed out for our walk just as the hail was transitioning into rain. Though much of it was melting fast, we still found some nice pockets of icy hailstones tucked in my garden beds among the spring bloomers.

But mostly we just got wet.

Well. Gracie got wet. Happily, I was snug and dry inside my Seattle-rain-proof fleece jacket.

News Trend Hard Work |Actual

"Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work." -Horace

* * * * *

Paint your living room in a weekend!

Choose a fresh color to reinvigorate your space!

Re-painting a room is the easiest, cheapest way to redecorate!

Decor and design headlines shout these soothing claims all the time - If you'll just run out and buy yourself a gallon of pretty paint and a handful of brand spanking new supplies, a freshly painted room can be yours in no time!

And P.S. You can paint in whatever cute outfit you happen to be wearing. No need to even change your clothes or put on a smock!

Though I most certainly wasn't looking for it, I encountered another version of this myth one just five minutes ago. (Scroll down for the video.)

Because that is what this spin-doctored story about home painting is, my friends.

A myth.

A fairy tale.

A fantasy.

An outrageously optimistic twisting and turning of the cold, hard truth that painting is hard work.

At this angle, if I squint just so, this almost looks like the normal room. With the couches and the lamps squished together. Little does it reveal about the squalor laying just beyond.

I earned the chops to make this claim because, once again, I just spent a long weekend with a paintbrush in my hand.

There's something about the color of painter's tape that makes me grit my teeth. Blue or green, it's jarring and ugly. Every moment that it's up, I want it to go away.

And I wasn't even painting an entire room.

My goal was simply to freshen the paint on the lower half of my living room - the wainscoting, if you will - and the other bits of trim around the windows and doorways.

Pamplemousse La Croix is an essential element of my painting ritual.

And I wasn't even starting from scratch. About a year ago, when the wood floors in this end of the house were installed, I realized it was high time I repainted the trim as well. I got a good start on this project by laying down the first coat and doing all the tricky cutting in bits.

But then I got distracted by summer.

And then I tore my rotator cuff.

You know, stuff happens.

Sigh. I would much rather be outside pulling weeds.

Last weekend, I did the dining room. As this week kicks off my spring break, I figured I was fresh out of excuses for putting off the rest of the job any longer. Living room and front hall, here I come.

So, promising myself I would wrap up the living room phase over this beginning-of-my-holiday weekend, I shoved the furniture to the middle of the room, disassembled most of the art on the walls, dug through my painting supplies, and dragged into the house what I needed.

Most of my painting supplies are not shiny and new. In fact, they look pretty rough, used and scrubbed and used and scrubbed, a little grubby to be sure but good enough to see me through another project. My ladders - short and tall - have been around for decades and both have the paint splatters to prove it,

Old towels and rags,

paper towels,

cleaning wipes,

and yards and yards of Frog Tape

went into the making of this chaos.

For my painting ensemble, I donned a pair of cherished but entirely overworn sweatpants purchased in Danang, Vietnam, and one of my husband's old flannel shirts.

For at least 15 years, Jim Dale reading Harry Potter has been my go-to entertainment for painting projects. I've been through the entire series at least a dozen times and still enjoy every sentence.

Then I cranked the audio books and got to work.

.

Gracie loves painting projects because they tend to keeps me in one room, so she doesn't have to keep track of me and follow me around the house.

In her two and a half years with me, Gracie has grown well accustomed to my painting parties. She waited patiently while I cleared her a path to the couches, then she hopped up and assumed a napping position, her head perfectly propped on the pillows.

She's quiet as a mouse until around 5:30 when she comes out of hibernation and reminds me that maybe it's time for a walk.

Hours flew by.

I climbed up and down ladders,

cursed the imperfect nature of masking tape,

cleaned up a hundred dribbles of paint on the floor,

changed the CDs,

and celebrated each tiny bit of progress.

Gracie drowsily changed sofas once or twice, and kept sleeping. Good dog.

Taping off the pie-shaped sections of the half-circle window and the rounded edges of the trim piece that runs along the top of the four lower windows put my taping skills to the test.

As Sunday afternoon wound down, I faced the sad truth: I wasn't even going to finish the living room job this weekend.

I still have a few stretches of straight, flat wall that need a second coat. Thank goodness I saved the easiest task for last.

