At 5pm today, someone was ready for my work day to be done. After kitten #1, also known as Tootsie and “bad kitty,” sat between me and my monitor, chased the arrow on the screen, and then stepped all over the keyboard, I finally got the hint and logged off.
Category: At home
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End-of-day statement -
Our daughter’s greatest struggle right now is, “I know I want to be a pastry chef, but I also want to be a swimmer and musician. I know I can play guitar on the side, but I doubt culinary schools will have swim teams. Maybe I can find a local swim team in the town where my culinary school is.” And so on. She is 9.
Regardless of what she will ultimately choose for her life’s course, I am more than willing to encourage all three. Especially the pastry chef idea. So today, I helped her make her first pie.
May this be the first of many.
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A coworker, Elizabeth, posted once about how difficult it was to buy herself a Nice Thing that wasn’t food or alcohol, and that didn’t require a substantial outlay of effort to maintain or support the Nice Thing. She finally found something, though – an indulgence that truly worked out for herself that she didn’t regret later or think, Why did I bring this thing into my life?
Her purchase? A pillow. A pillow that she loved so much, it inspired an entire blog post.
I am jealous of her pillow. She adored this pillow. Though she didn’t go into details about the things I’m about to write, I have filled them in based on my imagined perfection of this pillow. It was just the right firmness, had just the right fluff. It gave enough for her comfort, so it wasn’t like laying her head on a stack of newspapers, and it wasn’t so soft that her head sank all the way through the down to her bed, with pillow closing in on either side of her face.
I have not found a pillow that I love so well. Our pillows are like the bears’ beds in Goldilocks. One is too hard, one is too soft — only there’s not an option that’s just right.
I want to find the one that’s just right.
When we shop for pillows, I never know how to buy, how to test, what to look for in a pillow. I’m probably looking in the wrong place. Maybe Target isn’t the best venue to search for the perfect pillow. I remember buying a pillow once from JC Penney, and rather than displaying pillows with a bed nearby to test them on, the pillows were packed in plastic bags and stacked on shelves or tossed in a wire cage like beach balls at the grocery store in summer. I picked them up and listened to plastic rustle as I squished the pillows between my hands.
But what does squishing a plastic covered pillow between my hands tell me about how the pillow is going to feel against my ear? How the down is going to poof under my head? Whether my neck is going to hurt in the morning.
I need to lay my head on the pillows, and lay my body on a bed. I need to test the pillow. How do I choose? How do I know what kind of pillow will work for me? I need a buying guide for pillows.
Thanks to LRose for the “buying guide for pillows” writing prompt.
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Removing hardware so I can paint my office We bought a house. And we’re changing everything about it. We ripped out carpets to install wood flooring upstairs, and to paint the concrete in the basement downstairs.
And for the first time ever, I will have my own room to work from. My own office.
I’ve already removed all the hardware and taped off so I can paint. I can’t wait.
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I found a secret for loafing. I spent almost the entire weekend loafing: in a hotel room. Our son had a soccer tournament this weekend in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and thanks to the spread of his games on Saturday, we had hours and hours of down time.
His first game was at 8am on Saturday, so we arrived in the early morning for warmups, walked the dewy fields as the sun rose over the trees, and were finished with the game by 9am. We returned to our room for the few hours until our next game, and since we weren’t home, where there are endless chores that need to be done, our down time was truly down time. For loafing.
I lay in our bed and petted my husband’s head while I read and the kids watched cartoons on TV. For hours. We did the same thing in the afternoon after our son’s second game. We killed most of the day in our room, laying around in the white sheets of hotel beds, doing a whole lot of nothing.
It was bliss.
Now I’m sitting on a window seat in our hotel room, a version of the bay window I have day dreamed about since I was a kid. I’m sitting in a window seat, and I’m writing. The remainder of the soccer tournament has been cancelled due to rain, which is a huge bummer. But I’m sitting in a window with a cup of coffee and a book on the sill next to me, watching wind blow treetops, and grey rain fall, and cars splash puddles in the streets below. I’ve got a pen and notebook in my lap, inking words on a page, with my whole family cuddling and lounging in leisure, and with no work to do. It’s kind of awesome.
Since we won’t get to play or watch soccer today, we’re salving the wound by going out to breakfast. A real breakfast — not the stale bagels and muffins the hotel offers in the lobby. Breakfast is my favorite meal to eat out. I love the clatter of breakfast dishes in a restaurant. I love the liveliness of morning, with the whole day stretched before us, and I love endless coffee and savory breakfast foods. And my favorite part, now that we have kids, is that on the menu, there’s always something for everyone.
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I like coffee too much. I am dependent on it. I consider it a vice because I crave it and feel like life would just not be as pleasant without it. It’s part of my daily rituals: coffee in the morning, coffee in the afternoon. On special occasions, when my husband and I are on a date, one of my favorite treats, one of my favorite indulgences, is having a cup of coffee with dessert. It’s a small thing, but is the perfect end to a fine meal, and is the part that is most special to me. It’s the one thing about an evening meal that I don’t do in my normal life.
My husband doesn’t think coffee is a vice. He does not drink coffee, which may or may not be relevant. But he considers a vice to be something harmful. I’m sure he is right, and I’m sure coffee has some disadvantages or health risks, but I certainly wouldn’t call it a danger.
Feeling dependent on something though – even something harmless like coffee – makes it feel like a vice to me. Maybe I consider a vice to be something I do that feels like it is out of my control. Which really is probably more the definition of addiction: being powerless over a substance. Like I am with coffee.
I’ve tried switching to tea by it’s not hearty enough. It’s not thick enough. It’s not dark or potent enough. When I tried to switch to tea I ended up drinking a cup of tea and then drinking a cup of coffee. Or sometimes I’d drink multiple cups of tea, hoping the caffeine would take care of the coffee craving, but it didn’t. I could jitter across a room jacked up on the caffeine from a whole pot of tea, and I’d still want coffee. It’s not just the drug in it, it’s the everything: the flavor, the richness, the ritual, the strength. I am powerless over it. I succumb.
vice n. 1. an immoral or evil habit or practice… 5. a fault, defect, or shortcoming 6. a bad habit, as in a horse.
Note: Given these definitions, I agree with my husband: coffee is not a vice.
Photo credit: Colombian Coffee by McKay Savage
For the month of April, I will be publishing a 10-minute free write each day, initiated by a prompt from my prompt box. Minimal editing. No story. Just trying to get back into the writing habit. Thank you to Lori Carlson for the prompt “An unexpected vice.”
Butterfly Mind 