According to the NYT, “. . . you can learn to harness the good feelings that anticipation brings for your everyday life. Each night, for example, write down something you are looking forward to the next day, even if it’s small: a new book, a doughnut, a package coming in the mail.”
Or to put it another way, you should rehearse those words late at night, thinkin’ about how right the next day might be. (Thank you, Carly Simon.)
How did you anticipate happily this week?
Me? Krissie is coming to stay week after next, and that makes me so happy. We will talk and go out to eat and talk and set up my new office in the living room and talk and watch TV and talk and work on our books and talk some more. There will also be much laughter, and Krissie will open her Christmas presents (only six months late, she of course sent mine on time) and her birthday presents (only one month late, mine’s not until September) and we’ll laugh some more. So much fun with such a good woman.
Anticipation is the shadow of delayed gratification… maybe? I used the FedEx app and it told me it couldn’t track my number. But in the corner was a chat thingy and I asked where my package was and it said it was out for delivery today! I know in my heart that today means “before 10 PM” but it’s still today!
Yes, it’s more gardening equipment, but I’m anticipating more… garden. More romaine lettuce. More herbs. More tomatoes. More peppers. More green onions, which need a pruning just now, which’ll be great in a salad. More Japanese greens and more bok choy.
Happy!
They lied again. Anticipating that FedEx will lie to me doesn’t make me anywhere near as happy. 🙁
Their most recent update says my stuff was in Kansas on June 3. It better not be in Kansas anymore.
Scheduled delivery date: Pending
IN TRANSIT
Departed FedEx location
OLATHE, KS
Grrrrrr
I am happily anticipating a bumper crop of Purple Chilis. I swear, I was ready to rip them out and plant something else when suddenly there were over twenty of the little purple darlin’s. There will eventually be a picture or two when they’re more mature. I’ve been warned that they turn red when ripe, so that’d be a great photo op.
I finished planting my garden, and picked flowers for the house – the mix of colours inside and out brings me joy. Just had a friend to stay for a couple of nights, and had a lovely time – which is especially good, since I’ve found her anti-vax views difficult over the past couple of years. And just now the forecast for the shed-building days at the end of this week has improved – I’ve been worried it’s going to be too wet to do it.
I have had a good week at work, and have also managed to do some home things which have long been on my list – like tighten the screws in the bathroom doorknob so it doesn’t slip. Even with finding the right screw driver, it only took a couple minutes, and has been on my mind SO long! Made muffins for work breakfasts. Did the lion’s share of accounting work I ended up with as a freelance gig a few years ago.
Now the novel and the sofa are calling.
Anticipating the joy of seeing many friends at a baby shower this afternoon. My friend’s granddaughter is having a baby girl soon. First great grandchild. I will have wait many years for such an event.
My purple clematis is gorgeous this year, many blooms. It winds itself around the obelisk we made years ago. Two climbing roses in bloom too. So pretty. Weeding and trimming the back garden yesterday. Feel like I’ve accomplished a lot. Only the beginning, weeds grew wild while I was away. Big job ahead.
I wrote. It was the best. Filling in the characters. Good comments from fellow writers.
The first fraction of Day Job Hell Month is over, so that’s a happy. Determinedly not thinking of the remainder.
Another perfect-conditions-for-gardening day yesterday meant nearly five hours outside doing Yard Housekeeping, etc. As with last weekend, today it’s sunny meaning not so good to be outside, so my strategy was sound, which makes me happy.
My parents’ move from Florida to North Carolina is COMPLETE, which makes me SO HAPPY. And best of all, they’re happy too. They like the house they bought, they like the green woods around them, and (while not yet admitting it) I think they’re relieved to now be within drop-in distance of my extremely competent sister. From Decision to In New House was six months, which is impressive, especially considering they are 82 and going-on-84.
I’m anticipating strawberries (on sale at the local grocery store) and angel food cake (also on sale) after I do the thing I’ve been procrastinating for a week.
