It’s 6:30 am on Friday. John is already downstairs on a work call, Indy is sleeping, Belle is nestled in a cabin at camp (with pre-primary to Grade 2 girls, GOD BLESS HER SOUL), and I have hot coffee on the table beside me.
I almost always finish writing Happy Things Friday posts on Thursday, but yesterday was full to overflowing and I chose to do Happy Things instead of write about them!
What a bizarre week.
Until Monday morning, I had no idea that day was a civic holiday (Natal Day in Nova Scotia). This has thrown my sense of time completely off kilter. Every day this week I thought it was at least one day earlier than it actually was…
But, people got where they needed to go by the time they needed to get where they needed to go.
And people needed to be a lot of places!
I know I’ve written about this before, but we’re at a unique stage in the parenting journey. Both kids have more commitments and they’re rarely going to the same place. It can feel a bit dizzying to keep it all straight, but, for the most part, I love it.
It’s delightful to have the kids occupied with interesting things; I’d take that over them being bored and cranky.
Let’s talk Happy Things.
SWIMMING AND ICE CREAM AND SUPPER
Yesterday was perhaps the fullest of all the days this week. There was so much going on!
We capped off the afternoon by visiting a local waterfall that has a deep pool for swimming, little cliffs that are perfect for jumping, and a series of smaller mini-waterfalls and ponds that are a blast to play in.
Let the record show, I went swimming! And the water wasn’t half bad. Not only did I go swimming, for the first time ever, I also went jumping. Multiple times. And John took pictures so there’s proof. I’ll report back with those at some point!
We had Indy and one of his friends with us, and stopped for ice cream on the way back to dropping the friend off, and then were spontaneously invited to stay for supper and sat on their front porch and ate delicious fajitas and talked for hours.
It felt like a quintessential summer day. Heat, sunshine, water, ice cream, friends, eating outside, and plenty of spontaneity.
THE SOUND OF SILENCE
Belle really needed a new dresser for her room. Years ago, when we renovated her room, she downsized to a small storage unit that fit inside her closet, but it was never going to be the long-term solution.
John offered to take both kids to Halifax to get a dresser at IKEA and to take Belle to the mall for a return. They were gone for a big chunk of the day and I revelled in that silence.
This was the longest time I’d been alone in a home of any sort since prior to March 7th (the day we left on our Euro adventure).
I got SO MUCH DONE!
TENNIS ++
Indy wasn’t signed up for tennis this week and it looked like all the lesson slots were full. But, I sent an e-mail to the club anyway and not only did they have space for him in lessons, he was invited to help teach younger age groups their lessons.
He was so happy! The first day, he discovered an older friend (who he adores) was also volunteering and the two of them spent most of the day together at the tennis courts.
From there, John collected him to go fishing with friends. They came home empty-handed, but lots of fun was had by all. Indy was tuckered, but had truly lived his best life all day.
Next week he’s already scheduled for lessons, and I’m hoping he’ll still be useful for morning volunteering because that… really frees up my schedule!!
SUNDAY JUMPSTART
I had some administrative tasks to do for our business and I had been putting them off (to be fair, I needed John’s phone handy to receive a security code, so I had to wait until he got back from his trip to Europe).
Anyway, I blitzed through so many nuisancey things and it felt good to go into the actual work week without so many loose ends hanging over my head.
FRIENDS, GAMES, LAUGHTER… AND LEFTOVERS
Sunday evening, we had friends come to visit. They live in Germany, but own property in Nova Scotia. It was a fun visit, as it always is. They’re lots of fun, had oodles of questions about our trip, and most of the visit was spent in raucous laughter. We only see each other once a year, but pick up immediately where we left off.
Our kids love to play games, as does this family, and we played games and everyone tried desperately to win and it was great. I’m pretty sure I won… but who’s keeping score?
Bonus, we had leftovers. We’d made devilled eggs and Caesar salad and coleslaw and roasted potatoes and John had BBQ’d a whole bunch of meat. Everyone ate generously, but we still had plenty left over which was wonderful for the week ahead. I mixed and matched things, made wraps out of leftovers, chopped up a little of this and a little of that and added veggies to make a salad.
