"Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." – Mary Oliver

Friday Thoughts #13

Large-scale street art. Painted on a bridge over the Elwood Canal.

A vase of lemon verbena

I’ve been cutting back my overgrown herbs so the garden is neat before we go away. The lemon verbena was particularly unruly, so I gave it a good trim and put some branches inside. I’ve been picking leaves off each night to make fresh lemon verbena tea.


I had these photo galleries on my list of things to complete, and the picture-hanging guy came in this week. The first big gallery is our professional photos of the kids and some wedding photos. Some of these hadn’t even been framed to hang until this year, and in the ten years of living in our last house, we never did get all the pictures hung. It would have taken us longer to do this, and we wouldn’t have done as good a job. Walking past this makes me happy, so it was worth paying someone to come in and do it right. The second gallery is filled with snapshots from our travels, and we asked him to set it up so we can add to it ourselves over the coming years.


This weekend is busy for us, squeezing in a few gatherings before we go away. Saturday morning, we have brunch with some friends. I have the Dyson relays on Saturday afternoon, part of the cross-country season. Teams of six (for the premier division) and four for everyone else do one lap of The Tan each. Saturday night, we are going out with the kids and our son’s girlfriend for dinner. Sunday morning, I’ll do my 20km long run. Then it’s off to my sister-in-law’s place for lunch for my husband’s Mother’s Day. And on Sunday evening, we’re leading the Service on the Sofa gathering at church. I may also need to get to church early to record an interview about mainly music. Hmmm … we did not plan this out well. I think we’ll be crashing on the couch on Sunday night.

How has your week been? Any plans for the weekend?


Comments

10 responses to “Friday Thoughts #13”

  1. No big plans for the weekend as I’m still recovering from laser eye surgery, but the weather has been SO nice the last few days, so hopefully coffee on the deck tomorrow morning?! A girl can dream…

    Love the lemon verbena leaves; such a great way to use extra clippings. I love greenery in the house – it really boosts my mood to see my “happy” little plants.

    1. Yes, I love plants too and sometimes a bit a greenery in a vase is as good as flowers for the boost you get from it. Bonus that these would have just gone in the bin anyway. I hope you got your coff on the deck.

  2. How has your week been? Any plans for the weekend?

    Week has been… Emotionally difficult, since we were saying goodbye to a friend who had cancer. I went to work, gone through the motions, and took care of things all the while thinking about our friend and his life. He passed yesterday.

    Today is Mother’s Day so the kids and my husband made pancake breakfast (my favorite) and now they are playing while I am going to meditate and journal for a bit to process.

    1. I’m really sorry about your friend, it sounds like your mother’s day is just what you needed.

  3. Your weekend does sound pretty hectic! I’m hoping you’re home by now relaxing on the couch.
    I love the photo galleries- I want to do something like that but don’t know how to go about it. Your post shed some light on that- hire someone to do the hanging!

    1. One thing he did do with the galleryu was to lay all the photos out on the floor first to work out the arrangement, but he also has the right tools and lots of experience.

      My weekend went pretty smoothly and I had some really good runs, and good feedback re our gathering so overall it was a positive one.

  4. Wow! Those photo galleries look so good. Paying someone to do it is such a good idea if it means it WILL get done and probably look better than if you did it yourself. What a lovely focal point for your home.

    1. Yes it was worth it now, but when we moved into our old house we didn’t have the spare cash to do it, so it wasn’t really an option. I do love it though and am glad we oculd afford to do it now.

  5. The photo walls look great. I should really do something like that at our place.

    It sounds like you had a pretty packed weekend. I hope it was a lot of fun.
    I had a coffee date with an old gym friend on Saturday and then went to the garden center and worked on our yard a bit.

    1. THe weekend was pretty good. I enjoy the cross country races, they’re very social. Do you enjoy working in the garden?