Mary Beth Writes

This train photo is not cribbed from anywhere. It's a Genuine Leonardo. 

8/1/2022

Hello and how are you? I am writing less and less as Len and I meander around to doctors, specialists, dentists, and that way-too-early appointment at the endodontist. (So far, we are fine.) The irony being that most of what we are attending to are the side effects of medications prescribed for stuff that didn’t hurt and we didn’t even know we had.

More fun is spending time with our kids and grandkids. The one who is fearless in water. The one who is fearless everywhere. The one who wept because he doesn’t have enough train pictures (we send them most weeks, cribbed from Google Images). He has at least fifty pages of train photos but there are never enough. He peruses them at night in his crib and then sleeps with them. The kid who starts kindergarten this month and right now is the Empress of Everything.

I read a wonderful tweet this morning: We’re done being overachievers around here. Please tell me the extremely boring and adequate things you’ve been doing lately.

People responded with gems such as:

  • “I got gas for my car.”
  • “I fed my kids sugary cereal.”
  • “I ate a Twix bar while driving home.”
  • “I’m still riding high on rehanging a mirror that’s been propped on the floor for four years.”
  • “I selected a perfectly ripe avocado.”

When way too much is going on, it’s stress-relieving to consider, list, and celebrate the extraordinarily ordinary stuff we are doing.

So that’s where I am today.

  • I washed the rug the cat barfed on this morning.
  • I ate an apple.
  • I looked up the lovely healthy volunteer plants in my garden and figured out they were poke plants which are very poisonous. I dug them out and threw them away.
  • When I was walking and heard a train coming, I stopped and turned around to watch the engines (You see where that grandkid gets it, right?)

Stressed? Kerfuffled? Anxious or depressed?

What ordinary things did you do yesterday and today?

 

 

 

Tags

Comments

Yesterday, I read all afternoon Today - grocery shopped Picked up stones from the parking lot for next weeks crafts Found my first monarch larvae of the season. Just sat down for a nap and reading.

Dead headed some lilies; “Snacked” the chickens; harvested yellow squash; spent a lot of time watching you-tube vids on Russia and scrapping and dumpster diving

Today I: Got a mammogram Made cat food (yeah - I do it, too) Looked up what a Poke plant looks like

Finished my book Zorrie by Laird Hunt… A beautiful story about an ordinary woman’s life in rural Indiana ….It was a slow story that I almost put down numerous times! In the end, I felt it was quite a remarkable tale and reminded me that the ordinary things I get to do each day are actually quite satisfying and enjoyable. I’m also getting the house ready as my daughter, son in law and two grandkids are arriving tonight for a visit! Hooray!

I dropped my husband off at a trailhead on the Appalachian Trail. He will be out walking for about a month, barring any injuries or illness. I swore off meat for the month as I am not crazy about it and never have been. I love animals and the planet Earth but this is simply because the taste is not something I would ever crave. On the drive home alone I stopped at a McDonald's to use their bathroom. The smell of the grease overcame me and I ordered a slathered-with-mayo chicken sandwich. It wasn't bad.

How fun to just enjoy..
Mary Beth's picture

I LOVE all these so far!

Dropped my kid sister at O'hare so she could fly to England and have an adventure, drove to Forest Park instead of home because the drive was shorter, stayed the night, work up at ten, crawed out of bed at eleven and showerd, went for a breakfast of eggs and catfish, and have accomplished nothing... There's always tomorrow...

Add new comment

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Be a (bit of a) Scientist This Summer!

3/23/2023

This is an updated rerun of a story I posted last spring.

This is about Stream Monitoring and How to Do It. You don’t have to be a man to do this, but many are and that’s as close to the obvious joke as I’m going to go.

Len and his volunteer pal Tom enjoy this volunteer gig a lot. Once each month in the summer they go to the same stretch of the same stream to check water quality and to discover what creatures are lurking in the water and muck.  

A-Z Ice Cream & Marco Polo

DQ will never look the same. This photo is of a patio where one eats their gelato, somewhere in Italy. 

...

3/22/2023

What is the thing most people spend a great deal of time, energy, and money keeping off our necks and out of our homes?

Chilly air

What is ice cream?

Chilly air with sugar.

Igloos

3/16/2022

We are working our way through an Alphabet of Topics and we are currently considering the letter I. Two days ago, I wrote about Idiosyncrasies. Today is Igloo. Next up is Ice Cream.

So here we are again with nervous banks and a jumpy stock market and we “commoners” quietly peruse how many bags of beans we have in the pantry. I hope by the time I finish and post this the news is more stable, but I doubt it. “May you live in interesting times.” Right?

You know what I learned while researching igloos?

I is for Idiosyncrasy - "I'm not goofy. You are..."

3/14/2023  (Happy Pi Day)

Idiosyncrasies are like cave drawings; enigmatic clues that say once upon a time something happened here. A story unfolded. Someone tried to solve a problem. The solution worked, or at least it kept the person comfortable or comforted long enough for the idiosyncratic habit to form.