I adore leftovers.
REFLECTIONS ON OUR TRIP
We had a few chances to share stories from our trip this week. At one point some dear friends came to visit. They’re in their 80s and have health challenges, but are like surrogate grandparents to my kiddos.
They always come bearing treats—homemade cookies this time. They peppered us with questions about highlights and lowlights and Did we ever feel unsafe and What was our favourite food to try. They kept asking things in a way that showed they were fully engaged and genuinely curious.
BEDROOM OVERHAUL
The IKEA dresser got made and I don’t have before/after pictures, but Belle made a video and it was so fun to watch. I know nothing about compiling videos, but she has interesting transitions of before-and-afters.
She moved her bed, downsized things she no longer needs, and found a place for that new dresser which offers a lot more storage. She converted her old dresser into a beauty station with all her hair and skincare products. (She has a lot more of those than her mother does.)
It feels good to change things up and it’s been a few years since anything major has changed in her room and it was fun to have her spearhead all of the updates!
The deal on the dresser was we would buy it, but she had to have a major hand in building it. And she did just that. It takes a lot of time and effort to build things from IKEA and she did an excellent job! It feels like a valuable life skill both literally and also more generally in terms of reading directions and having patience.
BAKING IN BULK
August is going to involve quite a bit of company. All of it family (sometimes the most difficult form of company!) and back to back. Literally. There will be something like 24 hours between groups arriving.
While I don’t want to do too much preparing (and worrying) now, I’m trying to do a little bit of cooking every few days. I’m going to make a curry for the freezer. And I made a double batch of energy balls and banana bread for the freezer (and divided it up for each group of company, so I’ll have things to pull out each week).
AIR CONDITIONING
It has been hot and it has been humid. And I am generally completely oblivious until I step outside to take one of the kids somewhere and it all but slaps me in the face. Yikes!
I don’t think I’ve ever been more reliant on air conditioning than I have this year.
BONUS HAPPY THINGS
- I have been loving jotting down a specific point of gratitude each day, but Kel (from Kel me about it) has taken things to the next level and is blogging about her response to each day’s gratitude prompt!
- Coffee (well, Earl Grey tea for me) with Joy. We’ve been like ships passing in the night—as she so aptly put it, “summer has a very different vibe”—and she’s gone most of the rest of the summer visiting family. It was such a delight to sit and connect for an hour and get caught up on each other’s lives.
- It’s garbage day. I always love knowing things are reset in that category of house maintenance.
- Non-drowsy allergy pills. My allergies have been SO bad lately and I just have to take an allergy pill each day to not look like a bloodshot zombie. The fact these medications exist is such a blessing.
- Cold water. This goes hand in hand with air conditioning, but it has been such a relief to have cold, clean water this summer.
- A long visit with a friend who is going through a dark valley. I’m reminded again and again about the importance of support networks and love and compassion and joint healing through all sorts of ups and downs in life.
- Church. It is so good to be back at our church!
- Misery likes company. Yesterday I hopped in our SUV (which has to have a complete brake job completed on Monday morning, and recently required two tows and a new battery and related part), and noticed a sizeable crack in the windshield. Earlier in the day I had talked to Joy, who recently had her oven AND her washing machine die in a 24-hour period. And Jenny came back from her son’s wedding to: a leak, a broken hot water heater, a carpet that was ruined by her cats, AND AN OVEN DOOR THAT SPONTANEOUSLY EXPLODED (which unfortunately turns out to be a known phenomenon). Now, none of these very annoying, very expensive issues are Happy Things. But it is reassuring that adulting is just one unrelenting string of minor—and major—catastrophes.
- Silly text messages with Belle. She sent me a single heart. So I sent back two. Then she did three. So I sent four AND a kiss. I love how we kept trying to up each other with heart emojis. The final trio is an inside joke that refers to my father-in-law’s surprisingly active emoji use and he so often has some iteration of a heart, prayer hands, and smiley face. It CRACKED Belle up.
John is still on his call, Indy is still sleeping, and I still have coffee in my mug. I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend—I hope! It will be the last low-key weekend until the kids are back to school, so I’m trying to savour a few slow mornings.
