Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
Rolling in a little late with this monthly round-up. We prepped for vacation and left for vacation at the end of June, so some things got pushed to the side. Better late than never?
Anyway, June is usually a transition month from school to summer and this June was no different. School ended early in the month and then we filled our days with some fun. Here’s a quick peek at What We Did, What We Ate, What We Watched and What We Read this month.
Our son finished his sixth-grade year, and his elementary school holds a “clap-out” for students moving on to the middle school. I went to the clap out then collected our daughter so we could meet our son’s friend to play mini-golf. (We ate before and after. See below).
Later that night, we went to a high school graduation party in the city. I love a good backyard party in the city. It was the perfect night for it.
We put our garden in, finally, and planted some flowers. The improvement to my mood because of this is unmeasurable. I’ve spent the rest of the month weeding said garden and hoping we weren’t too late.
One day in early June we went strawberry picking at a local farm because I couldn’t remember ever doing it before. The kids had fun.
Family video game night. We played some games on Jackbox.Tv and a partial round of Golf With Friends on the Switch. Actually, this has become a little more regular. I’ve played MarioKart and Golf With Friends with my son several times. I’m not the hugest fan of video games but when I spend all day reading for my freelance job, it’s an okay way to unwind.
Haircuts! The kids and I were all overdue and got some fresh summer cuts all on the same day.
I preached a sermon at our church. What?!? Then the following week, Phil shared on Father’s Day.
Hiking has returned! On a Tuesday morning, our friend Odette accompanied us to Texter Mountain Preserve so I could write about it for a blog post.
Later in the month, our family led our church’s first summer hike of the year on the Rhododendron Trail at Susquehannock State Park. it’s been so good to get back out into nature.
Our dear friends who live in Arizona now were back in the area so we had a short visit with them.
And late in the month, I woke up before dawn to see the moon and planets in alignment.
We got back to Long’s Park for summer music, too, although our second concert had some rainy weather that sent us home early.
We had the pleasure of having family visit us this month also and our time together was packed with the following fun events:
A free outdoor concert in the city by Haitian band Lakou Mizik. The band was formed after the Haiti earthquake, and there was so much joy and energy exuding from them into the crowd. I love a good outdoor music option, too.
Our weekly visit to Central Market was enhanced by music from the Street Beans Band playing fun tunes outside the building.
We took the whole family to PrideFest this year. (Last year Phil and I volunteered at our church’s table.) It was another joy-filled event.
Our family wanted to check out the Turkey Hill Experience where one of us ate more than 7 scoops of ice cream. (Free samples? You might want to rethink that, Turkey Hill.)
Then we had a picnic lunch at the Columbia Crossings River Trails Center which had an amazing view of the Susquehanna River.
We also took a day trip to Delaware. We started in New Castle where we got a tour of the courthouse there as part of the First State National Historic Site.
We learned a lot about Delaware’s role in our nation’s independence. New Castle sits on the Delaware Bay, and I insisted we walk toward it so I could see the water. I’m drawn to big water.
We walked out onto a pier and discussed our lunch options (see below). After lunch we drove up to Wilmington to the Dupont Environmental Education Center which had a boardwalk path through the marsh. It was a lovely day of exploring.
On the days when we weren’t out having adventures, we hung out around the house, playing board games or basketball.
When we played mini-golf on the last day of school at Scoops in Mountville, we ate tasty food like burgers and fries and a salad before golf and ice cream after golf.
Our end-of-school year celebration meal was at 3 Sisters Park. I took no photos. I had pad Thai. Others had various create-your-own noodle and/or rice bowls
Strawberries. Lancaster Central Market had a strawberry festival early in June and we ate some delicious treats. I had waffles topped with strawberries and fudge. The kids had strawberry crepes.
Chicken shawarma over mini-naan, potato salad and ice cream at Long’s Park for our first trip to the Long’s Park Summer Music Series.
After our hike at Texter Mountain, we stoped at Kountry Korner Drive-In in Reinholds, PA for diner food and ice cream. Club sandwich. Fried foods. Burger. And flavored soft serve. My salted caramel was DELISH.
At the outdoor concert in the city, we wanted takeout so we ordered from Norbu, a Bhutanese/Nepalese restaurant nearby. It was close and available and everyone enjoyed their meal except our son who ordered spicy noodles that lived up to their name.
At PrideFest, we ate spicy chicken sandwiches and fries from Blazin’ J’s, another local restaurant.
I already mentioned the unlimited ice cream samples at the Turkey Hill Experience. Cotton candy was a flavor I didn’t expect to enjoy but it definitely tasted like cotton candy.
Our son loved the Graham Slam flavor that had chocolate and marshmallow and graham crackers.
