My post today for my designated slicing time this afternoon was inspired by Barb Edler’s mustard poem from Sunday. She was having a hard time finding her yellow mustard for a sandwich, and I was having a hard time finding anything in my under-the-stairs pantry. It’s tucked away and can be a little cramped, but we tend to keep sparse supplies of food here anyway, so it works out.
Until it doesn’t, and that is usually because I let it get out of control.
It was time to reorganize our shelves, and since we sold our camper several weeks ago and I kept all of the clear plastic storage containers from that setup, I shifted the same system into my own kitchen.
I started by pulling everything out. Everything.
I organized it all by type of food on the counter, checking dates and tossing expired items. Breads, cereals, spices and baking foods, canned goods, crackers, coffee and teas, and sauces and snacks.
Food organized by type on the counter
I knew something around here was going to get a cleaning at some point when I got sick and they put me on a steroid, so it was all a matter of when the burst of energy would come and what was in my path at the time. I’m glad it was the pantry, and I’m glad it was inspired by fellow slicer Barb and her mustard.
It feels great to know what’s here to eat again!
The refrigerator, though…….well, that’ll take another burst of energy and another inspiration.
We sold our 2022 Extreme Outdoors Little Guy Max Rough Rider camper on March 2nd to a couple from Nashville, Tennessee after two years of enjoying the most exciting adventures in it. We knew we wanted to replace it with something slightly bigger but still small enough to get into state park campgrounds. I didn’t cry, but I have had a hole in my heart since we watched it drive away.
We like being able to take jaunts on weekends and spend time away from the demands of work and home. Our 3 schnoodles stay ready to go, too. They’re campground dogs, through and through. Each asked us to look at one particular kind of camper that they say they’ve had their eye on after chatting it up with the other dogs in our favorite campgrounds, so we dedicated a part of yesterday afternoon to starting the search.
Fitz likes Airstreams. He’s a classic dog with an old soul, very traditional, and he likes the Flying Cloud, the Globetrotter, the International, and of course the Classic models. He’s not picky – – he just wants one with those wraparound windows so he can sit up there with his sunglasses on and watch the girl dogs trot by with their blingy pink collars. He’s a lofty dreamer, to tell the truth.
Boo Radley is more technologically progressive and likes the InTech Aucta Willow Rover model with its aluminum chassis, all-composite woodless materials, and wind-sensor automatic awning. He’s a little more particular about what he likes and doesn’t like, and he’s got his eye on the openness of this camper so he can stay all up in everybody’s business the way he always does.
Ollie is a far more futuristic dog and likes the InTech Aucta Sycamore Rover model with a longer body so he’ll have plenty of room to chase his ball around inside. He likes the spacious seating area so we can all pile up onto one couch and watch movies and eat all his favorite snacks.
We located an Aucta Willow Rover about an hour from our home, so we made the drive over to Southland RV in LaGrange, Georgia during my slice of blogging time to take a look at Boo Radley’s camper pick. (He especially likes it because it is all light gray and white so he can blend right in). We were impressed with the comfort of the seating around the table – and the amount of light and number of windows.
The storage space looks minimal, but that’s how we roll. We don’t take a lot of extras or all the bells and whistles. Two of each type of cutlery, two plates and mugs, a toaster and coffee maker and only small sizes of the things we need suit us fine. Years into this journey, we’ve learned that less is SO MUCH more.
The table turns to allow ease of getting into the U-shaped dinette, which is nice, but we weren’t impressed with the lack of counter space for our coffee maker and toaster. We’ve become modification dabblers too, though, and there are surprising ways of making things work in small spaces that at first might not appear that they could.
For now, though, we continue to compare and shop and look and research.
And dream, along with Fitz, Boo Radley, and Ollie.
Boo Radley lobbies for toast in the Little Guy Max
I’m hungry by the time I arrive home from work, and most days I try to keep an apple in the car for the ride home to stave off the voracious hunger and temptation to ravage the pantry before dinner. When I was sick and couldn’t stomach much of anything, the saving grace for me was sherbet. It felt like I was swallowing refreshing sunshine to put smiles all through my insides and wrestle the germs loose.