Happy weekending, friends.
Your turn.
- Tell me some Happy Things from your world.
- Have you ever jumped off a cliff into water?
- Have you ever built something from IKEA?
Discover more from The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Ha! I like how I made the “misery likes company” section of this post. Continuing on that theme, Angie’s boyfriend’s house was stuck by lightning (!!!) which has caused them all sorts of problems. And another friend’s AC broke, which is obviously the worst of all these problems.
It sounds like you’re really having a nice summer! Yes, it’s amazing when the kids get older and you don’t have to micromanage every playdate and activity. It feels good to know they’re enjoying their summers (while you happily watch from the sidelines).
Good for Belle!!! Putting together Ikea furniture requires patience and problem-solving skills. And I like how she made a video of the process.
Good luck with your upcoming hosting! Sounds like you will be well prepared for all your company.
Struck by lightening?? That feels like something you’d read about at the beginning of a psychological thriller and it would be a VERY BAD SIGN.
And I would almost certainly (literally) cry if our AC broke right now. It’s SO HOT AND HUMID and I can’t even imagine the reality in Florida.
I’m sorry you’ve had so many things go wrong, but it does make me feel a bit better 🙂
Pre-primary to grade two seems super young for sleepaway camp! Good for Belle!
So many happy things here – not the windshield thing, but the rest of it! Oh man, building things from IKEA is so hard and time consuming! We have done that and it is a project!
I’m glad you got some quiet time before all the guests arrive!
It’s SO young. She’s never worked this camp before; it was only 2 nights, but even that… I’m assuming there were tears involved???
This is the last week of quiet (relatively speaking; the kids are going hither and yon) until school starts. EEKS. When I think about it that way, I want to pull the shades and sleep for the next week so I will NOT allow myself to think of it that way. A week of quiet and then a few weeks of activity. I’ll be okay… right??
Well, now that you mention is, I guess adulting is one long string of catastrophes, with a few things that work out here and there. Hey, it makes for good blogging material.
I love your alone day and the waterfall diving. It was a good week!
Lol have I ever built anything from Ikea…that was my life in May. Let’s see: a patio set, a bed, two tables, 4 dinning chairs, a TV stand, and two side tables. Not all of it was Ikea, but a huge chunk of it was. Oddly the dinning chairs were the hardest. Just when it seemed that it would never. be finished, one day there were no new boxes to open and I had a furnished house. Now that it’s all over…I kind of miss it.
It really does feel like a never-ending, constantly changing set of proverbial fires to put out.
There is something very satisfying about putting together IKEA furniture. It can also… be exhausting. I’m glad we’re on the other side of most of the builds. But when we bought our house there was a constant parade of IKEA things to be built. Half our house is furnished with IKEA stuff and it’s held up remarkably well, but represents a lot of sweat, tears, and maybe a few scrapes and bumps along the way.
That made me smile that you chose to do Happy Things instead of writing about them! It sounds like a busy week! That waterfall is beautiful!
It was so busy, but also happy.
Tomorrow is OPEN and I am planning to fill at least some of that time with a nap.
It sounds like August is going to end up being very busy for you! But how nice that you’ve had some time to yourself. I’m impressed that you went jumping! Building IKEA furniture is a great life skill! I keep saying I’m not going to assemble stuff anymore, yet it seems I can’t avoid it!
We have a lot more time between IKEA builds these days than we did when we first bought our house and I do find it satisfying, but I’m glad to only have a few projects a year (or less)!!
Randoms:
1. You had ice cream and then went to dinner—life’s short, eat dessert first!
2. Love that waterfall but I’m very averse to jumping off things, which makes me admire your courage and adventuresome spirit!
3. A nap for you today. . . this reminds me that several times lately I’ve almost fallen asleep at my drawing table, so I set the alarm on my phone for about 45 minutes, lie down on the floor, and fall asleep! I usually avoid naps because they mess with my night sleep, but sometimes I just succumb.
Happy things:
1. finished and delivered (well, one today) two very challenging pencil drawing commissions, one of which may bring in yet more pencil commissions.