More ice cream! I’m sensing a theme here. We had some friends stop over while our family was in town and they brought a couple of half-gallons of Fox Meadows ice cream. Brown Butter Almond Brickle might be my new all-time favorite.
In Delaware, we picked Nora Lee’s, a French-style Cajun bistro, and everything we ate was amazing.
I had a crawfish salad that was worth every penny.
Phil had a fried oyster Po’boy.
The kids had some cheesesteak style sandwiches.
SNL clips. The season is over now, so this was our last laughs from Saturday Night Live for a while.
Ms. Marvel. Whoa. We’ve only managed one episode so far, but I think I’m gonna like this.
Space Force. End of season 2. Sad there won’t be more.
Jan. 6 hearings on the news. Uh … I vacillate between angry and sad.
All Creatures Great and Small on PBS. I read James Herriot’s book about his adventures as Yorkshire veterinarian and convinced Phil to start watching it, too.
The Lost City. It was no Romancing the Stone, which is one of my favorites, but it was enjoyable. Sandra Bullock is always a treat. Channing Tatum is eye candy for some, but I thought he was kind of funny in this.
Richard Osman’s House of Games. This is a British series whose episodes are on YouTube. It’s a more chill version of game shows that we have in the States.
Grace and Frankie. I’m laughing my way through this last season.
Spider-Man: No Way Home. We’re trying to catch up so we can watch the new Thor later in the summer.
Books I finished:
Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. A YA book I finished just after school got out that helps inform my attitude toward my students.
The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty. Ann Patchett writes about Welty in her new essay collection. I’d never read an Welty, so I tried this one. I have mixed feelings about it but mostly enjoyed it. I think it would make a good stage play.
A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole. This Reluctant Royals series is fun, and this Scottish one is a favorite.
We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu. Celebrity memoirs are like chocolate for me–I can’t resist! This was moving and honest and makes me appreciate Simu Liu even more than I already did after watching Shang-Chi.
Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith. These cozy mysteries set in Botswana are just light and fun.
The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. Another new favorite. Set in Scotland with some contemporary and historical threads. Outlander fans will probably enjoy.
Books in progress:
Spy School British Invasion by Stuart Gibbs. Spy School in Britain? Fun!
A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole. Another of the Reluctant Royals series.
May is always a bit brutal. The last month of school is both encouraging because the end is near and a slog because there is still so much to do and not enough energy to do it. I made it all school year until the last week before I got a cold. (COVID test was negative.) On top of the usual end-of-school-year stress, we had a death in the family, some car issues, and some health issues. I’m hoping June is a bit calmer on all of us.
We did have a fun getaway at the end of May. I’m going to start with that. I had signed up for a writing retreat near Charlottesville, Virginia, so we planned a little family getaway around that. The Friday before the retreat, I got word that it was cancelled due to illness. We decided to still keep our plans; this just meant that I could be with the family for the whole weekend on our explorations.
Here’s the round-up of What We Did and What We Ate in Charlottesville:
We left Friday night after work and school were out and headed towards Charlottesville where we had a hotel room booked at the Econolodge. (We’re not fancy right now.) We stopped at a Wendy’s for dinner. I ordered a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger for nostalgia’s sake. In high school, there was a Wendy’s across the street and we had an open lunch, so on Fridays my friends and I would cross the road to Wendy’s and order off the cheap menu (which was $1 or less back then). Our family doesn’t eat at your typical fast food restaurants often so sometimes it feels like an ordeal when we walk in. But we managed to order food and Frosties. It was almost 10 p.m. by the time we arrived at the Econolodge.
Saturday morning we slept in a little and took our time getting going. We had no plans for the morning, so we took some time to figure out what we wanted to do. Since it was Saturday morning, we headed to downtown Cville for the City Market, an outdoor farmers market with plenty of food options.
We’d had some muffins and bananas at the hotel but we weren’t planning to eat out again until dinner, so we perused the offerings for something brunch-y. I zeroed in on a sausage and egg English muffin sandwich. The kids picked empanadas, which I also couldn’t resist. Mine was portobello. The kids has a chorizo one and a bacon one. Phil found a stand offering a hot hatch brat topped with fire-roasted chiles and a pimento cheese spread. (When in the South …)
Our son ate some tacos and the kids had smoothies.
Then we picked out some food for later: apple cider donuts, strawberries and some English peas and purple snow peas for later snacking. The vegetable stands were inspiring because the growing season is far ahead of ours.
Cville has a pedestrian mall in its downtown and it was a block up from the City Market, so we headed there next mostly because two bookstores are in the mall. Plus it’s fun to walk through an outdoor mall. This is what I love about the South. We stopped first at New Dominion Bookshop, a store full of new books in a charming storefront. (I think all bookstores are magical.) I picked up a local author’s work of fiction about Monticello (we were headed there later in the day). Our son found signed copies of John Grisham’s Theodore Boone series and while he wanted to buy them all, I limited him to two. Our daughter picked out a World War 2 book. It is her special obsession. We sat under a magnolia tree and read some of the local art on a public chalkboard.
