five fun things

Here’s a trick for keeping the side stitches at bay when running: push out your stomach on the inhale.

It’s hard for me to do — like patting your head while rubbing your stomach — but if I start feeling tight in my belly, I do a half dozen of these stomach-puffing breaths: breathe in, push out my stomach, exhale. I don’t know what it’s doing exactly (stretching muscles that might otherwise cramp?), but it works. I’ve been doing it for months.

Still doing those PT exercises for that hamstring injury (and then a knee injury, sigh).

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Have you seen The Lost City yet? 

One of my girlfriends saw it with friends and then raved about it, and then my son went to a drive-in theater to see it with a friend and came back blathering on and on about how funny it was and can he please go to the theater right now to see it and, we should all go, Mom, come on. And now, after all that hype, I’m rather looking forward to June when it’s supposed to be released at RedBox. 

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I’ve always let my shaped loaves of sourdough rise at room temperature for several hours before refrigerating them overnight and baking in the morning, but a few weeks ago I forgot to put the loaves of bread in the fridge before heading to bed. I remembered in the middle of the night and jolted wide awake — what else was I forgetting?! — but it was too late to do anything, so I didn’t bother getting up. I couldn’t sleep, though. I kept picturing my ruined loaves, the dough spilling out of the pans onto the counter. (As my mother says, everything is worse in the middle of the night.) But when I went downstairs in the morning, the loaves were enormous and beautiful. They didn’t sink when I scored them, and in the hot oven, they somehow managed to rise even higher.

Ever since, I’ve been shaping my loaves right before bed and letting them proof overnight at room temp. When the happy accident happened, it was a cold night, so now I replicate that by keeping the loaves in the downstairs bedroom or, if it’s a warm night, in the cheese fridge (though 52 degrees might be a little too cool — I think somewhere around 60 degrees is the ideal temp).

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This historical hair video is entrancing — and long. I watched half of it, and then I started over again so the kids could watch it with me from the beginning.

I wonder how long it took her to research and plan the video. Not to mention execute it.

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Do you ever marvel at all the cool people you know? Every now and then something clicks in my brain and I think, Wow, my people are pretty darn incredible. Take, for instance, one of our friends in small group. He’s a photographer and spends all his free time out on the river by their house photographing beavers and foxes and little creatures that none of us normally even notice. His attention to detail, enthusiasm, and extravagant patience are just, I don’t know… him. He’s our friend, so it’s no big deal. But then I came across this video and I was like, Wow, what he’s doing really is quite fascinating.

And here’s the thing: Steve is special, yes, but we’re all doing regular little things that, over time, add up to something that is often both ordinary and incredible — all at the same time. Think about it.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (4.26.21), that fuzzy space, an ordinary break, life can turn on a dime, thank you for holding us, taking off, Sally Fallon’s pancakes, mango banana helados, cauliflower potato soup, drama trauma.