On the Simple Joys of Life

It's been hard focusing on the good things these past four months.

But I just need to keep reminding myself: I'm in MAINE! I have a job to go to every day. I have a Branch full of wonderful and kind people.

Yes, I still have to sleep under two quilts and a blanket at night while wearing a sweatshirt. Yes, the trees still look like winter trees. Yes, I had to write a note to R/L this morning telling here that A) I am going to have to either shower past 9:30 tonight or before 7:30 tomorrow morning and B) to replace the eggs that she used for seemingly no reason from MY eggs (a note about these eggs. They were farm fresh. A gift from a church member. Yes, it was a little selfish but I put them on the "do not use" list. And I know she has been using them. And now I only have one left. So I would just like the ones she used replaced. Is that too much to ask?).

I could dwell on all these things. But not today. Not now.

Today, the sun is shining. I have a strawberry, banana, raspberry smoothie I made myself. I am listening to all my favorite movie soundtracks. I am going to a potluck tonight and before that I am going to unpack the first wave of boxes I brought from Owls Head into my new home in Camden. I get to work with kids again tomorrow.

Today, things are just fine.

These are images. Fragments of the simple joys in my life right now.

Two weekends ago, if you remember me blogging about it, I met up with Ruth. We walked to the Breakwater Light House. Here it is from the entrance to the park on the rocky beach before the start of the path to the lighthouse.

This is the start of the path. Let me tell you, it looked a lot easier until you got here and saw how FAR AWAY it was!

This is about half way. GAH! It seemed that it wasn't getting any closer! Not to mention the WIND! It was cold and the strong winds kept blowing waves against the stone path so that we were constantly sprayed with frigid sea water.

But eventually we made it! I admit that these pictures of it are horrible. I don't know why I didn't get any better pictures...oh, wait. My camera died before I could. Ruth has some better ones. Oh well. This site might give you some better pictures.

You couldn't go or even SEE inside. Everything was boarded up.

This is one view of the cove from the lighthouse.

And another.

This is seriously, the best angle you can get of the LIGHT part of the lighthouse unless you are taking pictures from a boat.

I know you can barely see the mainland, but there is Owls Head and Rockland. I can see this lighthouse from the bathroom window at R/L's house.

Here's a little view of how far we came from the mainland.

Now time to move one to something COMPLETELY different.

I had this mini boxes of Sunmaid raisins. I took them home, instead of throwing them away because I thought that maybe I could do something crafty with them.

This is what I came up with.

Hee! I call this one "The General". Googly eyes, a nose, and a mustache. What's not to love?

Another mustached specimen. This guy is "The Sheriff". He really needs a hat.

These guys were the first two that I made.

Then I started getting more ideas.
"The Genius"
This guy makes me giggle. And the best part? For some reason, the black center of his left eye stays at the top of the eye instead of moving around to the bottom. So he has this constant "loopy" look going on. He would not look nearly as cute were this not the case.



This is "Bloop".

This guy has such a mean looking face I felt like he needed a name that showed his real personality. So I went with "Mr. Giggles."

(P.S. Elise, do you recognize the tissue paper you used in your lat care package to me? Because that's what I used to give these guys color)

Here they all are. The original crew. I have since given "The General" to Bonnie, and both "The Sheriff" and "The Genius" to our Young Women's president who is going through a tough time.

This next one is my FAVORITE!!! Those of you on twitter and Facebook have already seen this guy.

This is Whoo.

I made him during a Young Women's activity where I taught the girls how to make these little fun friends. They had a lot of fun. I wish I'd had my camera so I could have taken photos of theirs.

Whoo is just a bright little ray of sunshine anywhere he is placed. He currently resides at my desk so I can look at him and remember to smile.

Moving on again to another little joy I have found. Cooking. I don't get to indulge in it often. I only REALLY cook when I know R/L isn't going to be around. Otherwise I tend to be in her way for HER cooking needs.