I already covered the strawberries I’m growing (not exactly free, because the seeds and grow bags and growing medium and row cover and my time all cost something), which are starting to redden, and I’m determined to get at least some of them instead of feeding the birds and bugs. They’re alpine strawberries, tiny but so, so flavorful, much more than the big, commercial varieties. And they grow in partial shade, which describes most of my yard.
I pre-order books to have something to look forward to. I’m looking forward to getting the climbing roses trained up on the arbors too. And I’m really really REALLY looking forward to summer vacation. 2 more weeks of school…
I had a staunch friend come help me with the garden–I do the technical stuff and she pulls weeds (which she’s comfortable with because it doesn’t take knowledge and she finds it satisfying, while I do not). I planted the last few tomatoes and started mulching with straw and watered everything because we are desperately low on rain. (Usually we have too much.) It now has finally reached the “almost done and no longer overwhelming” point, which makes me very happy.
Yay Krissie!
My clogged kitchen sink does not, alas, make me happy. I dismantled everything underneath I could do myself and that didn’t solve the problem, so I’m going to have to call in a professional and eat off of paper plates until they can come deal with it. Still, at least I have paper plates. And the number of a good plumber. It can always be worse. (Although I anticipate it will cost me a lot of money.)
We went away for the weekend. The dogs went to a new kennel which freaked them out, but they adjusted. My cat sitter flaked on me and I put Toodles’ pills in with her hard food. She was not fooled and did not eat any of them. She seems to not have lost any weight (overactive thyroid) which is good.
We came home to lots of new leaves having popped out and anticipating more, then comes the lilacs and more flowers.
I picked up a new account for work and I’m anticipating more work. It will be an adjustment because it is an eastern account so I will start earlier but there should be more work associated with it which is good.
I’m looking forward to reading the next email from my only surviving sister, because it will no doubt contain the next episode in the fascinating soap opera story that has come out of her husband’s search for his birth parents. I’ve heard the story in bits and pieces, ever since a few years ago, when he got her a 23 & Me genetic scan coupon thingie for Christmas, which she followed up on, finding nothing but confirmation of relatively boring and known data about Our People.
And because he was an adopted child who’d always wondered about the family or mother who’d given him up for adoption, she gave him the same thing the next Christmas. And he found links in some database of genetic cousins (not sure what that is exactly — might be limited to 23 & me?) to a group of people with the same surname, all of whom shared enough DNA with him to be likely siblings. So he started really looking into how to contact those people, who at first didn’t respond to his tentative letters, but eventually said they were processing things and would get back to him when it felt right.
And so he’s finally met the brother who looks like his twin, learned about several of the other sibs who, like him, are physicians, and become the contributor to helping a brother edit their father’s obituary. But the mother wants nothing to do with him and has never breathed a word of his existence to her legal kids about the whole thing. and Iowa Catholic Charities has said “we can’t tell you much of anything about your background”. It’s a family that is apparently full of secrets, so there is a lot of drama to the whole tale. The visit to my sister’s home of one sib’s wife, who kept looking at this newly found relative and saying “my gosh, you are the spitting image of my mother-in-law!!” Secrets about who knew what the birth mother’s sudden long stay in another city during high school might have meant. Secrets about a will. Mention of an attractive art student boy who worked as a farmhand on the grandparents’ farm around the likely conception time.
And in the middle of it, my own actual brother-in-law, once a little boy wondering if he’d ever know his real family. Sounds like Dr. Phil made the whole thing up. But I can’t wait to hear the next installment.
Don’t you wish that you had access to the team at Finding Your Roots? The Henry Louis Gates program at PBS.
I know! Except the current & ongoing feuds & people’s reactions to this whole idea are more interesting than the tracing back to early ancestors, plus none of these people are celebrities. It would be great to have the skills of their research team, though!
Celebrities are all well and good, but in the year 1800, it took 95 people farming to support 5 people living in a city who weren’t farming (but who probably had a bit of kitchen garden and a couple of fruit trees). Most of our ancestors were farmers, period. Henry Louis Gates and his crew (and I wish I had them, too!) focus on what they think will interest the audience.
