Tag Archives: simplepleasures

Simple Pleasures in February

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~  The shifting light in the Eagle Cap mountains this afternoon

~  Close encounters
I enjoy deer a) on the grill, b) in between buns,
and c) when they are not completing the alimentary cycle in my yard.

~  My new favorite salad,
Asian Noodle Salad, the Pioneer Woman’s concoction.
I made it today at our friends’ house.
The score card: 8/8 tasters ADORED this salad.

I can’t wait for occasions to make this salad again.
Easter Sunday, for sure.
Fellowship Meals, check.
(your church probably calls it potluck,
but we get in big trouble if we use that word.)
When my brother and his wife come.
Every day this week.

My husband thinks if you added grilled chicken, it’d be perfect.

~ Laughter
I think “Oops!” must be my middle name.

1.  I confused nephrology (treatment of kidneys)
with necrology (whatever it is, it’s about death).

2.  Summarizing the situation, I pronounced,
“Well, it’s just time to gear up the loins.”

3.  Suggesting a brilliant possibility, I explained,
“I just wanted to put a bug in your nose.”

Simple Pleasures in December

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If you’ve been around Magistra Mater for a while,
you know how much I loathe–despise–plastic inflatable Santas.
Detesting the abominable creatures was getting a bit out of hand.

Thankfully, I’ve found something to love.
We are opposing crass ugliness with simple beauty.

A wreath with a bow


And my new favorite Christmas/Winter decoration:
a star in the window.

My friend Katie has had one of these in her window for over a year.

It reminds me of this verse:
We have seen His star and have come to worship Him.


a view from the inside

Simple Pleasures in November

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~ Political signage is down…well, 95% is!

~  James Taylor has a new album called Covers.
Here’s the cool part:
There is a free full album preview here.
We’ve listened to it at least a dozen times.

~  It’s candle season.  I’ve been enjoying
a grouping of votives from IKEA.

~ Soup/Stew/Chowder/Bisque season!
Last night we had Potato Corn Cheese Chowder.
I added chunks of chicken to please my meat-eating guys.

~ Sun and wind dried our lawn enough to mow up the leaves,
which transformed a four hour job into a twenty minute chore.

~ The slanting light of November has entranced me.
Right around 4:00 p.m.

Your turn!
What simple pleasures are you enjoying?
Do you have a favorite soup?
Favorite scent of candle?

Oops!  I forgot one of my favorite simple pleasures:
Organizing and cleaning bookshelves.
Here is the “after” shot of my little kitchen cart.

Simple Pleasures in September

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Everyone in the UK has an electric kettle. 
I love mine.
LOVE it.


~  garden produce

~ Minnesota Public Radio
I’m thirsty for good music.  Solid joy.
Eager to deepen my knowledge of classical music.
I’ve listened to several classical “channels” on Windows Media Player.
But.  One ends up hearing the same repertoire over and over.
As if Pachelbel didn’t compose anything but the Canon in D.
This morning I was paralyzed with delight by:

~  Vaughan Williams’ Five Variants of Dives & Lazarus
(New fact: VW’s first name, Ralph, is pronounced Rafe.
Heard it earlier this week, confirmed this morning.)
This music will gnaw into the edges of your soul, then come back with salve.
We sing Psalm 22 to this tune.
Also “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.”
The best way to spend 11 minutes and 99 cents.
I beg you–at least–listen to the preview.

Well.  After listening to it three times, I’m quite sure this is
On The List of my Funeral Music.
This music undoes me.


~ Boxes (and boxes!) of these Ikea glass sets for our church’s Wedding Closet.
The CA bride and groom didn’t want these after their reception. 
My middle name is Scavenger.
These puppies rode with me in the back seat on the way home.

Simple Pleasures in September

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Photograph taken through the window above my sink

I’ve been doing the dishes by hand lately. 
It gives me an opportunity to breathe,
enjoy the view,
(thank God for my neighbor Shelly and her green thumb)
unravel my thoughts,
and effortlessly clean my fingernails. 

My daughter-in-law suggested I trim back the delphinium
to see if it might bloom again.  It did!
I clicked this picture with the garage open,
giving it the dramatic black background.


Hostas are The Answer for north facing flower beds that get little sun.

Geraniums are great for color.  I always choose red geraniums.
My SIL kept her geraniums alive on a sunny closed-in porch for seven years.