I’m feeling much better, but this sweet treat is still calling my name from the freezer when I come home. I’ve been scraping the top layer for days – – straight outta the plastic tub, y’all — with no shame and no regret.
Now that I’m nearing the bottom, should I resist the temptation to buy more? I was always a pushover for a Push-Up, and here I am elbow-deep in an adult-sized helping of rainbow sherbet of summer memories at the swimming pool.
I need an intervention.
Appetizer Snack
After work snack or dinner appetizer? Let’s call it whatever we want –
I often stop by the Ace Hardware store on my way home from work. In a small town like mine, it’s the place to go for everything – I read the Magnolia Home paint chip stories, buy lightbulbs and birdseed, and even once when I needed a wagon for a book talk where I was selling books, I went in to get one and the Ace man took the box to the back and put it together for me so I could go straight to my event. He’s also the man who taught me something about my tomato plants……..
I take an afternoon break at work usually around 3:30 for about 10 minutes to stretch my legs and walk outdoors around the building in the sunshine when it’s warm. My body and soul need the Vitamin D. I need the release of noise and stress to take to the silence. I’m reminded of Margaret Simon’s recent post on Notes from a Walk inspired by Denise Kreb’s post on her own morning walk and take some mental notes for a blog post later. I notice the flowers, the birdsong, the hidden Pirate Trail so perfect for a solitary walk to indulge for just a few minutes in the name of what little sanity and peace of mind exists right now.
This walk reminds me of our visit to Gibbs Gardens last year, where we took in the breathtaking views of daffodils and tulips. It makes me want to go back again. They’ve just opened for the season on March 1. I pull up the ticket information and the hours, starting to plan the trip in my mind. I check out the Bloom Update calendar and admire the photos of the same daffodils I’d seen last year that were recently photographed, smiling their friendly, welcoming springtime smiles already this year.
This weekend? Next weekend? What’s on tap for us? I text my husband: Let’s go back to Gibb’s Gardens! Which weekend works for you?
And then, across the parking lot in the row of pines, I see the familiar ghostly cloud of yellow spores signaling me from the tip top branches, sweeping through the needles and swooping down, taking my inner springtime joy with it as one giant corkscrewing wave spirals in a hurried flurry to the ground. My weekend dreams pummel in that same way inside my heart, and I can feel it.
I cover my nose and mouth and return to the less-spored indoors, turning the personal air purifier in my cubicle to the highest setting, abandoning all ambition to make the drive to Gibbs Gardens until after pollen season and penciling a note to myself to tape to my keys: remember to dig out the NeilMed sinus rinse bottle before bed.
Gibbs Gardens trip plans
come to a screeching-hard halt
in this pollen count
Today’s Pollen Count in Pike County, Georgia is 184 grains per cubic meter of air……..
Our hosts today for the fifth and final day of the March Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com are preservice teachers, students at Aquinas College. Come on over and read their prompt as they inspire us to write a nonet.
All I can do is daydream about spending time with my grandchildren, so that’s what I do most afternoons in the 2:36-3:07 slice of my day. I have photos of my family on my desk, and I think on the happy memories when I was rocking newborn Silas, playing Yahtzee with 15 year old Aidan, and pushing Saylor and Noli on the swings, catching River and Beckham at the bottom of the slide, and helping Sawyer put on his new rollerblades at the park. These are the days I look forward to in retirement, and while I can’t be there yet, I can surely daydream about it……..
Today’s poetry prompt for the fourth day of our five Open Write days in March at http://www.ethicalela.com is to wrote a Dictionary Poem, inspired by Katrina Morrison. You can read her full prompt here.
Support
sup-port (v) – to hold up or bear the weight of
ex: the toothpicks I need for my eyelids this morning
sup-port (n) – assistance
ex: three hours on the phone with a computer technician
Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com is Dave Wooley, whose prompt (you can read it in its entirety here) inspires us to write short-form poems of ekphrastic bursts. I’ve chosen a place where I often have workday meetings during the slice of time between 1:32 and 2:03 as the focus of my poem, written in tricubes (3 stanzas of 3 lines consisting of 3 syllables on each line).