But I can't - won't - wait to complete this room because next weekend, I'm scheduled to paint the wainscoting and trim in the front hall. I know, I know - it's my schedule and I can change it if I want. But if I don't scratch this painting job off the top of my to-do list soon, I am going to make myself crazy.

So tomorrow morning, I will resume. Once the last of the painting is done, I'll clean up the mess, scrub the floors, and breathe an enormous sigh of relief. And then next Saturday, I'll start all over again.

My mission for Monday morning: race down this section with a mini-roller for a final second coat, and then I'll finally be done! Until Saturday.

Tonight, as I sit here in my painting paints, speckles of dried paint on my arms, and a self-inflicted chaos of painting debris waiting for me in the next room, let me say with authority and conviction:

Painting a room is hard work.

News Trend Spring Cleaning - Day One |Actual

It was closing in on two a.m. and I was winding down my evening. Scrolling through a last couple links, I was in that headspace of telling myself that I really needed to stop "just one more"-ing myself  because that's a deadly game that I never can win, and head to bed.

But then, I ran into this.

Apartment Therapy's Spring Cleaning Challenge

Oh dang. I've been waiting for this.

Apartment Therapy, if you're not familiar, is "a home and decor site, designed to inspire anyone to live a more beautiful and happy life at home."

Their words, not mine. Though as a long-time reader and all-around fan, I'd say that hits the nail fairly well on the head.

What I really like about AT is its unpretentious style and realistic point of view. The homes featured on the site are not extravagant beyond ordinary means; quite the opposite. They tend to be beautiful and unique, but also affordable and do-able for most of us ordinary folk.

It's one of a handful of websites that routinely sits on my daily check-in list, and that's saying something.

To be fair, AT targets Millenials - and even Gen Zers at this point - relative newcomers to adulting who are still figuring out how to keep house. My impression is that the editors sometimes take this mentorship too far and, in my humble opinion, occasionally talk down to the young home-dweller. Since I am decades beyond their intended demongraphic, I don't take the condescension personally.

But I digress.

That Spring Cleaning Challenge sat me up on the edge of my post-midnight seat and instantly kicked  my adrenaline into overdrive. I've had a lot of fun with this annual feature in the past, and while sometimes it goes a bit far for my tastes - I'm not going to waste time slathering my oven in a baking soda paste just because of some urban myth that says automatic oven cleaning cycles are evil - I'm always game to check out the daily tasks and play along.

So I scrolled past the introductory chatter and looked at the first chore:

Day 1: Clear One Small Surface

Hmm. Okay. Now that's a fun one. Eager to participate, I mentally searched my home for a place that needed this kind of help. But right off the top of my head, I couldn't quickly land on a horizontal surface in my home with a currently messy situation.

I know. The benefits of social distancing. I'm totally on my clutter game.

But at this point, I suddenly and desperately wanted to clean something so I was bound and determined to generate an idea.

And then I looked right in front of my face.

Oh, right. The desk upon which my computer sits. Not exactly a pigsty, but with a messy stack of books on left side, a couple of empty LaCroix cans on the right, and Lord knows what kind of dust bunnies lurking in the cords behind the screen, I knew I had landed just the right job.

So delightedly, I leapt into the project.

Books whisked back to their proper shelves.

Cans deposited in the recycling.

Dust eliminated.

That was fun.

But I finished my project with barely two minutes of work.

Clearly this was not going to satisfy the burning desire to clean that had been so quickly and completely ignited.

So I did what any over-stimulated late-night clean freak would do: I attacked the drawers.

My bamboo desk has three cute little cubbies for stationery, notes, important papers, what have you.

And while they weren't exactly a mess, I emptied and wiped out and decluttered and straightened until my desk was a masterpiece of tidy and I was satisfied.

^ Stamps,

my favorite art gum eraser in a bubble-painted clay pinch pot,

and a paperweight I made in first grade.

Greeting cards tucked in the back.

^ Pens,

notebooks,

a leopard print case for glasses that I never wear.

A stack of useful business cards,

a couple of very important memory cards for my camera,

and a little red box.

Hiding in the far back: a pile of IKEA receipts and a pom-pom.

^ A super cute 2020 date book that I always forget to use,

and a utilitarian/ugly spiral notebook that I use almost every day. Go figure.

My favorite Crayola fine-tip markers.