Lupines are more common on the hillside than in a garden.
This is my first year growing them.

Lulus have been my favorite marigold (formally Marigold Lucida) for years.
I love the lacy leaves and small flowers.


Clockwise from the bright red flowers:
Red Celosia, Purple (mind went blank)  Light purple Penstemon, Orange-Yellow Marigolds

Well.  It’s time to update the 100 species challenge.  I think I stall because the perfectionist side of me (the side my husband would like to see applied to the dust bunnies under our bed) does not want to post a flower until I have “all the facts”.  I had this inkling to join the 100 push ups challenge.  When I mentioned it to Curt, he remarked with a splash of dryness, “Right – and you could recite your 100 species while you did your push ups.”  heh heh…

1.  Clematis
2.  Garlic
3.  Delphinium
4.  Daylily
5.  Dianthus
6.  Daisy
7. Lobelia
8. Verbena
9. Cosmos
10. Salvia
11. Diachondra

12. Rose  There are over 100 species of Roses – that would make a nifty ultra-challenge!  I learned that most species are native to … Asia!  Would you have guessed that?

13. Hosta – HA HA! I was sure this name came from the Latin and had something to do with enemy.  Of course, I believe that everything comes from the Latin and tend to make myself obnoxious informing people of Latin roots.  Hosta, however, comes from the Austrian botanist, Nicholas Thomas Host.  Joke’s on me.  Now I wonder about pronunciation.  I’ve always made it rhyme with cost.  Maybe it should rhyme with Costa Rica.
How do you pronounce this plant name?  Long o or short o? 

14.  Geranium – Not from the Latin, but from the Greek!  Commonly called cranesbills (evidently not that common – have you ever heard of them as anything other than geranium?) because the seed head is the same shape as the bill of a crane.  (Personal investigation pending)
The Greek word for crane = geranos.  Isn’t life sweet? We just learned a Greek word to add to our vocabulary.  I’m over the hosta thing.

15.  Lupine – Add this word to the “silent e – but short vowel sound” list (come, done, give, love, captive, minute, comrade and bade come to mind) Wait!  This is about plants!!  The leaves of a lupine are easy to recognize.  They look like palm trees.

16.  Marigold – I usually get all yellow Lulus that look like this.  They are the last flower to die in the fall, only after a hard frost.  I learned that the leaves are eaten as an herb and are a substitute for tarragon.  Am I gutsy enough to substitute them in my Tarragon Chicken recipe? 

That’s enough for today.  Like so many good things, all it takes is time and attention.  But once I jump in, learning a little botany is “the bee’s knees”.

Simple Pleasures in July

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Sunrise from my front yard looking east


At the same moment, the moon was setting in the west


Celebrating the patriarch’s birthday…72 years
Barbequed Chicken
Corn on the Cob
Potato Salad
Cold Watermelon
Black Bean Salad
Rustic Bread
Rhubarb Cobbler
Homemade Ice Cream


A fun and frugal place setting.
Mix and match dishes: hand me downs from my daughter-in-law
Cloth napkins: 25¢ at Burlington Coat Factory

~   Mutual appreciation of our video choices. 
How often is the whole family eager to watch the same thing?
We work heartily on our after-dinner chores
so we can watch an hour of DVD or video.
Kenneth Branagh’s World War 1 in Color
PBS Home Video The Great War
and
Foyle’s War.


~ Wildflowers by the edge of road

~  After two weeks of working full time crunching numbers for the pharmacy,
I have all day today to be home.
Happy, happy sigh.

Agenda:
Bake bread for the freezer
Make poppyseed cakes to freeze for husband’s lunches.
Organizing my pantry
Ironing, while listening to Mark Helprin, my new intriguing author.
Answering a few emails
Singing
Working on 100 Species Challenge
Call a brother or sister or several

I love days at home.  Alone or not. 

Not everybody does.  I have a girlfriend who goes crazy if she has to stay home.  She loves to be out: out walking, out shopping, out driving, out anywhere.  Her home is lovely.  She just has to move.  I read a biography of Laura Bush and laughed aloud when the extended Bush family had a hard time understanding how she could sit in one spot for hours reading. 

What about you?  Home or out?

Simple Pleasures in June

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The simple pleasures below are all someone else’s joys.
They share them with me.  I share them with you.
Vicarious pleasure.
My specialty.


