Tag Archives: marvelous

marvelous monday: grocery store surprises

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Happy Monday, everyone! I hope your Thanksgiving weekend wrapped up well and that you made it home safe if you were celebrating out of town. I am happy to report that Mike and I arrived back safely in Lafayette last night, with enough time to hit up the grocery store, do a bit of work, watch an episode of Arrested Development, put all of our clean laundry away {thanks, Mike’s mom, for letting us do laundry in your lovely machine instead of having to trek to the quarter-eating machines in our apartment complex!} and even put up a few Christmas decorations. The wreath is on our door and my mini tree is on display!

Sometimes it’s the smallest things that add a big smile to your day. I love surprises, and one of my favorite things is to discover a new treat when I’m browsing the grocery store. Look what I found last night:

PUMPKIN SPICE ENGLISH MUFFINS!

I know we are transitioning from autumn into winter, but I remain pumpkin-obsessed. And I’m okay with that!

I enjoyed every bite of a pumpkin spice English muffin for breakfast, half smeared with chocolate peanut butter and the other half with regular peanut butter. I can’t decide which topping I like better. I also want to try cream cheese. I might have to eat another one for a snack later to do further research! 😉

What grocery store finds have you been delighted with lately? Anyone else still obsessed with pumpkin?

Have a marvelous day!
-Dallas

marvelous monday: staying positive when you’re sick

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Hi everyone! I feel like it’s been for…ev…er since I’ve posted. I’ve missed you! As you can tell from the title of this post, I’ve been sick with a nasty cold. Sniffles, coughing, congested, feverish, and soooo tired. You know that weary-bones, sandpaper-eyes tiredness you get when you’re sick? Yep, that’s me.

It can be hard to stay positive when your body is fighting a cold. You’re sick and tired and all you want to do is crawl back into bed and sleep the day away! But it isn’t always possible when Monday rolls around and work and obligations beckon. So, in keeping with the “marvelous monday” theme, I woke up this morning and tried to keep my thoughts on the upside. Here are some things that help keep a smile on my face even when I’m sick:

  • eating breakfast in my cozy Purdue Snuggie that my parents got for me when I decided to come to Purdue for grad school. So warm, and so functional!

  • warm green tea with honey … perfect natural throat soother.
  • snuggling up with a good book {right now I’m reading My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares — a unique, creative romantic read from the author of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series}
  • the beautiful autumn leaves outside my window and on my drive to school.

  • sweet phone calls and texts from my parents and brother checking up on me to see how I’m feeling
  • wonderful students who seemed to sense that I was feeling under the weather and were extra well-behaved and participatory in class discussions today.
  • a reminder that I am so fortunate to normally be feeling 100% healthy and energetic, and I need to be grateful for my body and take care of it! As a naturally go-go-go 24/7 type of person, relaxation can be a challenge for me. Sometimes being sick in bed with a cold is the reminder I need to slow down, rest, and take care of myself by making sure I spend some time in relaxation mode, even when I get back to feeling healthy.

Hope you are having a wonderful start to the week! Does anyone have any tips to share for staying positive when you’re feeling under the weather? How about ways you keep your body healthy through cold-and-flu season?

-Dallas

marvelous monday: my favorite tea mug

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I’ve already told you about my intense love for tea — in fact, my first project for this blog was reorganizing my tea stash in my kitchen cabinet. What I haven’t yet shared are photos of my favorite mugs to brew my tea in. Well, today is the day!

At the top of my list on Monday morning is this sunshiney mug that I got for Christmas last year. I love sunflowers, and this mug is an instant mood-lifter. How can it not be a good morning when you’re drinking a steaming hot cup of tea in this beauty?

On those inevitable “snooze button” days when I’m having an especially hard time rolling out of bed, I reach for this mug: it’s ginormous! Practically a soup bowl. I can brew two regular mug’s worth of tea in a single serving of this amazing mug:

It’s extra special because it came from the Serendipity 3 cafe in NYC. I bought it when I visited my close friend Janet last year, when she was living for a short time in the big apple. She took me there because the movie Serendipity with John Cusack and Kate Beckingsale is one of my all-time favorite movies. It is such a special memory, and drinking tea from this mug always makes me think of Janet and smile.

It’s almost as big as my head!

What are some of your favorite mugs and water glasses? Do you have any small household items that get your day off to a sunny start?

Have a marvelous day!
-Dallas

marvelous monday: strawberry chocolate-chip pancakes

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Happy Monday, everyone! How was your weekend? Marvelous, I hope!

I had a fun, relaxing and productive weekend. It was a great balance of work and play! I did some grading and lesson-planning, worked some on the novel I’m writing for my thesis, and did some baking! {Delish new muffin recipe coming later this week, hooray!} The highlight of the weekend was definitely Saturday night, when I drove an hour to Indianapolis to see Bob Dylan in concert!!

It was a beautiful summer evening and the concert was held in an outdoor venue, so we got to enjoy the sunset just as Bob Dylan was beginning to play. I loved the casual, picnic atmosphere. There were no assigned seats {at least not in the back section where we were sitting!} Instead, people sat in blankets or lawn chairs in the grass. It was lovely.