2. sold a large painting within a week of taking it to the resort near our cabin. It is on a heavy wooden panel, and they agreed to ship it across the country—so thankful that I don’t have to do this!
3. My car A/C stopped working and I was able to get it repaired the next day. Such a weird day—thought it would take several days, so I went crazy and rented a car, drove it the 30 miles home, got home to a message on the answering machine that the car was ready, drove back down the hill to return the rental and took my car back home. What a wasted morning of unnecessary driving and extravagance—$75 to drive that rental car home, stressed out the entire way because it was completely unfamiliar and modern, beeping at me on every curve, no idea how to work the radio or the cruise control. The happiness is having my own car with working AC and time in my schedule for all the unexpected driving up and down the hill.
4. Tomorrow is the beginning of my annual friends reunion at her mountain cabin at an enormous Christian conference grounds/camp on a fabulous lake. . . 3 nights with this dear friend from childhood, her cousins, and her friend who comes every other year or so.
5. Spent 6 hours with the new church secretary, purging, organizing, cleaning, enjoying one another’s company, and her hubby brought us lunch. We kept thinking we’d stop and then one of us would grab another file and we’d just keep going, laughing at our inability to quit.
6. Three nights home alone, NO TEEVEE!, just me, a book, the ticking clock, ahhhhhh, quiet.
7. Just entered a bunch of GoodReads giveaways. I’ve won books twice in the past, quite thrilling!
I hadn’t even thought about the fact that I had dessert first, but you’re right. It was very worth it!
I was a bit nervous the first time I jumped. I knew people had done it for a long time and no one hit rocks, but it still feels like a leap of faith (literally) to jump into a pool of water!
I’m so glad you have your car fixed; sometimes these things do take a long time to fix, so I can see why you rented a car. A frustrating hassle, but you made the best decision you could with the information you had.
Enjoy your reunion (though it’s probably done now??). And three nights of quiet sounds like PERFECTION.
What a perfect summer week!! I love that both of the kids are so involved but also having fun with unstructured time too (those waterfalls — just amazing).
Leftovers are my favourite too, especially ones that can be easily reinvented (mixed into salads, wraps, or sometimes another main dish altogether — I love making spaghetti and meatballs, then serving leftover meatball hoagies one night, and spaghetti pie casserole the next).
Happy things this week: allll the newborn snuggles (will I ever get tired of smelling the back of his head while he’s sleeping on my shoulder? no, no I will not); the fact that E and V were entertained for 45 minutes (seriously) during C’s orthodontist appointment by me drawing frogs of various sizes on their little notebooks; finally enjoying a beer or glass of wine with dinner; neighborhood stroller walks on perfectly warm but not-too-warm afternoons; and sleeping under our new comforter!
Kate! You had a new baby!!! My heart is so full of joy for you and Nick. Enjoy every second of all those newborn snuggles. There is something about that smell, isn’t there!!
Leftovers for the win.
You jumped! Off a cliff! We need to see the photos!!
Your description of that afternoon sounded like the perfect summer day: swimming, ice cream, friends, an impromptu dinner on the porch… those are often the days that end up being the most memorable because nothing was overplanned. Ah, if we only had more days like that!
NONE OF THE PHOTOS TURNED OUT. I’ll just have to go back so I have proof.
I love plans but you’re so right: the spontaneous days are almost always my favourite.
You had such a busy but awesome week! Bonus points for jumping in the water! That looks too beautiful to be real!
Good things this week:
1) my sister flew in and we did an overnight road trip to see my granddaughter. Trip was smooth, weather okay, and the baby absolutely darling.
2) my sons cooked dinner when I was gone and did not set anything on fire.
3) my sister has taken the boys to Spiderman movie so I don’t have to go.
Enjoy the weekend!
More baby snuggles. Hooray!
Ha. I like how low your bar is set on the kids cooking dinner: no fires is a great place to start!
I love when other people take my kids to do things they want to do that I don’t want to do!
With all that’s been going on over here, I actually DO have some Happy News. Today, The Husband made some major progress in his recovery!!! This was particularly welcome after a day or two of setbacks. He still has a long way to go, but today reminded me that we have hope. I am so grateful.
