currently {5.24}

Today’s banner photo is a snapshot of last week’s retreat cabin. It was every bit as peaceful as it looks!

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The thing about going away is that you get home and it’s like…Where’d the month go?! (Especially when ‘away’ is ‘retreat.’ Because that’s a total time warp for me.)

All month, Memorial Day Weekend’s felt way-way off. Now, suddenly, it’s upon us, and late May is going like Dominoes.

Which feels like a good time to pause for a sec and do currently… a fun wordplay post with 5 new verbs (from this random verb generator) each month. Starting with —

{braking!}

I Brake for Aparagus…?!

For this asparagus — definitely.

It’s *that* time of year, and when I saw the sign out, I did a U-turn. (When it comes to the What’s for dinner? question, ‘produce stand season’ is my favorite season.)

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{stretching}

I hadn’t thought of it this way, but you could call this stretching.

Yesterday afternoon, I attended a play at our local arts center. It was unlike any I’ve seen, and I probably wouldn’t have seen it had I not had friends and acquaintances in it. Ancestral Voices, by A.R. Gurney, is not a traditional play with sets and staging and scene changes. It’s ‘reader’s theater.’ The actors, in simple costume, are seated on stage and — just like it sounds — they read the script.

If this sounds a little…dull(?)…well, I suppose it could be. But not with this cast!

I might’ve gone in with…reservations. I mean, would actors, seated and reading from scripts, hold my attention nearly as well as a fully costumed, propped, and staged cast? This was…stretching.

So imagine my delight + surprise when it did! Not only did it hold my attention, but I was verifiably rapt. (And not just by the actors I knew, but by all of them. It was a perfectly cast play.)

It’s got to be a mark of exemplary acting when 7 readers can perform a play with the barest of bones and the audience doesn’t want it to end!

(I’m so glad I stretched.)

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{pouring}

For the most part, it’s black coffee for me. But every once in a while I like something fun…

This spring, I’m adding lavender simple syrup to iced coffee in the afternoons. In advance: Prepare simple syrup. (1:1 ratio of water to sugar. After the sugar dissolves and it’s very gently boiled for a minute, I turn off the heat, add a tablespoon’ish of culinary lavender buds, cover, and leave it for an hour.) Refrigerate in a jar. Brew a pot of extra strong coffee, refrigerate it. Now you have supplies for several iced lavenders. Pour desired amounts of each over ice. For an iced lavender latté, add a little cream on top and watch it get all pretty.

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{employing}

Okay. This one might be another s-t-r-e-t-c-h…!

Bacon. How I’m…employing…bacon.

Yesterday, after spending our first night at the cottage (6 minutes away; we used to live 21 hours away), I told Troy, “I think I’ll bring back the lemon meringue s’more this summer.” Graham cracker or gingersnap/marshmallow/lemon curd.

“What other ideas…?” I asked him.

He came up with bacon. And a swipe of peanut butter. I say simpler, less messy — try a Reese’s. So it’ll be graham cracker/Reese cup/marshmallow/bacon.

In conversation it sounded brilliant. When I type it, though, I get a little woozy. (It could practically substitute for dinner, ya think?!) We’ll see!

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{unpacking}

I’ll take this one figuratively:

I’m unpacking my thoughts about this space for the season.

Late spring and summer have a rhythm and pace unto their own — one that’s both full and less. Very much so. And at the same time.

With 4 of us living full and less (more than ever at this stage)…and with a dip in from A♥drey come 4th of July…I want to Be In It.

Not…scrambling to Keep Up.

(I’m not a rusher/pack-it-in/spread ‘er thin kinda girl.)

Blogging fosters connection with you…refocusing for me…a centering…and inspiration. I want to embrace the full and the less, both here — and ‘out there.’

So I’m unpacking the possibilities.

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What about you? Any takes on Braking…Stretching…Pouring…Employing…Unpacking these days?

(Those were kind of funny ones this time around — but that’s what a I love about currently! AND the Random Verb Generator!)