I wouldn’t say I care that much about domain names (website addresses), but I’m pretty excited about this one. I have a .blog!
My address is now andreabadgley.blog. Squeee! It’s so much more fun than a .com.
Author: Andrea Badgley
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Photo courtesy of condesign on Pixabay.
One of my favorite memories from our lives in Florida is from when the kids were small — our daughter was maybe 3 years-old and our son 5 — and we went strawberry picking. The berries glistened like red candy against emerald leaves in row upon row of raised mounds.
The kids ate as many as they dropped in their buckets. Maybe more. We have a photograph of our daughter, chubby cheeks stained red with berries. She wore a pink baseball cap to protect her from the subtropical sun, and in the picture she grins, with warm strawberry juice dribbling down her chin. The front of her white shirt is a bib of berry drippings.
When we returned home, sweaty, with our breath smelling of sweet strawberries, we washed the berries that managed to escape the children’s mouths and spread them to dry on cookie sheets. I remember the volume of take-home berries seemed small compared to the amount of time we spent picking in the hot sun. I had envisioned strawberry shortcake, strawberry pie, chocolate covered strawberries, strawberries on pancakes and waffles. Our stash didn’t look like it would fulfill all of those dreams.
It turns out it did. We made all those dreams come true. The thing I liked best, after the berries were rinsed and patted dry, was the strawberry jam. There’s something very earthy and pioneering about canning fruits and vegetables you picked yourself. Even though jam is filled with loads of sugar, and is really not good for you, something about transforming those fresh red berries into ruby jam in glass jars is wholesome and beautiful.
Each time we spread the red preserves on homemade bread, or biscuits, or crepes, I remembered that day in the fresh air, our kids happy in the sun, smiling, and dripping with berry juice.
This is a ten-minute free write prompted by the word “Strawberries.” I pulled the prompt from my prompt box, set the timer for 10 minutes, and wrote until the timer stopped.
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Photo credit fancycrave1 on Pixabay
Sugar. Rain. Salt. Syrup. Love.
Liquid from a pitcher, tea from leaves steeped in the sun, sweet with sugar melted in warmth.
Dribble, splash. Soak-water dumped from the batter bowl.
Thick amber tilted from a honey pot, viscous, gleaming like liquid gems.
A heart into ink. That’s what I did in younger years, poured my heart into leather journals as a student, into diaries with locks as a little girl. They are funny to me now. At the time they were my deepest feelings.
Clear water into the Christmas tree stand. Powdered sugar into the mixing bowl. Walnuts, pecans, almonds, flax seeds, bought in bulk at the co-op, tumbled into glass jars. Golden-brown nuts glittering in Ball jars cut with diamond patterns.
Rye flour into a canister. Salted caramel cookies into a tin. Ruby red berries onto waffles. White wine vinger over roasted sweet potatoes.
A stream from high to low, swooshing when sugar is poured into a tub, trickling when coffee is poured from the press, tinkling when pennies are poured into a jar, clinking when candies are poured into a bowl. Scratching when words are poured onto a page.
This is a ten-minute free write prompted by the word “Pour.” I pulled the prompt from my prompt box, set the timer for 10 minutes, and wrote until the timer stopped.
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When we lived in Naples, Florida, I was astonished by the wealth. Naples is a small town on the west coast of southern Florida, and we moved there for my husband’s job at the Rookery Bay estuarine reserve.
We bought a modest house — our first home! — across the street from a gated community that was so exclusive you couldn’t see in from the street. It was blocked by manmade hills and landscaping meant to maintain the residents’ privacy. We later learned that residents from the gatend community bought homes for their servants in the neighborhood we lived in.
Naples has a long strip of waterfront property along the white beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. When we lived there, I was active in triathlons. Multiple times a week, I rode my bicycle along the miles-long strip of waterfront mansions. The majority of them had shuttered windows the marjority of the year. I rode by pristine manicured landscapes — they were not yards, they were landscapes — a quarter mile deep, with gardeners tending the lush tropical greenery even in the 10 months of the year the multi-million dollar waterfront homes sat empty.
I wondered what it must be like to have that much money. So much money that you can not only afford a multi-million dollar home on the water in in Naples, Florida, but that it’s not even your primary residence. So much money that you have multiple multi-million dollar homes.
It was hard living in a place like that. To be a full time resident and see all the prime property taken up by people who don’t even live there, who don’t take advantage of the amazing waterfront but a tiny part of the year when many of us would appreciate it every day of our lives. People for whom your home is a playground. Being around that kind of wealth when you don’t have it can make you feel small.
Naples was not a good fit for us. Thankfully, we no longer live in a place where homes are shuttered the majority of the year.
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The week after Christmas, the four of us are traveling south to visit grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins down in Florida. While we are there, my husband and I are taking a two-day sailing course.
To use my favorite new word from my friend Krista Stevens, I’m terricited about the course. Our packets of books arrived yesterday, and by great good luck, I happen to be taking a flex day today. Time to dig in and nerd out, learning how to sail from books until we can get back out on the water.
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People in general, and knowledge workers in particular, grow according to the demands they place on themselves… If they demand little of themselves, they will remain stunted. If they demand a good deal of themselves, they will grow to giant stature.
— Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive
I’m spending the morning under a blanket, transcribing underlined passages from professional development books into a notebook I can carry with me in my laptop bag. As our daughter challenges herself to baking a new type of cake, and piping a new type of frosting, this quote from The Effective Executive resonated with me.
Butterfly Mind 