Morning on the patio

By Elizabeth Prata

The last few days' weather has been absolutely gorgeous, and I truly appreciate the opportunity to enjoy it. When I'm in school and arrive home the sun is often behind the trees, and during the summer it's too hot on the concrete patio. But this, this, has been delightful.

I sit out at my patio table and read, watch the birds and insects, and take photos. I close my eyes and listen. I play a listening game as I position my face to the sun for a tan, I am trying to attune my ears to distinguish all the sounds I hear and catalog them. Today on the patio I heard

Scenes from a small town in spring

By Elizabeth Prata

Tuesday I broke 'quarantine' and went to the bank and the grocery store. I had to, they were essential trips. Out of money and out of food, lol.

When I completed my errands, I drove a different way home, enjoying some different views as I made my way through the streets of my little town, soaking up memorable scenes before I drew into the garage and shut the door again for two weeks.

The grief of an unsaid goodbye

By Elizabeth Prata

In Lubec, Maine, at the border of Canada way north and east, the tides are high. Tides come in and go out, 20, 22, 25 feet high. The tides are regular, sweeping in and out at known intervals. The docks go up as the tide rises and the docks slide down. The shoreline's rocks are exposed and then the rocks are covered up. On and on, in and out, the rhythm is there. The occasional gale may bring a tide in further or a full moon may inch it back more than normal, but even those events can be predicted ahead of time. There's a rhythm, and you adjust to it and live by it.

Life by the sea has a rhythm all its own. We look to the sea, where is the water, what is it doing, and then we act in concert with it.

A classroom is like that. Kids sweep in and they go out, they clamor and then they are quiet. The grow, their growth is remarked on, they grow some more. They smile, they laugh, they celebrate birthdays and milestones. We do all this together in closed system of learning and love, the teachers and the kids. The emotions present are shared by all, the symbiotic nature of the family-like atmosphere knits us all together for a long period, 9 months. We yearn to see each other, we can tell when they are feeling low, they notice when we have a new haircut or wear a new shirt.

They say quirky things like "Can I smell your necklace?" and they trumpet a lost tooth or their dog's birthday. Even those outpourings are predicted, they are kids after all, and they will always say and do the unexpected. It's expected.

And for their part, they know we will be there. We are steady adults in their lives, a pillar, a mainstay, a stalwart lighthouse, shining the way. We are the rock on the shoreline of their ebb and flow, love propelling the tide to come in and wash up gently on the shores of their hearts.

They know we will be there. They know the school calendar is set in stone. They know that no matter what, they can swirl around us as they enter at first bell or at recess, their chaos of foam and surf will never wash us away. We will be there. Their hearts are anchored in the classroom to which they have been assigned. The rhythm is the biggest part of their day. The biggest part of their week. The biggest part of their year. We can't dwell together in an enclosed space for the better part of the day and not be knit together like a family of sorts. So we allow it, they infiltrate our hearts like the salt on our skin at the end of a day at the beach. And we love it.

As the end of the school year approaches, we see the tide going out and we let it go out. We start the gentle disengaging process, unwrapping, unknitting, as the last day approaches but never fully letting go. We prepare our minds and hearts and the kids, for the inevitable moment when we day goodbye and push them out of the nest, to fly to the next nest where the receiving teacher, after the summer, will begin the rhythmic process all over again, And again the kids will be cherished, loved, turned into a school family in the classroom and their tides will ebb and flow.

But one day, we sent them home for the weekend...and we never received them back. The school calendar crumbled, the bells went silent, the doors were closed. The tide went out...and disappeared. Where is the water? How dry we are! Where are the children? How quiet it is!

The sudden chopping off of the love and learning rhythm is like an amputation. We feel the echo of the limb that used to be there, the phantom limb pain of what should be connected but is not. The tearing away of the precious rhythm is as if the very flesh of our hearts is shredded. There will be no chance to gently disentangle and tenderly prepare them and us for the goodbye. There will be no mellow sunset of the school year and parting of ways. There will be no singing goodbye songs from the teachers as the last bus rolls away. Instead, we are bleeding from torn limbs, crying with pain for the little faces we can't say goodbye to in person and for the hearts we can't prepare.

It must be this way, it's a rule and a law and something for everyone's good. No question about that. But this unique school year, this dreadful time, is a hardship no one could have predicted. It will leave a mark on many thousands of teacher hearts, as we all absorb this news that the school year has unexpectedly ended. The grief of an unsaid goodbye leaves a hole that nothing can fill.