Real life soaps are very addictive.
He might try submitting a DNA sample to Ancestry, which has more than twice as many individuals as 23 And Me, to see what close relatives pop up. I have probably worked out one of my brick walls that way.
Thanks so much, Ann — I will pass that on to my sister. Much appreciated!
My sister in law gave up her first child (she was a teen mom) and has wondered for years what happened with her. Lo and behold, the daughter had been looking for her birth parents and used one of those DNA sites and found her maternal grandfather who had taken the same test to see where his family was from.
She reached out to him and he let his daughter know she had. They corresponded by text for a few weeks and then they were able to meet.
She is now part of the family and there is so much joy!
I’ve been anticipating visiting my grandson today. His mom and dad needed some time to move stuff around in the apartment, so I volunteered to take care of him. He’s two months old now and – of course – the cutest little kid on earth at the moment. we had a great time together.
I’m both “enjoying time off” and feeling weird for not being in a show this month. I saw the crush today when I went to go buy fancy yarn, so there’s that. We will presumably be in the next show together next month, at least.
This week I started singing lessons and saw “Death and Harry Houdini: The Musical,” hung out with friends, did karaoke and a lot of shopping. It’s been a relatively chill weekend.
This past week the granddog (our semi-permanent house guest) woke me at 6:a.m. in order to go out. Of course I obliged but it wasn’t what I thought. Usually she waits till I get up, this time she was doing a dance at the door. By the time I got there and let her out only to watch her chase a rabbit out of the rock garden. I had visions of running around the neighborhood in my jammies but she came when I called . She was satisfied with just chasing it out of the yard. We’ve all of a sudden got a lot of rabbits. I don’t see where they have touched the perennials but I’m fearful of putting any other plants in. What do rabbits eat? I’m only acquainted with Bugs Bunny. Come to think of it she went after a turkey in my neighbor’s yard. She does keep us hopping.
English rabbits eat pretty much everything – young shoots on roses, for example, despite the thorns. I installed a rabbit fence in my country garden.
I have had great success in protecting flowers from bunnies and deer using an organic spray called liquid fence
Bunnies apparently will leave nasturtiums alone. However they will eat marigolds—- a number of years ago they created nice little topiary pyramids of all my marigolds with one bloom on top of each.
I still have raccoons in my kitchen. Yes, I have chased them out and plugged the hole. There must be another hole.
Yikes!
Raccoons raid the bird feeder and come up on the patio to eat whatever I’ve left out for the Opossums. But IN the kitchen??! Oy vey! You have my complete sympathy.
The granddog went home over the weekend with granddaughter, not sure when she will be back. Either of them. Maybe this week sometime. My husband’s roses bloomed a few days ago but they grow on the wall behind the house. I am worried about the peonies they grow in the rock garden and in front of the house. It took years to get them growing in the garden. I now have a fierce looking owl statue that was once on the boat to keep the seagulls away (seagulls didn’t care). Will see if it affects the rabbits.
Anticipation: every night as I go to bed I think “When I get up I’ll make coffee.” Coffee makes me happy, not just awake.
Yes! I had to give up coffee, but it certainly was a pleasure. Tea is good, but it doesn’t pull me out of bed.
Happy because I am catching up with ‘stuff’ since the election is counted and recounted. I mowed the lawn and trimmed a hedge.
I’ll have an easy week with only one meeting and one doctor appointment. And pretty good weather forcast.
A good and dear friend will be in town this week, and we will have lunch or a coffee. And I have a massage this week, along with TWO high school grad parties. I don’t care about the party–I just want to see the girls. There’s also a CTscan, which makes me sorta happy–there are other, worse procedures it could have been. Will feel much better when I have results of scans. I think I’m fine, but proof for the doc is always nice.
Looking forward to the first January 6 Committee hearing on prime time June 8. Remember, this should be testimony under oath, under penalty of perjury, which tweets and speeches are not.
Looking forward to visiting my daughter in London for 10 days in July.
Also planning a trip to our local college baseball team in an adorable ball field with about 5 rows of bleachers and a manual score board.