A-Z Humor Me

Humor 3/8/2023

I heard this joke in a sermon in 1974. I heard that highly revered minister preach at least a hundred sermons and this is the ONLY thing I remember him saying.  

A guy loses his job and is desperate for a new one with which to support his precious family. Nothing turns up until one day the newspaper Help Wanted Ads (so now you know how old this jokes really is) says the zoo has an opening. Guy applies. The HR person looks worried and then says the zoo changed its mind, the job is too demeaning. Guy says he’s desperate, will take anything.

A-Z Heaven ...

3/3/2023

First of all, you should realize that tomorrow is March 4th which is the only date of the year which tells you what to do. Hah.

This week I was amazed by this map/representation of the process of the creation of a new star. A year ago, there were no visuals of this process. What you are looking at is cutting-edge stuff observed and collaborated by 90 astronomers worldwide.

That + in the middle is the new star that right now is bigger than our sun. We know it’s young and new because it’s growing.

Tag Cloud

9/11 17 minutes 500 Words A-Z AARPtaxes AAUW abortion Acadia accident Accountable Advent aging Alaska anniversary antibiotics antlers apples appointments Arrows art Ashland August Augustine baby Badlands balance Baldwin Barbara Barkskins Beauty Becky Becoming Esther Berry birthday bistro BLM BookReport books boy scout Bread BrokenDays BuyAngry Cabeza de Vaca Cahokia calendars Canada canoe cat romance cats cello Chicago China Choosing Christmas cilantro Cinnabuns circus clouds Clowns clutter Colonialism comet ComfortZone CommonSense community consumerism Cops Corvid-19 Courage Covid-19 Crazy creditreport creosote CrimeShows danger DarkRiver death Debate December DecisionFatigue decluttering democracy dentist depression Destination Today Detroit Didion disasterprep dogs dollhouse Dreams Duty Easter eBay Echoes Eclipse election EmilyDickinson eschatology Esquipulas exit polls eyes Fable FairTrade family farmer Fata Morgana ferns firealarm Fitness Five Flatbread Flexible flu Fort de Chartres frame Franc FrancGarcia friends frugal FrugalHacks Frugality frustration Ft.Ticonderoga fungi fusion Galena Gannets Garden GarfieldParkConservatory Gaspe genius geode GeorgeFloyd gerrymandering ghosts gifts girls gorgons goulash GovernorThompsonStatePark Graduation grandkids granola groceries Guatemala gum guns Hair happiness HaveYouEver? hawks healthcare Healthinsurance hearings heart heaven HelleKBerry heroes hike History home HomeRepair Honduras Hope humor hurricane Ice Cream idiosyncrasy igloos impeachment Innkeeper Instincts integrity InternetPrivacy Interview InviteMe2Speak James Baldwin Jan 6 Janus JoyceAndrews Judy JulianofNorwich justice Karen Lamb LangstonHuges LaphamPeak laundry LeeLeeMcKnight lemming Len Light Lincoln Little Women LockedOut Loki loneliness LouisArmstrong Love Ludington Macaw macho Manitoulin MargaretFuller Maria Hamilton Marquette marriage Marsden Hartley masks Mayan MayaWorks meme Memories men Middlemarch MilesWallyDiego MindfulChickens Mistakes MLK moon Mother MothersDay mouser movies museums must-haves Mustapha Nancy Drew New Mexico New York City Nomadland OBUUC Ocotillo OnaJudge ordinary OscarRomero osprey Outside oximeter Parade mayhem PastorBettyRendon Paul Hessert PDQ Penny persimmon photos Pi Pies pineapples poetry Preaching privacy Protest QE2 Quern quest Questions Rabbit holes racism recipe recipes recommendations Remember RepresentationMatters Reruns responsetoKapenga Retirement rhubarb Ricky rime RitesofPassage Rosemary Ruether Roses Roti Ruth SamaritanWoman Sanctuary Sandhillcranes Santuario de Chimayo SaraKurtz SaraRodriguez sculpture Sermon ServantsoftheQuest sewing Shepherd Shontay ShortStory shoulder sick sickness Slower snow Social Security SofritoBandito solstice South Dakota SpaceShuttle spirituality spring square feet staining stars stele Stereotypes stories StoryStarts stream monitoring stress Survival swim taxes teenager thankgsgiving Thanksgiving TheBridge TheMaid ThePerpetualYou ThreeBillBoards Three Thing Three Things ThreeThings TidalBore TimeBeing toddler Tom tortillas Trains travel Traveler Tubing turtle Twilight Bark Tyrone Ukraine Ulysses Grant UnrelatedObservations Up North urgency vacation vaccine Valentines vanilla Vietnam vision VivianWokeUpDrowning vole volunteer WalkingAndSeeing Wampanaog war WarsanShire weather weaving Webs wedding whines WhyAttendChurch Wiley Willa WillaCather Wisteria
Ad Promotion