Scenes from Quarantine Walk

By Elizabeth Prata


I went for my walk this morning, a bit later than usual but still wonderful. It was a gorgeous morning, with a fresh air and a sunny sky and lots of birds singing. I came back in and had a bunch of pollen on my clothes and a spider on my neck. Oh, Georgia Spring, you're like the woman in Billy Joel's song She's Always a Woman to Me:

She is frequently kind and she's suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases, she's nobody's fool

Here are scenes from this morning's walk

Frugal Cooking: Lockdown Edition

By Elizabeth Prata

Hi everyone, how are you doing? We are in the mid-point (hopefully) of a government mandated/advised (depending on where you live) quarantine/self-isolation/quarantine (depending on where you live).

Our school was canceled from March 13 until April 24, with potentially reopening on April 27 (depending on what's happening with the virus).

Morning walk

By Elizabeth Prata

My normal wont is to stay seated. I write, read, and study most of the time that I'm not actively working at school. But too much sitting is of course not good.

The road I live on is a one way and little traveled. It takes 10 minutes to walk down to the end and back. There's a bit of a hill in the middle so it's good exercise. I understand that three 10-minute walks per day equals one 30 minute session for cardio, so when the weather is fine, I do that. It's important to take breaks at intervals.

It rained hard last night and it's been raining a LOT here lately. We had the 4th wettest February ever and Dec-Jan-Feb we had 22 inches of rain. So when the weather is THIS GOOD, and it is good this morning, I get out for a little while.

Crafting in self-isolation

By Elizabeth Prata

We are at the present time advised by health and government officials to remain at home and to only venture out to make essential trips. We are to maintain a distance of 6 feet from people we may speak with along the way, aside from immediate family under our own roofs of course. These guidelines, and in some case mandated legal ordinances, are due to the highly infectious COVID-19 virus spreading from nation to nation like wildfire.

I have a ton of things to keep my busy. One thing is to do some crafts. I was putting together a birthday gift last week and I realized that I was low on medium-sized items. Gotta fix that.

I also wanted to pick up where I left off on Pixlr, and using the photo editing and manipulation app to do some creative productions of some of my crafts I'd scanned in. I like using a real piece of art in the digital to add to it. I don't know why. It's just fun.

Here are some of the items I played with digitally. I'll explain each one.

Here is the original. It is a book cover I painted. At the time I was practicing painting techniques and layering. I am not being coy when I say I am really not good at art. I see it in my mind but I just can't make my hands do it right. But I keep trying. Thank goodness for tutorials on Youtube!

Here it is after I played with it using some Pixlr overlays.

This was a Lomo camera photo of two people walking in a hall

I scanned it in, digitized it and put it in an altered book. That's when you take a discarded book, paint over the pages, leaving some words exposed if you want, and make collages on the pages.

This final one is the digitized, manipulated piece with Pixlr overlays.

Here is a stenciling and painting piece I did in my art journal.

I manipulated it using different overlays and put them all into a 4-piece collage:

Here is a file folder collage I did:

And then the added digital stuff-

This upcoming week I'll so some more real life art and practice some things I am attempting to learn. I'll probably scan them and let you know how I did. What are your hobbies? And will our homes all look like this when we're let out again?

Went to Kroger for Groceries: Trip Report

By Elizabeth Prata

I haven't left the property for a week, since the day we were let out of school and the national emergency due to the pandemic of COVID-9 was declared. I went to get food, like I always do on Fridays, then hunkered down to see what came next.

I read online of places being out of stock, people acting crazy. I'm glad where I am people seem to be more reasonable. I decided that since the weather was nice, and my perishables has been eaten, I'd make my weekly trip to Kroger to pick up fruit and vegetables. It was 10 am.

The roads were a lot less traveled, but then again, I'm in a rural area and there never is much traffic. 3 cars at a stop sign is traffic. More than one car inside the rotary is traffic. Not making all the lights in my 14 mile journey (all 3 of them) is traffic.

But the roads were less traveled. Parking lots were empty. No one was idling at the train crossing waiting for the train to go by.

Kroger was a lot less busy than usual. I found a parking spot near the door with no problem.

The perishables in the produce area have been restocked...mainly. There were gaps. For example, no bagged carrots at all. No broccoli. No bananas. Other things were overflowing, like avocados, tomatoes, and potatoes were back. I guess form here on in it will just depend on the trucks' arrivals.

The seafood counter was bare. No fresh seafood at all. A few already-packaged items like salmon filets or swordfish steaks were in the side cooler. If you wanted seafood your best bet was frozen. The packaged meat area was picked through, though there were some items. I got some roasted chicken meat and that is all I got for protein. I have some frozen in my own freezer, turkey sandwich meat, eggs, and peanut butter. That'll hold me.