On our way back down the other side of the mall, we stopped at Rock, Paper, Scissors to buy some cards and gifts for upcoming occasions. Our last stop was Blue Whale Books, a used bookstore that is exactly the kind of space I would imagine for a used bookstore. If we’d had more time, we would have found something to take home.
But we had tickets for a tour at Monticello, so we needed to go there next. Phil and I visited Monticello on our honeymoon but I didn’t remember much about it. (Our photos are buried deep somewhere on an external hard drive.) Our tour was booked for 12:30 p.m. We took the shuttle up to the house and wandered the grounds a bit before our tour.
Because it was a holiday weekend, our guide for the tour was a VP at Monticello. All hands on deck. Our daughter “wowed” the guide with her knowledge about Thomas Jefferson because of her love for Hamilton, the musical. It was an informative tour and we appreciated the attention to telling the entire American story, including one of enslaved people. The guide did not downplay or ignore any of the uncomfortable history.
After the tour, we explored more of the grounds–the under-house rooms and the garden. We took the walking path back to the visitor center, stopping at Jefferson’s grave and finishing at the gift shop where we purchased a lot of souvenirs.
Then it was back to the hotel to regroup before dinner.
Phil wanted barbecue because we were in the South and had a place all picked out if I had been at my writing retreat. Since I wasn’t, it would have been a 30-minute drive and none of us wanted to do that. He chose instead Moe’s Original BBQ and we ate A LOT of Southern food: fried catfish, pulled pork, ribs, smoked wings, mac and cheese, collard greens, cole slaw, cornbread, hush puppies, brisket stroganoff and banana puddin’. Plus sweet tea and Cheerwine to drink.
We also wanted ice cream but needed some time to let our dinner settle, so we checked out Atlas Obscura to see what weird and unusual things we could see in Cville. Boy, did we find the unusual!
We drove over to the University of Virginia (UVA) campus to see Edgar Allan Poe’s dorm room (room 13 because of course it is).
You can walk right up to the building and view the room through a glass partition from the outside looking in.
The school’s Raven Society still uses the room for inductions. Pretty neat. I’m not the world’s biggest Poe fan but I like to see things like this. Since we were already on campus, we walked over to the Rotunda, probably the most well-known structure on the campus. It’s a massive and impressive building and Atlas Obscura also told us about secret societies at UVA.
Letters representing these societies are painted on the ground or steps of the Rotunda area, and I felt like Nic Cage in National Treasure when I found the “Z.”
The Seven Society intrigued us the most and we went down a rabbit-hole of Google research on our way to ice cream and after.
The Dairy Market was our choice for ice cream at a stand called Moo-Thru. Our son chose a huge banana split that he didn’t finish.
Our daughter had a lemon sorbet sundae with raspberry syrup. I went with Holstein ice cream in a waffle cone (vanilla with chocolate chunks) and Phil had a double scoop of cake batter with cookie pieces in a dish.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up some snacks for our drive the next day.
Sunday morning, we packed up and checked out then headed back downtown for breakfast at Iron Paffles and Coffee. They serve puff pastry waffles in sandwich form. I had a TBALT (turkey, bacon, avocado, arugula, tomato and housemade aioli); our daughter had a cannoli paffle; our son had an Iron Glory (egg, bacon, sausage, cheddar and sriracha mayo); and Phil had a paffle with chicken and grits.
We had some fancy coffee drinks, as well.
Then it was off to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. I could not be that close to mountains all weekend and not get closer. Our plan was to drive all 105 miles of the scenic byway. We started our journey around 9:15 a.m. at the southern end of Skyline Drive. (Pro tip: the southern end of the drive is less crowded at the overlooks.)
There are 75 overlooks throughout the park. We stopped to get out and look at 29 of them and at least drove through most of the rest of them.
I took almost 100 pictures because I can’t get enough of the mountains. By 1 o’clock we had made it to the Byrd Visitor Center halfway through the park. We put some gas in the car, used the restroom and shopped the gift shop. The park was getting busier. It was a holiday weekend, after all. I would have loved to do some hiking, but we are still leery of major hiking outings far from home what with Phil’s episode back in September in the Poconos. Someday we’ll get back to hike.
We finally exited the park at Front Royal, Virginia around 5 p.m. By this time we were tired and hangry and my phone’s GPS was not working well. Phil drove us into Front Royal and we found a place to eat called Spelunker’s–a burger and custard joint that reminded us of one of our Midwestern favorites, Culver’s. I had a chicken philly sandwich with hand-cut fries and malt vinegar. The boys had burgers. Our daughter had chicken strips. We all had custard to go, then headed home via the interstate.
