A Saturday

I'm in the library. I have not been here with my laptop since I was in high school and writhing my way through chemistry and college English. I don't know how I forgot this was such an ideal way to spend an afternoon writing; it is quiet, clean, vast. Just big enough to disappear easily into a corner and be bothered by nothing and no one. My phone is on silent, no one has texted me today, and I have the whole afternoon here. 

Riley is currently away on a work trip, having left this morning at 5:00am. Since I was up so early, I decided to get my hair wash out of the way, and I also made zucchini muffins (my father-in-law has a flourishing vegetable garden, and recently gifted me with a paper bag full of zucchini and cucumbers.) A friend and I planned to have tea at 7:00am, so I took the muffins there and we spent the morning in easy conversation on two Adirondack chairs, with mugs of Paris tea, overlooking a green lawn and a duck in a dandelion patch. 

We were finished at about 9:30, and I went straight to the grocery store. If you know me personally, you may have heard me mention that I love grocery shopping. Strangely enough, I don't know many people who share this sentiment, but I look forward to it every week. I get excited for it. I hope it doesn't become a drag later on in life; but if it does, well, it doesn't matter, because that's an opportunity for me to fix my attitude and have a joyful heart towards a necessary and very privileged task. 

When I came home, I was getting rather dull and tired. I hauled the groceries inside, and spent about 10 minutes lying down in our sunny bedroom with my face in the perfectly cool satin of my pillowcase. The window was open and I could hear the soft whisper of the trees just outside. That restored me just enough to get up, put away the groceries, finish the other half of a muffin, and do a quick workout. 

For lunch, I had leftover wild rice, ground turkey, and chickpeas with a runny egg on top. I ate it while sitting on the bed. Our bedroom gets the most sunlight during the day, so when I'm home on Saturdays, I tend to spend a lot of time there.

While sipping on a cup of coffee, I packed up my things, and then came here. 

I don't have much of anything big to say here, but I do value the written vignettes of small, everyday life. Though mundane to some, I know I will come back and read this with a certain fondness that I get when reminded of days past. I think someday when I've got children and less free time (Lord-willing), I will find it sweet to look back on a quiet, small Saturday when I was twenty-two. 

And, I've just found out that the library closes earlier on Saturdays... so I've only got about an hour left here. I'm satisfied with what I've written, so I think I'll pack up and go look around. I've been needing a quick, short yet thoughtful read ever since making my way through Emma. (I'm still only halfway through. I am loving it, but I need a little something to help me stay out of reading-lethargy.)

I've gotta do this again soon, and maybe earlier next time, so I've got the whole afternoon. Until then, goodbye! 

 

Hi! [crickets...]

Just a pretty picture of English Ivy and maidenhair fern (both of which have since died...)

Time races by, and I have not written a blog post since December (!!!). This year has been so busy from the start. There's much I could write about, just from the past few months, but I also kind of don't want to... haha. I want to start clean and write about life-right-now. 

To begin with, everyone is getting married! I am in the same season of life I always heard my mom talking about with such fondness, when I was growing up. "Everyone was getting married at the same time, and then before you knew it, everyone was having babies at the same time." (We have not yet reached the babies portion of this new plane of life yet, but I've a feeling that in the next few years it will happen.)

How blessed I am to have so many loved ones, and to witness so many marriages beginning. God is doing such wonderful work!

I suppose I'm not writing for any purpose other than I haven't written in aaaaaaaages..... and I miss it! 

I think my problem is that when I'm at home, there is always an abundance of things I'd rather be doing than sitting at my laptop. Working in the kitchen, reading (currently Jane Austen's "Emma"), practicing piano, doing laundry (it's a lovely little walk from our apartment to the laundry facility, especially this time of year), etc. etc.... I think I need to place myself in a setting where a laptop belongs. I'm not sure how to explain it, but my home doesn't feel like that, especially since my time at home is so limited and the hours are so short-- maybe when I've stopped working, someday when we have a few children, I will be home all the time and might feel more affectionately about sitting down at my laptop. For now, I quite like the idea of setting up in the library or a coffee shop and writing for hours. So, perhaps once the dust settles a bit, I can make it more of a habit to go hangout at the library for a few hours on Saturdays. Because, while I just spent a whole paragraph detailing how I dislike being on my laptop when I'm at home, you must not mistake that for a dislike of writing. My mind and heart long to write. I just have to be strategic and intentional about the way I act on it. 

That's about it, presently, but first, a note about spring:

Warm, early summer days are approaching. We've had a nice spattering of colder, grayer days as well, but for the most part it's been warming up nicely. I notice the older I get, the more I just adore summer, maybe even as much as I adore spring and fall. My ability to notice beauty everywhere is improving, which might have something to do with it. No matter the temperature, there are still pretty things everywhere. Trees older than myself; little divots in the bright green hills that line the business park, where I think it would be lovely to curl up and think about the grass; rose bushes exploding forth with blooms no matter how often the gardeners hack them back into little cubes of sticks; feathery clouds in a warm blue sky; all manner of birds chattering in the trees; the scent of gardenias growing along the side of a bank building I walk past on my lunch breaks. I won't sacrifice the opportunity to be outdoors just for the sake of staying cool, so I spent my whole thirty minutes outside. On especially hot days, I may simply sit on a hilltop in the middle of the business park, under the shade of a tree. Most of the time though, I love to walk along the little hills, and I don't get too warm if I stay in the shady patches.

 If you open up my journal (any of the four I'm currently filling up, in my purse, my nightstand, my desk at work, and my bookshelf at home) anytime after the month of February, you have a high likelihood of opening to an entry where I'm just gushing about springtime. It's probably the season I write about the most. God did NOT have to give us the gift of springtime, the joy of watching the world bloom, but He did, and I hope it always points my heart to Him.

Letting the dead of winter also point my heart to Him is a different lesson I must learn (everything is so profoundly gray and the cold is depressing), but I trust that He will do His work there as well. I must never be satisfied to sit in a place of discontentment-- circumstances (in this case, weather) cannot dictate my heart's attitude, for I must always only be satisfied in the Lord!

Anyway-- I am hopeful that in the coming months, I can put more of my heart to the page, and perhaps more consistently. This is good for me, and I am also encouraged by a dear friend who recently told me she was waiting for me to put out another blog post. It is good to know that my writing is seen and considered, even by one person. I have a few friends who are faithful readers, which is very sweet. Connection, by way of the written word, is such a gift. To anyone who reads and enjoys my humble little blog, I am glad you're here! :)