Gigi, this is such happy news <3
Praying for you and the kids and your husband. It has been such an emotionally and physically intense season for all of you, so the fact you're seeing progress is wonderful.
So many great happy things!! What a week. So glad you got some time to yourself, and I looooove an ikea shopping splurge.
And thanks for the shout out! I’m loving the prompts for this month.
I’m so glad you’re blogging about it! You put me to shame.
Oh what a delightful week in so many ways. Swimming and jumping, time to yourself and a visit from good friends!
I am proud of Belle for putting her dresser together. I’ve put together MANY, MANY IKEA furniture in my life. I know people who hate it, but for me it’s like a LEGO set in adult size. Ha. I love figuring it out!
It is a lot like LEGO. And there is something very satisfying about having something that you “built”—I think it appeals to our hard-wired desire to create things.
I’m pleased to discover someone else who gets pleasure from the trash day reset! I also really like the feeling of all the trash, recycling, and compost being back down to zero.
Glad you have had so many happy things this week and good strength for the family visits!
Btw I have been having a weird experience with an ad ok here.
It blocks me from scrolling past a certain point- couldn’t get to the comments section by scrolling down, had to click on the number of comments right under the post’s title to get down here. It happened two days running so figured I’d let you know!
Oh, I LOVE trash day reset. It’s not just clearing physical things out of the house, it also inspires me to do some deeper cleaning of a few items, too, which always feels good.
Sorry about the ads. I can’t seem to recreate the issue on my end, but the ads can be such a nuisance. I hope it naturally sorts itself out. Unfortunately, there is very little I can do manually to fix issues which is… frustrating!
I really appreciate silence at home, it’s so precious. I had two occasions last week when I came home early and enjoyed 4 hours alone at home, and Friday evening when the family was at swimming. I get to do so much, like reading whatever I wanted for however I wanted at my hammock.
I also bulk bake/cook nowadays to reduce stress during the week what to pack for lunch/dinner. having a stocked freezer makes me more calm.
this week I enjoyed smoothing back to work, a new book, and reading on hammock, even if it’s 20 min around sunset.
I’m so glad you got a hammock. I think you’re going to LOVE it <3
I’m very late to the party as last week was such a full week and I had no energy to do much of anything when I got back to my hotel room each night. You have an intense month of August ahead of you with all of the many visitors you will host! We have a bit of a busier stretch over the next week or so… Phil’s golfing as a sub in a golf league tonight, I have book club tomorrow night, we are having friends over for a pizza night on Friday, Phil has a guys’ pool night at a friend’s house on Saturday, the kids have the back-to-school summer jam on Sunday where they’ll find out who their teacher is/who is in their classes, and then we host Kyria/Birchie on Monday night. It’s all fun stuff so I am rolling with it but it feels like a lot of commitments in a short period of time. But again, all fun! But we have our August vacation to look forward to the week of August 24th so I am focusing on that! I do already have a plan for the dinner we’ll make for Kyria and Birchie next week (grilled brats and corn on the cob, Kyria is making a green bean and tomato salad) and they are easy guests to host so I am excited for it!
I can only think of one time I’ve jumped off a cliff into water – I did it in the Dominican Republic when I visited my friend who was in the Peace Corp there. We did this waterfall hike where we did some hiking in a river and had chances to jump off cliffs of varying heights along the way. I did not have the courage to jump off the highest cliff but my thrill-seeking friend did! I am kind of a chicken about that sort of thing!
I am so jealous of your blogging company. Have a great time and your dinner plans sound amazing <3
I would definitely have no desire to jump off the highest cliff. It hurts! And it's terrifying! But a small cliff, I can handle. Trust me, this was a small cliff. Even calling it a cliff might be generous 🙂
Ikea furniture building is NO JOKE so kudos for Belle being able to handle that with your help. I don’t mind putting together furniture since I’ve done it SO MUCH these days, but I like doing it in short sprints so it feels less overwhelming. Yay for a bedroom makeover!
Agreed that short sprints is the way to do it. I also prefer when we only have one thing to build at a time. When we were setting up our house, sometimes we’d come home with a few items and that felt… very overwhelming!