Blue Ribbon Friday 2.0

{What's winning my week.}

Hi, everyone! I just wrote this Blue Ribbon Friday post for my Secret Soup subscribers, and decided for fun to share it with everyone. Hope you enjoy!

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At the start of each summer, I tell myself lies about biking to the farmer’s market each Saturday and planning the week’s menu around whatever’s in season. I’ll BE that person. Watch me.

And then I actually do it zero times and, instead, stop getting groceries altogether, allowing my entirely-capable family to fend for themselves. By August, I have no conceivable recollection of what sustained us.

Cereal? Ramen? Maybe I bought a watermelon once?

That’s how it’s been around here for the past few weeks. We immediately jumped into it’s-never-dinnertime mode. Adding insult to injury, twice in a row I bought meat at Kroger with the best of intentions, only to have it rot in the bottom-drawer meat dungeon. This is note-worthy, because I come from a long line of women who push meat expiration to its limits. I very much dislike wasting food, especially in times like these. Which is all to say, maybe this could be the Summer of PB&J? Maybe that’s a grace to us?

And this, my sweltering friends, was an unnecessarily protracted way of telling you that mayyyyyybe Blue Ribbon Fridays will be a more regular rhythm in these parts? It is simply too soon to know. For now, it’s a fun way for me to review my week. (I’d love it if you’d tell me what’s winning yours in the comments!)

The awards go to…

• Couch Naps. I dunno. Maybe it’s last month’s COVID infection. Maybe it’s the making-soup-in-a-windowless-and-unairconditioned-kitchen-when-it’s-100-degrees-out. Regardless, I’ve been coming home with the intention to take a little reading break, but I almost always end up incapable of keeping my eyes open. This is a very new eyeball vibe for me. Usually, I get really sleep when we’re watching TV at night, but could stay awake reading for hours. Anyway, cat naps for the win! (I usually feel best when I set a timer on my phone for 21 minutes. Adjust accordingly.)

• Social Media Breaks. I’ve fallen into an unofficial hiatus. I still check in some, but I’ve enjoyed casually intermittently ignoring it, lately. I lamented this to Emily yesterday, saying it freaked me out and I’m half-worried I might never care enough again. (This would be occupational negligence of the highest order with a book releasing in the fall. Psst! I just found Start with Hello available for just $11, BY FAR the cheapest I’ve seen it so far, at Baker Book House. Pre-order today by clicking this link. It will land on your doorstep the day it releases! Longest parenthetical ever!) But we all know how this goes. Instagram, as with most good things, ebbs and flows. It always comes back around. I’m choosing not to sweat it for now.

• Going to the Beach at 8 pm. My mom and nephew visited for a couple of days earlier this week. I knew Hans-David (I HAVE A SMALLISH NEPHEW NAMED HANS-DAVID AND WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS FOR REASONS I STRUGGLE TO ARTICULATE. He’s the best!!) wanted to hit the beach and do some other fun summer stuff, but we’ve careened into a heat wave up here, and the beach in 100 degrees is not an experience I long for. We went swimming at my SIL’s pool,, as planned. On the drive home I tried to manipulate the kids into thinking going to the beach was, indeed, a bad idea. When that didn’t work, I put my foot down and mom-splained that it wasn’t going to happen, they should be glad we went to the pool, etc…, and maybe we could watch a movie instead? Spoiler alert: Once I changed out of my swimsuit and reconstituted my attitude in the A/C, I recovered the will to go for it. I’m old enough to know you never regret a quick, evening trip to the beach. We drove 1 hour and 5 minutes (we are SO close to Lake Michigan!) ate fancy pizza at Beer Church, hit the beach at 8pm, and lived it up for 75 minutes. The kids got in the water. Calvin took a comprehensive series of selfies out on the pier, mom and I parked beach chairs at the waterline, stuck our feet in, and watched the sun set.

  

  

• Mocha Almond Fudge Ice Cream. I discovered this particular flavor long ago, on a trip to Florida. Though it is not native to Florida, it can be hard to find, and this is a stain on America. We should think harder about the prevalence of mint-chip (i.e. I Just Ate a Chocolate Cookie then Brushed My Teeth) or Blue Moon (Why, Lord?) or SUPERMAN, for the love, and the lack of Mocha Almond Fudge. Maybe we need a committee. Maybe a petition? It doesn’t make sense. Our priorities are out of whack. We need to get ice cream saved. But anyway, Oinks in New Buffalo had it on their list, and I enjoyed a scoop on the drive back home.

• Siding Clips. Turns out, there’s no witty transition into this one. TL/DR: I enjoy decorating my back patio by hanging trash on the walls (bicycle rim found on the side of the street, rusty windmill blade found on a junk pile.) These clips are pure genius. You can hang almost any variety of trash from your house without ruining anything.

  

  

• Immediately Saying Yes. A couple weeks ago my friend Karen invited me to take a painting class with her, her sister (whom I’d never met) and our mutual friend, Jen. After decades of adulthood where I often felt medium-lonely, particularly after moving to Goshen and the relational fall-out, I learned to say yes without hesitation because I knew I needed some long-haul, come-what-may community. We had a really fun evening together! It always feels good to be included. Let this be our nudge to widen our circle of belonging, quick to include others.

  

• Trying Something New. So, a painting class! I said yes so quickly, I didn’t even gather all of the details ahead of time. I’m not a painter, I don’t think of myself as inclined to these sorts of things, but I love being creative, and I’m learning to try things even if I might not be good at them. It turns out, it was a watercolor class. We learned to paint poppies, which is one of my favorite flowers. I loved every minute, especially meeting Jan, my table-mate. I’m happy with my poppies.

  

• Along with a couple of novels and a faith-related non-fiction book, I’m currently reading Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church by Diane Langberg. I’m planning to discuss it with a group of my writerly colleagues in the coming weeks. I’m only a few chapters in, but this is a stand-out quote:

  “Our responses to the vulnerable expose who we are.”

That’s all for another edition of Blue Ribbon Friday! Please tell me what you’re loving in the comments.

As a reminder, Blue Ribbon Fridays is typically reserved for The Secret Soup subscribers. If you enjoyed this and would like to join us, we’d love to have you! It’s just $5/month or a discounted annual fee. These “little pieces of money” as my mom would say, help to keep this train moving in the right direction. Thank you for supporting this work! And as always, if you cannot afford the subscription fee, reply to this email and I’ll add you for one year for free, no questions asked.

Another way to support my writing is to share with a friend who might enjoy it!

Happy middle-of-June, pals.

I’ll be back again before we know it. Until then, may you lean into these longest of days, stretching them for all their worth, making the most of them by making the least of them.

Love,

Shannan