And Bob, of course, was rockin’! It was so neat to hear him play so many of his classic songs live. For an encore he played “Blowin’ in the Wind” which might be my favorite of his songs. You can just barely make him out in this photo I snapped — in the middle of the stage in the black jacket, playing the piano. Can you spot him?

What a fun time! I had a blast. What are some of your favorite concerts you’ve ever been to?

I wanted to start the week off on a luxurious note, so for breakfast I made strawberry chocolate-chip pancakes. How can this not be a fantastic week with these babies kicking it off?

I love this recipe for homemade from-scratch buttermilk pancakes I found on the terrific blog Newfashioned Mom, but you could also substitute your favorite boxed pancake mix.

strawberry chocolate-chip pancakes

– 1 cup unbleached flour
– 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
– 1 teaspoon salt
– 1 tablespoon sugar
– 5 tablespoons powdered buttermilk (or 1 1/4 c. fresh buttermilk, skip the water)
– 1 egg
– 1 cup water
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– 1 cup chopped strawberries
– 1/2 cup chocolate chips
– butter for greasing pan

1. Heat pan or griddle on medium-low.

2. To make pancake batter: sift together dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine buttermilk, egg, water, and vanilla extract. Add egg mixture to dry mixture and stir together until big lumps disappear. {Batter should still be slightly lumpy.}

3. Grease pan with butter and pour in your pancake batter. I use a 1/4 cup scoop.

4. If desired, drop in the chocolate chips and strawberries. I prefer to cook chocolate-chip pancakes and add the strawberries on top after.

Option 1 on the left, Option 2 on the right.

5. When batter begins to bubble in the middle, use a spatula to flip the pancakes over. Cook until golden-brown on both sides.

6. Serve immediately with warm syrup. YUM!

Whenever I make pancakes, my first batch is nearly always a hot mess. Still tastes good, but not as pretty as the others. At least this one kinda looks like a heart! ❤

Hope you have a wonderful week filled with strawberries & sunshine!

-Dallas

———————

-Time spent: 20 mins
-Cost: less than $5

marvelous monday: find happiness through freewriting

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Where did the summer go?? I just can’t believe it’s already August. The fall semester starts up for me again in just two weeks. It seems like I can close my eyes and it is the beginning of summer again, when the fireflies were just starting to appear and a long path of sunny days stretched out before me. What happened?? Where did it all go?

Do you ever get those same feelings? It floors me how quickly time passes! Sometimes it feels like time is a river rushing past me so fast and I’m sitting there in a little boat, struggling to get a grip on the oars, not even enjoying the beautiful scenery flowing past. It makes me feel overwhelmed and frustrated, like I’m wasting or not appreciating enough the most precious commodity we all are gifted with: time.

I am also guilty of something I’ve come to think of in myself as productivititus: trying to fit waaaaaay to much into my daily to-do list, and then feeling like a failure when I don’t accomplish everything I’ve set out to do. This is not a good habit because I don’t want my summer, or my life, to be nothing but a giant to-do list of tasks I’m checking off. As my idol John Wooden often said, the most important words in the English language are love and balance. Work is important, but so is time for play! Balance, balance, balance is so crucial.

Something that is helpful to me when I am feeling off-balance, especially by the incredibly fast-flowing river of time, is to go to a  quiet corner of the room and spend a few minutes freewriting.

I always use freewriting in the creative writing courses I teach to help students break through writer’s block. However, I think freewriting is something that can benefit everyone! It is such a great tool for not just writing, but also your mental health, sense of empowerment, and overall happiness.

Here’s how freewriting works: set a timer for a certain amount of time — I’ve found 8 minutes works well because it’s not too long or too short — and start writing. The only rule is that you cannot stop until the timer dings! It is a tool to keep you from self-editing or second-guessing or worrying that what you are writing is not “good” enough. Instead, just let the writing pour out of you. You will find yourself tapping into your subconscious, which can help you unlock all sorts of dreams and ideas and even solve problems that are nagging you. For me, freewriting is a way to re-find my center of balance. It unclutters my mind and makes me feel at peace.

You don’t need a fancy journal or expensive pen to freewrite. All you need is a blank piece of paper — even scrap paper works! Some people like to freewrite on the computer, which is certainly all right. I personally enjoy using a pen and paper because it makes the writing feel more open and less intimidating somehow — more unharnessed. Something that is just for me.

Here are some freewriting topics I’ve been using lately as jumping-off points:

– My favorite memory I made this summer was …
– Three things I am grateful for in this moment are …
– I will wring out every last drop of fun from my last couple weeks of summer by …

I’ll be sharing more freewriting topics as the year goes on … I’ve even created a new “freewriting” category that you can see in the list of categories to the right.

What are your plans for these final weeks of summer? Does anyone else use freewriting as a way to alleviate stress and find balance? Any other tips or suggestions for slowing down the pace of life and savoring the time we are blessed with?

Best wishes for a marvelous week!
-Dallas