Underneath the notebooks, a few important papers.

With a sigh of contentment, I snapped off the desk light, called to my dog, and headed up the stairs to bed. And as I fell contentedly asleep, my final thought for the day was, "I wonder what tomorrow's challenge will be."

News Trend Double Delight|Actual

It's not at all unusual for me to wake up in the morning to find a bone in my bed.

Well, it sure beats a horse head, but it's still a bit odd.

But Gracie loves her rawhide treats and sometimes, when I give her her daily after-dinner bone, she opts not to chew it right away but to save it, I suppose, for the proverbial rainy day.

When we go to bed, my big red dog often carries her treasure up the stairs and tucks it under my bed, behind the curtains, or into the corners of her favorite sleeping chair.

I suppose it's when she comes back to bed after her early morning breakfast that Gracie apparently retrieves one of her hidden bones - my husband says he often hears her thumping and rattling around in our room from his listening post in the kitchen below - and brings it into my bed.

It's only later when I'm making the bed that I often come across one of these precious bones, laid across the blankets, tucked underneath the comforters, or even buried behind the pillows. Not exactly sure what her emotional motivation might be, but I imagine this as the canine equivalent of a toddler bringing along her beloved teddy bear when she hops into mom's bed to greet the new day.

I can understand that others may not share my sentiment, but I find Gracie's little habit to be endearing and sweet.

So just imagine my double delight today when I found not one but two of Gracie's morning surprises tucked in my bed.

News Trend Hopes and Dreams In The Silverware Drawer|Actual

Like every other bride who tossed on a white dress and marched into wedded bliss, my newly married brain was positively bursting with hopes and dreams for my new life ahead.

A home.

A family.

A life full of action and celebration and plenty of good food.

Though my imagination visualized this fantastic future in many forms, I was particularly fascinated by our new set of silverware.

We tagged Oneida's American Colonial in our gift registry and as the days crept closer to our wedding day, the place settings began to show up at our doorstep. Before we drove off on our cross-country honeymoon, my husband and I were the proud owners of a full 12-piece service.

At least as much as the ring on my finger, my silverware made me feel settled and established. Though my husband and I began to use our forks, spoons, and knives day to day right away, those hopes and dreams niggled at the back of my mind.  I wondered over and over again, would they ever come true?

Yes, they did. My actual life since those days has more than surpassed my twenty-five-year-old imagination, and my set of silverware has indeed been at the center of that marvelously madcap life.

So much so, in fact, that a few pieces of it have disappeared here and there over the years.

Left behind after a picnic.

Carried off in a school lunch.

Pitched into the garbage with a sea of takeout wrappers.

As the years went by and I began to realize that some of my silverware had gone missing, I consoled myself; Someday you can buy replacements of whatever's been lost, and your set will be whole again.

Which sounds easy enough. But during those crazy years of raising four daughters on a single income, buying extra teaspoons seemed like an outrageous extravagance. Someday felt like a long, long time away.

* * * * *

Fast forward to last week. As our lives slowed to a Covid-19 crawl, and I've become more reflective about what matters in life, my silverware situation came to the forefront of my mind. While I'm not saying that buying flatware became my moral imperative, this seemed like the right time to reinvest in my family, in my vision for who we are, and who we are in the midst of becoming.

Filling in my silverware set took on

an air of optimism,

an act of confidence in the future,

a willingness to believe that life still holds out promise for us all.

So I inventoried my collection, scraped together some cash, and bought what I was missing.

Now my silverware settings are complete once again, and my hopes and dreams live on.

* * * * *

Read more stories about life with Covid-19 here in suburban Seattle:

Sitting Pretty

Scenes Of An Ordinary Easter

Our First Church

Silver Linings

Hopes And Dreams In The Silverware Drawer

Life Of A (Socially Distant) Math Teacher: Midterms

Keep Life Simple

What I'm Doing Lately

Do Dinner

Covid Cleaning

Gracie's And My Daily (Socially Distant) Walks

Life Of A (Socially Distant) Math Teacher

Miracle Of Light

Social Distancing In My Dining Room

Social Distancing In My Kitchen

We're On The Road To Shambala

Sunshine And Disco Balls

Feel Better

Covid-19 Is For Real

A COVID-19 Update

Checking In From Coronavirus Central