Category: food

that pesky halfway mark…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Every time I sit down to contemplate the lessons a month held, things feel so much heavier than they did the month prior. I’m not loving that trend. While it is completely unrealistic, as we’re now halfway through this year of our Lord 2022, I’m going to hope this B:Side is gentler…

June was a month. A MONTH. I’m really showing my age when I say this statement, but it is once again so profoundly true: This month was an eternity long, but also how is it already the end of June???

Things I learned (or relearned) over the past thirty days:

  • I do actually enjoy going to the movies. Hear me out, anyone who has known me for any length of time has known me as a movie lover. Pre-Covid, going to the movies was something we did OFTEN. Sometimes more than once a week. When routines hit pause, we reevaluated and started to wonder if we still loved this activity. Even getting back into it, well over a year later, often felt uncomfortable. Today I can so I do enjoy it but as something special. Once or twice a month is more than enough for me. I don’t want to go if it’s not a movie that I am seriously excited to see.
  • We can disagree with people we love, about hot-topic issues, and still be respectful. I don’t love this “unfollow and block” mentality, it’s gross and dismissive. Have the hard conversations–show that respect. If you can’t come to a place where you each can exists in love and differences, then take that drastic step. We’ve all had different experiences, and we will majorly disagree with our people sometimes.
  • I’m REALLY glad So You Think You Can Dance is back. While I’m not a dancer, I am a veteran series watched and suspect I may be more articulately qualified to judge than Leah Remini is. (Fox, if you need a stand-in–CALL ME!)
  • Raccoons are jerks. Or at least the one raccoon (we suspect it was one) who slashed the screens of our sunroom to get in and eat the cat food is. How are we kicking off July? By attempting to repair the damage and raccoon-proof our favorite room that is currently out of commission.
  • Sometimes it is essential to take a mental health day, (even when you work for yourself at home) lay on the couch, and binge-watch something. The world will whisper this is a lazy thing to do, but listen… the world needs to mind its own business. Rest can look like a million different things and only YOU get to say what’s right for you.
  • Ice cream for dinner is acceptable. Period. I am prepared to die on this hill.
  • That the world was not ready for Kate Bush music when I was a kid like it is now. I’m here for this revival, though I was also here for it when I was nine.
  • Conservative Purity viewpoints are solely responsible for things like porn addiction. I’d go so far as to say this may be true for a large portion of assaults on women as well. I realized this will be a controversial viewpoint for many, but the reality is the objectification of women is driven from this hyperfixation.
  • Too much time in the summer heat can cause a fever for me. It seems silly, but I experienced it after the Lumineer’s concert that was a few weeks ago, in the middle of a heatwave, and again after attending PrideFest last weekend. BIZARRE… but also, learning these things about the way my chronic illness manifests itself empowers me to know how to act, plan, and what to expect later.
  • Finding creative ways to partner with small, women-owned businesses is my absolute favorite thing!

As we head into the second half of our year, may we love kindly, hold space for others, and treat ourselves gently…

XOXO,

M

this is forty-six…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

At 6:38 this evening I will turn forty-six.

Forty-Six.

We’ve been having the sort of conversations where we look back at points in our lives and say “wow, my parents seemed so old when we did _____________ but they were the age we are now!” or worse, “… but they were younger than we are now.”

This is just what we say now.

Age is such a funny thing really. There was a period of time when I was convinced I’d surely have my crap together by forty and yet I am here to tell you that as I wake today, turning six years past that point, my crap is most assuredly not together. Maybe we only really figure it all out when we’re about to be Game Over. It certainly feels that way.

I write this while I’m sipping an afternoon iced coffee and also subconsciously questioning the wisdom in such a decision. I’ve never been one for gambling, but at this stage in my adulthood every time I partake in coffee it feels like a giant game of dice rolling risk:

will it wake me up with an energy kick? (also, why am I so tired at 2 in the afternoon?)

will it destroy my stomach and leave me wishing I were dead?

will it do nothing?

I’d throw in other options for fun, but honestly, it will only be one of those three and more than likely the second one because this is who I am now.

Adulthood! Am I right???

When I was in my twenties and dreaming of big risks like skydiving, backpacking through a foreign country, or deep-sea diving I was certain by now I’d be collecting countless risky adventure stories and living my best life. Instead, I traded in every opportunity and desire for such things for a failed stint at motherhood. Today the biggest risks I’m likely to take look like sleeping with a new pillow or braving Costco on a Saturday.

Well, and iced coffee in the afternoon apparently…

Or the spicy Dominican restaurant I’ve heard so much about. (IYKYK)

Here’s the truth though–as much as I miss dreaming of carefree and life-threatening risks (not of the coffee variety) I’m pretty ok with where I m today. I’m ok with forty-six. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love this old neck of mine to be a bit more flexible with pillows, and I prefer Costco on a Tuesday evening, but of the deeper stuff… I’m a big fan.