For five days this month, three of my writing communities intersect on the same day. I’ve often had folks ask me how I manage three writing groups at once The secret is in the streamlining. For The Stafford Challenge, we write a poem a day for a year. For the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com, we write a poem a day for five days a month and every day in April (you can read today’s prompt by Sarah Donovan here, inspiring writers to write about a place to breathe), and for The Slice of Life Challenge, we blog about a life moment. The magic of making it happen is to figure out which one works as a one-size-fits-all writing and to get started. Today, I’m using the Open Write prompt linked above.
A Place to Breathe……hmmm…….there are several of those, but what comes to mind lately is Ace Hardware.
After church, we piddle around on Sundays. Sometimes that means going to the hardware store so we can replenish our birdseed supply or pick up something we need to work on around the house. My husband likes looking at the lightbulbs, and I know I will always find him on that aisle. We live deep in the rural countryside of Georgia, so it doesn’t take much to entertain either one of us.
Me? I look around, but I discovered a secret thrill that takes me to the Magnolia Home paint chip section, and I have to be secretive about my mission so no one else discovers it. This hidden pleasure would surely draw all the crowds from their farms and tractors, but I only want to share it with those reading my blog so that my place to breathe remains mine alone in this town.
Colorful Story Paint Chip Haiku
did you know that there
are stories on the backs of
Magnolia chips?
these are the kinds of
deep-breathing exercises
perfect for writers
colorful stories
that’ll take your breath away
and make you want to
write your own colorful gems
about your own hues
just take a deep breath
close your eyes, go someplace loved
pick up your own pen
Take a look at these colorful, brilliant gems pictured below! Sure, it’s a marketing strategy, but I’d pay a little more for a gallon of this paint just to line the pockets of a writer who took the time to make all the right words work.
And then, after the Magnolia Paint chip section, I’m off to the garden section, where the herbs have just arrived in 4″ pots, where I picked up four patio tomatoes before they were entered in the system earlier this week – – -stood and waited for them to be buyable. I smell the rosemary and dill, and then…..smell the summer salmon on the grill.
Then a bag of birdseed and clear hummingbird mix for the hummers due to arrive this week according to all bird count maps. I’ll boil water and clean out the glass feeders, hang them by the front porch…..and sit with a glass of blood orange iced tea spiked with honey. And I’ll listen for the familiar hum and the steak of green glimmer. I will hear them before I ever see them.
And last I’m off to the lightbulbs, where he will be standing, holding a box or two, saying what he always says: you just can’t find incandescent bulbs anymore, and we need them for the heat in the well. And I’ll do what I always do: I’ll show him the heat bulbs like we used for the chickens, and he’ll act like it’s the first time I’ve ever suggested it. He’ll put back his box and pick up the heat bulbs, and then we’ll make our purchases and drive home after an exciting piddle through our local Ace Hardware Store.
For today and the next four days, three of my writing groups intersect. As part of The Stafford Challenge, I have committed to writing a poem every day for a year. In the Slice of Life Writing Challenge, we blog every day for the month of March, and for Ethicalela’s Open Write, today’s prompt drives the writing for the other groups as well.
Leilya Pitre of Louisiana’s prompt at http://www.ethicalela.com can be read in full here. She inspires us to write poems about the Ides of March with its foreboding feeling of doom.. While my time slice today is 12:28-12:59, I can tell you that during that 31-minute segment of my day, I’ll be praying and moving plants indoors and securing outdoor furniture to prepare for the storms my daughter is experiencing this morning in Owensboro, Kentucky that are heading our way this evening. Everyone has been anticipating and preparing for these storms all week. Right now, I’m praying for my children who are enduring baseball-size hail and 70 mph winds in their first round this morning.
I made up my own poetry form today. I chose to write an Ides of March Time and Date poem, using the time of her text and the date as my line formations. My daughter sent a text at 5:51 on 3/15, so six lines have that many words in that order. 5-5-1-3-1-5.
Common Threads 