Tag: a to z 2020

#AtoZChallenge | L is for Lobster and a delicious attempt at a how to video tutorial.

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I have eaten lobster longer than my memory goes back. Probably not a good metric, since my memory seems to only go back a decade or so. It may be more accurate to say that I’ve been eating lobster for over a half a century, but it freaks me out a bit to think that I’ve been alive that long. So I’m just going to say that I’ve been eating lobster for a long, long time.

It’s my favorite food.

I recognize that if you did not grow up eating lobster it can be intimidating. Lobsters are strange looking with a few too many legs and those large, menacing front claws, held closed with rubber bands. They have a hard outer shell that you have to navigate before you get to eat the delicious meat inside. You have to do a little work before you get to enjoy them and that may not be for everyone.

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#AtoZChallenge | K is for Kindness and other random acts with GISH.

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When the list of over 200 challenges is released early Saturday morning, my family usually displays it on the TV so we can all read it together. It takes several hours to read through and process it all. Only a few of the challenges actually seem doable, and many of them require multiple readings to be sure we understand them correctly. However, by the end of the week we’re staging epic battles between zombies and vampires and finding creative ways to complete impossible tasks.

That’s what Gish, the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt, does to you. The brainchild of actor Misha Collins, this week long hunt inspires creativity, amazing acts of kindness and pushes you to do things you never thought you could.

What has Gish taught me?

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#AtoZChallenge | J is for Juggling thoughts and calming my monkey mind.

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Monkey mind is a real thing. “According to Buddhist principles, the “monkey mind” is a term that refers to being unsettled, restless, or confused.” (Raab, 2017)

I may know shockingly little about Buddhist principles but the monkey mind is something to which I can easily relate, at least the restless part. My mind flutters through to-do-list tasks, random snippets of memories and various unrelated passing thoughts with a disconnected, accelerated pace most of my waking hours.

I’m ready to make peace with it. I’ve handed my monkey mind an olive branch and asked it to pull up a chair and slow down to enjoy a quiet moment with me.

I started practicing meditation every day in an attempt to quiet my mind. Let me be clear: I’ve been practicing quite poorly, but I am practicing.

I am reading “Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World” and following their well laid out meditation plan. There are many other meditation practices available. It’s definitely a trending topic these days. I’m sure this is in part because of the unprecedented level of distraction we all live with each day.

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#AtoZChallenge | I is for Islands and a perfect summer day on Monhegan.

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There is something magical about a perfect summer day. It stays in our memory with such a force that we can easily return to it and relive the moments to brighten more dreary ones. Our trip to Monhegan Island was one of those days.

After a foggy boat ride out of New Harbor, we reached Monhegan Island where the sky was bright and clear. We immediately set off on the 4.4 mile Cliff Trail, which circles the outer edge of the island and opens onto one amazing ocean view after another. It is the embodiment of the rugged Maine coastline. Below is a slide show of images from our trip:

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#AtoZChallenge | H is for Hiking with goats another tail tale from the trail.

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There was a moment when I was focused on the trail ahead but sensed that there was someone close behind. Seconds later one of goats sprinted past, fully engaged on exploring the wooded countryside, far less interested in us than we were in them.

This past September, on a mild fall day, we found ourselves enjoying an educational and relaxing hike with a sweet, well-mannered tribe of Alpine dairy goats at Ten Apple Farm.

The day of our hike started off with a light rain, so our hosts flipped the schedule and we started off in the barn where we learned about the farm and the goats. It was hard to stay focused, even though the information was interesting.

As the farmer told us his stories, one of the smaller goats in the pen behind him kept repeatedly jumping straight up while bleating and crying as she desperately tried to see over the top of the pen. She’d get a fleeting glimpse of us and then disappear only to return seconds later to peek again. It was clear that our hiking companions would have some energy.

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