I made a list of what I wanted to do this summer to feel like I had enjoyed it. Already done—major league ball game, scape pesto pasta, ramp pasta, hosting a party with German strawberry wine and lavender shortbread, seeing some friends we have not seen in a while. Still to come: College ball, visiting both kids, picking berries and making blackberry jam, eating nasturtiums in my salads, eating home grown figs and squash blossom soup and squash blossom eggs, having a back yard tea party.
Also I finished planting my annuals today (except for the last nasturiums that I will use to cover holes) so I’m looking forward to flowers.
That’s a really good idea. I might make myself a list like that.
My mother is having surgery tomorrow. It’s pretty minor but I’m still nervous. Anticipating it being over makes me happy.
I’m anticipating this next weekend when I get to go sew with my quilting friends. That should be so fun and relaxing. And at the end of the month, I’ll get to visit my family in Texas. I’m really excited for that!
I’m anticipating going on vacation in two weeks – yea!
Tomorrow is my birthday, which I usually enjoy. I’m throwing myself a bonfire by the sea/pot luck party next Saturday, first one since 2019. It’s a great party, and we don’t have to vacuum.
Went to see Downton Abbey movie with my mom, and had a good time. I didn’t really watch the series, but can’t help knowing all about since Mom watches it.
Had a beautiful sunny Sunday after 5 dreary days in a row.
Had a COVID scare, but we all tested negative.
Happy birthday!
We have a date for shipping of personal and household goods. Happy is just the tip of my emotional iceberg.
Course anything not packed by then is not going so there’s a certain amount of pressure… At this point as long as I had some clothes it would be good enough. Though anything not packed will has to go somewhere else, might be easier to get it all ready in time.
I am smack dab in the middle of my vacation, so generally happy about that. Yesterday I headed north to Newcastle (from York) so that I could ride a heritage steam train up and down a 3-mile track. It was delightful, but the best part, and the reason I made such an effort, is that it is built on a disused coal line that ran past the long-gone coal company housing where my maternal grandfather’s grandmother lived as a child. Her grandfather was killed in a mine accident at a nearby colliery, also long-gone. Next trip I’m going to get my research in order and visit more sites (by car—I love public transportation, but it can be difficult to visit multiple places in a day). It was a lovely day out.
That’s the history that is passed from one generation to the next. Told and retold.
I jinx any anticipation/expectation once registered in whatever area of the brain that is in charge of those.
Done plenty of night rehearsing from childhood to adulthood (with a peak during adolescence) so… Lost cause.
Pretty much anything this week will be better than last when our extended family lost their 11 year old son in a car accident. The funeral was last week so we are gently helping his sibling begin his new normal and recover from his own injuries (broken hip and ribs are hard on an 8 year old).
So back to working on the house… carpet is gone revealing the original hardwood floors, popcorn ceiling down and next we will paint before refinishing the floors!
I’m so sorry. That’s absolutely awful for your whole family.
I am so sorry. That is horrific.
I’m so sorry, Cathy. That’s heartbreaking.
This week, I anticipated the delivery and installation of a new washer on Thursday. It was a long saga, starting with a non-repair 4 weeks earlier, which left it still usable for small loads, and moving on to another non-repair, which left it broken and demoralized alongside its ruined guts, a week ago. The new washer takes a lot longer to complete a cycle, which really stymies planning. At 1:15 am on Wednesday, sirens went off, and a tornado touched down in the very next suburb from me, where my son and family live, scaring the bejeebers out of me. After 30 minutes of terror and anticipation sitting in the basement, I texted him, and they were all fine. It inspired me to write a tornado into my Kansas book, which took care of several plot points, as well. Harking back to the “how fast can you get dressed” saga, I slipped on my shoes, unplugged my phone and grabbed it, put my arms though my robe, and hied down to the storm corner in the basement in maybe 30 seconds. Thank goodness, the cats followed me, being the curious little dears that they are. I left a trail of lights on, and we did not lose power, praise Goddess.