Along the interior aisles there were full stocks right next to totally depleted stocks. For example, very few canned beans, hardly any canned tomatoes, peanut butter was low. I had a coupon for a free Kroger peanut butter in 16 oz size but there was only one crunchy left and about 6 creamy left. Other items were fully faced all the way to the edge, like spaghetti or the more expensive peanut butters etc. TP was back on the shelves, but there were gaps in the preferred kinds. Some brands were there, other brands were out. Again, it was hit or miss, but that's better than total miss PLUS chaos from last Friday.

The worst part for me was the lack of marked down items. I rely on the severely reduced produce and other "Woo-hoo!" sales sprinkled throughout the store to make my budget. Items haven't been left on the shelf long enough to approach expiration dates, so I was out of luck and paid full price for everything. Even the circular's weekly sale items were out of stock. But it's OK, I am at home more and moving less, and not stressed so I am eating less.

People were subdued. Some wore masks. Some had gloves. I brought my wipes with me and used them at intervals. No chatting in the aisles. People tried to avoid each other. Not a lot of lingering. No laughter.

I used self checkout, so I'd be the only one touching my items. (I know others have touched them before me.) I noticed when I departed the clerk hurried over with a disinfectant to wipe the touch screen and keypad. Good.

The worst part of the trip was the older man who sneezed right into a bin of honeydew melons without even a scintilla of effort to cover. At least it wasn't a bin of tomatoes or grapes. But it was gross.

As a happy surprise I saw 4 of my church friends! One who is a young mom was in the car idling out front. Her mother had gone in to get food while she waited in the car. Another gang of three roomies stopped me as I crossed the parking lot to say hello. I went back over to the wide sidewalk and awkwardly conversed at louder volume from 6-8 feet away while traffic flowed behind us and people walked between. So, lengthy conversation was not possible, just hihowareyaisn'tthis weird but it was GREAT to see friends.

So, food and stocks will be available it seems. The clerks were working hard to restock and to fulfill curbside orders. People seemed calm.

It is a warm and beautiful spring day out there. The lawn is being cut as I write this. I have always loved the sound of distant lawnmowing. I hear the birds. People outside walking or playing in nearby yards. Life in America these days is different, but it's still good.

Food Prep week of March 15, spring is in the air, and so is COVID-19

By Elizabeth Prata

Well here I am. At home on a Sunday. No church today and no school tomorrow, nor for the next two weeks. I sure do love to be at home, but not like this, with people sick, or people panicked and worried.

This too shall pass. Either with heavy impacts or light impacts. God is in control, and it is times like this where we can display the peace that passes all understanding. We Christians have the truth - the only truth - we have eternal life, and we have Jesus. He is our all in all. Or are we focused on circumstances and exuding fear? I hope not. I hope I'm not.

So here I am with time on my hands. I have some time right now to write a snacks review! How about that!

I have to be gluten free, dairy free, low carb, low FODMAP. I have a small budget. This means my food choices are very limited either through allergies or finances. Sigh.

I found these two bags of snax on sale at Kroger. Their normal prices are more than twice what is on the sticker. A crunchy G-F snack that wouldn't break my budget? Yes please. I bought them. I ate them. Were they any good?

The serving size for the pretzels is about 20 sticks. The serving size for the chips is about 10 chips. Not a lot. Just enough to make ya mad. OK, the carbs for the pretzels is over the pre-diabetes recommendations for a snack, or keto, which is 15 net carbs or as minimal carbs as possible.

Both snacks are gluten free.

The pretzels were pretty good. A slight sweetness and a lot of crunch. Of course those were the higher carb snack. Sigh. The green chips were less successful tasting. They were very crunchy but not totally tasty. I think kale was the tip-off it wasn't going to be - ahem- good.

Meanwhile, I did some food prep. No, I don't have school this week, but prepping isn't only for time. It's for money. If I'm going to turn on the stove (a big electricity eater) I want to stuff the oven and make use of the heat once for all.

Today I put in some breaded tofu slices, red and orange peppers, green peppers, and a G-F pizza.

I made a fruit salad and when I'm ready to eat some, I'll add some chili powder and lime juice. I also have 2 eggplants and some Bella mushrooms along with celery I'll saute.