My daughter-in-law filled this vintage piece
(a wooden milk carrier?) with flowers for a dear friend.
No one does flowers like Jessie.

~  Iris and rose from my mother-in-law’s garden
**when I read this, I can’t help humming
My Wild Iris(silent h) / Rose!**

~  Sunrise on the Columbia River
My son, Chris, went on a fishing trip.

People!  This is a ten foot sturgeon,
caught and released by my son’s friend.

Any vicarious thrills in your life?

February’s Pleasures

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~  Adjectival  forms of cities. 

The Glaswegian dialect (also called Glasgow patter*) can be particularly difficult to decode.  I learned the meaning of Glaswegian one evening this week and came across it the next day.  Finding a new vocabulary word the second time is more fun than the first.  Hey!  I know you!  (*So, noo thit yez ‘uv been telt  aboot the wye thit
Glesca punters yaze ra patter don’t yooz bloks try in’ make
iz look luk eejits thit cannae talk right oan yer fancy high
falutin’ American websites, awright!!)

My son and I watched Gaudy Night on Netflix Instant Watch.  As the movie opened on to an old English campus, Collin said “That looks Oxfordian”  (can you see me looking at you, mouthing the word with a wide-eyed questioning look and shrug … Oxfordian?)  I delight in learning correct local appelations which make me feel less like a tourist and more like a temporary resident.  Coming from my son is sprinkles on top of Cold Stone. Oxfordian! 

~  Pansies.  There’s nothing like an injection of color on a gray-white February day.  These girls need water, food, something.  But they give me great pleasure. $0.98 at the local box store.

~  New food experience: friends had us over and fixed seafood gumbo.  I learned that if it’s called gumbo it has okra in it.  I never knew I liked okra!  Yum, yum!

~  Photography tutorials
 
    BetterPhoto.com  The courses cost $$, but free tips and great links abound
    PhotoSecrets.com  I’m soaking up “Great Landscape Photography”
    PhotoCourse.com  Clicking on sample chapter downloads the entire book.

~  Resurfaced notes.  I did a Grand Canyon Clean (very deep, took all day) of my desk and found this quote I scribbled down, no attribution, long before we were given a trip to Great Britain.

If architecture is
the art of enclosing light and air
in a shell of stone,
then Lincoln Cathedral is
one of the world’s masterpieces.

 
 Photo by Sam Stroube
William Byrd was the organist at Lincoln from 1563-1572.
Do you know Byrd’s music?

Lincoln Cathedral, Angel Choir, 1895 by Sally Maltby
Art.com More Sally Maltby

Happy Friday, my online friends,

Simple Pleasures in December

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~ Good Words

The First Church’s Christmas Barrel  
by Caroline Abbott Stanley
People!!  Trust me on this one!
It. Is. Excellent.
Free. Download.
Do. It.

A favorite quote from this short story:
[missionary couple talking, husband to wife]

“There isn’t one woman in a hundred that could have managed so well.”

She snuggled up to him. “That pays me–if I needed pay, which I don’t.
It was a work of love and–well, maybe a little necessity.
You told me once that I had a genius for poverty.“

“And God knows it has had no chance to lie dormant,”
he said bitterly.

~ Good Smells

3 sticks cinnamon – broken, a handful of cloves, a few bay leaves,
sliced orange and sliced lemon
add water and simmer, replenishing water as needed
reheat the next day
and the next…

I have some lemons which are past their prime.
This puts them to perfect use.

~ Good Tastes

A simple, fast, delicious recipe:
Costco meatballs
one jar grape jelly
one bottle Chili sauce

Combine jelly and sauce, heat.
Pour over meatballs and warm them
in oven or crockpot.

I am aging prime rib roast in the fridge, per Cook’s Illustrated and brother Dan.
It dehydrates and forms a crust which I’ll shave off before I cook the meat.
Simple. Scrumptious.
Christmas is the only day of the year that I fix prime rib.
If you are interested, message me and I’ll send you the instructions.

When our hunters get an elk, we make hamburger jerky. Yum!

Have you ever used whole nutmeg?
Here are three whole and one partly-used nutmeg.

You run it across a Microplane Grater / Zester for fresh nutmeg.

Perfect on hot oatmeal, on hot chocolate, hot butternut squash soup,
beef stroganoff, or hot buttered rum!