This is the whole wheat Rye bread that I made for St. Patty's day. From SCRATCH!! And without the fennel seed (yuck!). It was pretty delish, if I do say so myself.


The Rye bread was for THIS. My St. Patty's day dinner. A RUBEN! Green beans, fresh strawberries, and some vanilla Greek yogurt. YUM!

GOSH, I love Rubens. I didn't want to make an elaborate meal of corned beef and cabbage and then make Rubens from that (though they are best if made from REAL corned beef and cabbage). So I bought deli corned beef and sauerkraut and made my own dressing and bought the Swiss cheese. It was amazing. I had these for a WEEK! And loved it. Man...now I want another one.

This is my BRUNCH that I made one Sunday a little while ago. It was pretty amazing. I had this whole wheat blueberry muffin mix. So I made 1/2 of it into muffins and 1/2 into pancakes. I had some strawberries and fresh pineapple, celery sticks, and sweet potato tortilla chips! YUM! I love food. I sweetened the top of my pancake with Agave nectar.

This one is a little random. When I spent the night with fellow MCC member Dee, this was one of the phrases created on the fridge with word magnets. "Like they say. A Snowball's chance in China". It made me giggle. Because, you know...they DON'T say that because...they...got the phrase wrong...Okay, I'm lame.


Now, I know you all MISS me and forgot what I looked like. So here are some pictures of ME! These are all taken from the web cam on my laptop.

Me are a typical day of work.

"What??? I can get a replica of the Royal Heirloom Ring for HOW MUCH???"

"Eh, that's life"

"Hm...I wonder how I would look in that princess Leah bikini..."

(shudder...)

This is how I would look if I were insane and acted on my impulse to take a knife to all of R/L's pillows.

I know it's mean, but this is my impression of the way R/L looks when she is upset. It's pretty accurate, actually. Crazy eyes, pursed lips, etc.

Woah...Hi there...

My Lucille wink. I don't do it as well as her.

Okay, enough of me.

This is the guitar I bought! I am teaching myself! And it makes me happy.

Any suggestions on a name?

I bought this cereal a couple weeks ago that had this little farm you could cut out of the back of the box. I had waaaaay too much fun doing it.

This is the little cubby (cubbie??) bed I slept in when I stayed with Dee. It actually charmed the socks right off me. The curtains closed for privacy and you had a little lamp attached to the wall. It was cute.

And now for the story of the sign. This doesn't really represent a simple joy, but I just wanted to include this. The board decided that they wanted a banner to put up on the sign leading to Merryspring to encourage people to join us for out volunteer workday. They didn't want to pay to get it professionally done. So, we used old window blinds and I carefully measured the size of the letters and their placement for the words (especially the biggest word "Volunteer").

And then I drew it out.

Step one. Check.

Then I filled it in and did the other words (I didn't make the smaller words quite as precise as the word "Volunteer"). I think it turned out pretty good.

President of the board, RAY was to be the one to hang it up. BUT he decided that he thought there were too many words on the thing (I had to add a date and a time). Too much information. So he took it home to "work on it". Mr. Editor. Has to "fix" everything I write.

Guess what? It NEVER GOT PUT UP!! I spent at least two hours on that thing trying to make it look good. I had many OTHER things I wanted to be doing, but they had me making this sign because they didn't want to PAY to have someone do it! Two hours! Wasted!

GAH!!

Okay, good feelings gone. Maybe I shouldn't have ended the post with those pictures.

Okay, okay...other good things coming up.

I got invited to an Easter dinner so I don't have to spend the holiday alone! Woo!
Candice (the Young Women's first councilor) and I are going to have night out this Friday. We are going to dinner and then to see Jane Eyre!
Eliza, a girl I met in New Hampshire, is moving to Belfast-which is only about an hour from Camden! We are setting up a date to hang out! I have a friend in Maine now!!

Okay, I feel a little better now.

Happy MONDAY!