It was nice to be home with a buffer day on Monday to get ourselves sorted for the rest of the week.
For the rest of the month, here’s the roundup:
Birthday celebration. Since my birthday fell in the middle of the week, we celebrated the Sunday before, which also happened to be the first day of May. I asked my family to take me out to breakfast. They gave me gifts in the afternoon and we took cake and ice cream to our small group at church to celebrate with them. (Small group sang to me, twice.)
Husband sent me flowers on my actual birthday after he’d already left. (See below.)
Band concert. Our daughter plays flute, and it’s fun to watch all her hard work in action.
Phil flew to Illinois to be with his family as his dad was taken off life support. A week later, the kids and I flew home for the funeral to be with family. On our way back to Lancaster, we discovered low pressure in one of our tires and had to put the spare on in a gas station parking lot at 10 o’clock at night in Philadelphia.
Lacrosse tournament. In the rain. With gusting wind. We made the best of it and the boys placed 4th in their division, playing their hearts out in every game even though they were chilled and soggy and tired. We also wrapped up the lacrosse season with a final home game in the stadium, and an away game. Solid wins all around.
Minecraft. The kids and I played the night we got home from the tournament.
Book sale/book fair. I bought books. This maybe shouldn’t be “news” but it makes May even more of a wonderful month.
Cape Henlopen field trip. Our daughter was chosen to go on this 3-day/2-night science excursion with her school, and she had a blast. We missed her, and we’re thankful for the opportunities she has.
For my birthday meal out, we went to Rachel’s Creperie.
I had the Rodeo crepe with a nutella mocha and my daughter and I split a strawberry cheesecake crepe for dessert.
While Phil was gone, the kids and I ate a lot of takeout because I couldn’t muster up a lot of energy to cook and we had some generous friends who sent some money our way. One night we ate Chellas from the Peruvian food truck a short walk from our house. My favorite is the yuca fries.
Another night, after picking up a few groceries, we got Wegman’s takeout: sushi, pierogies, lobster bisque, pulled pork with mac and cheese and green beans, egg rolls. Then we had Chipotle after the all-day lacrosse tournament and ice cream from Good Life for Mother’s Day. We ended our takeout frenzy with a bunch of fried food from Sheetz.
At the tournament, I ate teriyaki chicken noodles from a food truck. Highly recommend.
The day we left for Illinois, I took the day off work and took myself out for lunch. I ordered from Gracie’s on West Main. Southwest salad (with pulled pork!), banana bread, and an iced white chocolate chai latte.
Because we were back home in Illinois and my birthday and Mother’s Day were close, I got to pick some food for a bit of a celebration. We ate from Arthur’s Garden Deli, of course, and had Boston Cream Pie for dessert.
On Mother’s Day, Phil made beef stroganoff for his mom.
The lacrosse team went for Rita’s custard and ice after the last home game.
Primanti Brothers. We took our friend David out for his birthday and this is where he wanted to go.
Our anniversary dinner was at Southern Market. We chose Flavors of Morocco: chicken shawarma, Moroccan chicken and baklava.
Space Force. Still funny in the second season. I will always love Steve Carell.
Outlander. The finale of season 6. It gutted me and also left me hopeful for the next season.
Supermarket Sweep. Always a good use of time.
Sanditon. I finished season 2. Darn it. It’s keeping me hooked even though I disagree with some storylines.
Nailed It. Never not funny.
Grace and Frankie. Trying to finish the final season.
SNL clips. Saying goodbye to some of our favorite cast members as we watch the final episodes of the season.
Richard Osman’s House of Games. A British TV show that Phil and the kids (and I, occasionally) are really into. Clips on YouTube.
Moon Knight. Finished it finally and am more confused than ever but also in awe.
I’m coming into a season where a lot of my reading is for some freelance work I pick up during the summer, and I can’t share what I’m reading nor do I have a bunch of time to read what I want. (I know, that’s like sacrilegious for summer. So, there might be fewer books in my monthly lists.)
Books I finished:
The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien. Yep. I’m reading this series for the first time. So much more about the movies makes sense now.
A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole. A spicy romance featuring an African prince. I got the next two books in the series after I finished this one.
These Precious Days by Ann Patchett. I finished this for book club and now I am a big fan of Patchett.
Books in progress:
Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. Reading this on my lunch break at work. It’s about a girl with dyslexia who has fooled her teachers for years until a new teacher comes to her class.
Subpar Parks by Amber Share. Always good for a laugh. And for dreaming of parks to visit. It’s not really the kind of book I want to read cover-to-cover so this might be “in progress” for a while.
Spy School British Invasion by Stuart Gibbs. Our latest installment of the Spy School series with the kids.