In case your seasonal allergies haven’t informed you yet, we are 17 days away from Spring. Instead of thinking of it like “biding my time,” which I absolutely do, I’m trying to find some enjoyment in the month. There’s excitement in looking over the seed catalog I was sent and planning my garden, and the daylight is stretching a bit later so I can walk my dog closer to dinner time. It reminds me a bit of the time between scans and treatment, to be honest. How can I make joy, even here? How can I make this fun, even now? I hope the following ideas give you some motivation to do the same.
Eat: Want your kitchen and home to smell delicious? Maybe have some company coming over? Here’s my favorite trick: half-baked bread. I first noticed this at places like Trader Joe’s and Aldi but it seems like major grocery chains are in on it now. You can take bread ranging from full ciabattas and Italian loaves to small bread rolls and pop them in the oven at home to get them table-ready. There are few things more delicious to me than the smell of freshly baked bread. I could make my own from scratch, but this takes away the fear that’s been cast deep into my heart: hearing Paul Hollywood say “ya dough’s unda-prooved.” Shiver.
See: The Oscars will be on next Sunday. If you’re a movie buff, it might be fun to watch some movies that were nominated – or, better yet, some of the biggest Oscar snubs of all-time. I was horrified to learn that The Color Purple was nominated for 11 and took home exactly zero Oscars in 1985. Alfred Hitchcock, whose last name came to define a whole genre of suspense films, never one for best director once. And let’s not forget that it took until The Hurt Locker for any female nominee to win for Best Director. There’s a lot of overlooked greats – take your pick and dive in!
Do: Maybe your life is more together than mine, but I recently realized I had portions of unused gift cards just hanging out in my wallet that I hadn’t used in… months, at the very least. $6.24 here, $4.47 there, all just ready for me to use and yet also long-forgotten. This weekend, I am going to use them. Here’s the thing: some need to cover the entire purchase, and others just need to cover some of the total. So I plan on heading to Target, getting in a self-checkout line when there’s no line, and getting a lineup of $3 – $5 purchases from the former Dollar Spot area checked out in individual purchases. I have a kitchen hutch, and I have my eye on a few cute kitchen things to make it look ready for spring. I am one step closer to getting my life together. Then watch out.
I hope you had a carb-tastic, cinematic, bonus cash kind of weekend.
Christina