I had seen a movie about a fruit stand owner's daughter who longed to be a chef, and was trying to pursue her dream. The movie showed her prepping the fruit for her dad's stand in the wee hours, and adding lime juice and chili powder. Hmmm, this was new. Here in Epicurious, we read of Three Ingredients That Instantly Turn Fruits and Veggies Into Addictive Snacks

We'd pulled over to one of those roadside fruit stands and I ate hunks of fresh coconut, doused in lime juice, and sprinkled with salt and chili powder. It was the simplest thing—served in a flimsy plastic bag—but it was everything I didn't know I wanted and needed. 

A fresh squeeze of lime or lemon juice does magic to a slice of raw fruit. That touch of acid brings out the natural sweetness, and intensifies all the flavors. This was something I'd known for years—something my mom used to do to all our fresh sliced fruit. But the addition of salt and chili powder was, I'm embarrassed to admit, completely foreign to this gal from New England. 

In Mexico, though, most fruits and many raw vegetables would be considered naked without the zing of lime, chili, and salt. But after that trip I never looked back. How to Make Fruta con Chile y Limón (see recipe at link above.)

By the way the third ingredient is salt.

So I thought hey, I'll try it. I bought some chili powder. The spice aisle as empty while the bagged and canned beans aisle next door was overflowing. Win.

It's spring here in the south. Meanwhile up north in Maine (my former abode) there is still snow in the woods. This is my yard today-

This was my morning:

This afternoon I'm going to read more of the book The Prince of Providence (about the ex-Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci), watch an episode of Highway to Heaven, and take a tutorial or two on my Logos software to learn it better.

Have a wonderful day and week ahead, whether you're 'out there' or social distancing. BTW thank you to clerks, law enforcement, garbage collectors, postal workers and others who due to their essential service must be in public or deal with the public.

Sun for once!

By Elizabeth Prata

Good morning! I hope you all enjoy this SUNNY day. If you're sick of the rain, here's the reason, and it's not your imagination! NWS rainfall totals as of yesterday for the last 90 days in Athens are 215% of normal, with 14 inches MORE than the 12 inches we normally get. 26.81 inches. And when it wasn't raining we have had little sun, mainly cloudy days have invaded our winter this year. And the rain of course.

I am not kidding, I don't know how people in Seattle do it. We have had practically three straight months of rain, steady, hard driving, cold rain. Yesterday was only one of a very few scattered sunny days and today too. Phew.

At school we were all getting cabin fever with the constant indoor recesses. People on car rider duty came back in with soaked shoes, rain coming down sideways and the umbrella no use. Kids were getting bonkers from needing to release energy, and the pervasive dark affected the staff's mood. Seattle, I got to hand it to you.

Yesterday was a nice day so I took advantage and ran to the Library after school to pick up my interlibrary loan. When it's 42 degrees and raining buckets I just don't want to run errands. I want to scuttle home and put on sweatpants and a comfy shirt and curl up! I have to hand it to Seattle again, my productivity declines when it's raining.

So the book I'd ordered is The Prince of Providence: The Rise and Fall of Buddy Cianci, America's Most Notorious Mayor. My family is from Providence and I was born there. I grew up in Rhode Island during the Cianci era. He was a colorful man, that is for sure.

While I was at the library I stepped into the Book Sale room, the Spring Friends of the Library Book sale had opened yesterday. I scored 10 books for $16, a nice price. Eight of them are theological books I plan to give away. I had to wade through Osteens, Lucados, Joyce Meyers, Gloria Copelands and other heretical books to get these. I snapped up some good ones and will give them to people in church who want them.

I also got two for myself. One is a coffee table sized book called Log Cabins, looking at architecture and interior design. I lived in a little bungalow on a lake for many years and I loved it. Fireplace and stone chimney, flagstone patio outside, all cedar walls inside. It's one of my design aesthetics. The other is a book labeled Chick Wit, funny books aimed at women. I thought I'd give it a try.

The puddles in the yard this week have been lake sized. This one has shrunk a lot since Thursday.

Flowers blooming!

Lines and shadows

Just a nice, rural yard, trailer, shed, trees, pergola...ahhh.

I was so tired yesterday that as I browsed at the Library Book Sale I could feel my energy literally draining away. I knew I was operating on fumes and to continue my plan to drive to The Special Store (vintage shop I love) and then Kroger to do groceries would be a stretch. I was stupid-tired. Plus I had a headache getting worse by the moment.

I drove home and put on my comfy clothes and actually fell asleep for two hours! That hasn't happened in a long time. I'm usually tired on Friday after school but I don't like to nap on weeknights. I woke up long enough to fry an egg and then after a little while went back to bed.

The good thing is I have lots of energy to enjoy this day, bask in warm sun, feel the crisp air, listen to the birds singing, and just...be.

I hope you have good moments this day to stop and as they say, smell the roses.