I know who I am today, and that girl dreaming of jumping from an airplane had no clue who she was. It’s safe to say that up until a small handful of years ago I still hadn’t a clue, though I’d wager I was getting closer. I no longer need the approval of others. I no longer fear failure because I understand the necessity of it–the richness of it.

I spent so long, as a writer, angry at myself that I didn’t have it together enough to finish (and publish) a book. Yet today, as I gather promotional items, work on edits, and prepare for my memoir to release in August I realize that it came just when it should have. One year shorter and it would have been something less than it is.

At forty-six I can relax. I can comprehend that problems are not likely knitted with the urgency they once seemed to have been comprised of. At forty-six I’m sleeping better than I have ever slept, and carrying myself with more confidence than I ever have. It turns out that feeling confident has nothing to do with what size you wear, how not-grey your hair is, or how your economic status plays out in your portfolio. Who knew?

At forty-six I understand that moments truly are the beautiful bits that comprise a life. I’ve dealt with enough nonsense from others that I have no problems insisting on a boundary, cutting my losses, and moving on.

Last weekend we went to the Van Gogh exhibit with friends. I wore a flowy sheer-floral ruana and my biggest cocktail rings. At one point, mid-laughter, I asked how I was doing channeling my best Mrs. Roper vibes and laughter ensued. My husband lovingly assured me I wasn’t “even close” to Mrs. Roper, but suddenly I realized I didn’t care if others thought I was. I didn’t care. I was comfortable, filled with joy, and living my best life. If that screams Mrs. Roper’s appearance then more power to us both!

I love floral dresses, floral coverups, and giant gemstone jewelry.

I love crystals, tarot cards, Jesus, Dan Levy, and puppies.

I am who I am and the biggest gift about being this age is accepting that and not changing my interests based on what is trending or someone else’s approval.

Wherever you’re at today, and however you are, I hope you can love yourself and accept this moment as authentically as it is. This has to be the definition of truly living because otherwise–what’s the point???

The numbers don’t lie, but the eggs might…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Is it fair to say that February may have been the longest string of twenty-eight days in the history of man? I mean, that’s probably not true (a matter of perspective I can imagine) and also from a scientific standpoint probably makes no sense. All the same, from where I’m typing it would seem that February lasted 127 years and I am entering into the month of March to celebrate what would then be my 173rd birthday. (also, to be fair, I feel I have aged so much in these past few years that maybe I feel 173…)

If you’re some sort of rapid math genius then you may have assessed that I’m turning 46 in a handful of weeks. 46. I didn’t repeat it because this number freaks me out–on the contrary, I don’t even get what the big deal about age is anymore. I had my meltdown when I turned 25, and then my worst birthday ever when I turned 40. To be fair, they were all pretty crappy, for the most part, until that one.

No, I repeated “46” because it gave me pause to realize it has only been six years since that horror of a milestone day. Those six years have really dragged on, proving that time must not always “speed by” the older we get. I guess considering almost half of that time has been measured through the pandemic lens, and included the longest January ever, followed by the 127-year long month of February…

Listen, there are a lot of numbers in this post. Some are spelled out in an attempt to distract myself from the fact that if I look at these lines just right it will feel like a story problem from my fifth-grade math book. These numbers are stressing me out… Math is clearly not my thing. Even the appearance of math makes me antsy…

One thing I don’t take for granted is the appreciation I’ve gained for birthdays, my own included, and have traded in the decades of horrible ones for better ones since the disastrous 40th. I believe we are never too old to learn, which brings me to the actual (only slightly numerical) point of this post:

Things I learned in February…

  1. Over the process of working with my publishing team and editor, I feel I’ve gained more and more confidence in my work–specifically my memoir.
  2. While I wouldn’t say i learned how to watercolor, I did spend time playing with them and definitly feel less intimidated than I did before.
  3. That there is an actual Carpe Diem day. It was February 26th. Not only is this special to me because Dead Poet’s Society has always been a favorite film of mine, but I also feel this matters because so often we choose to stay comfortable over daring to do things… As we sink farther and farther into that zone, we tend to achieve less and less. Seizing the day is something I hope I aspire to do–even when I really am turning 173. (to be clear, PLEASE GOD NO. I do not wish to live that long.)
  4. Definitly since the start of this year, but continuing into February, I’ve been working on learning to embrace my creative desires and focus on “play over results.” In doing so, I’m trying several different mediums, looking at classes, and really enjoying myself.
  5. In February I continued my education in embracing that I am a child of the moon. I restructured my entire schedule to observe the waxing and waning cycles of the moon’s phases and it was interesting. Due to things beyond my control, I won’t be able to observe these cycles as strictly in March, but I still plan to be intentional about them.
  6. According to Google, one can tell an organic egg has gone bad when it floats in a bowl of water. I don’t know about all of that, but I did learn that if an egg smells really eggy, it is not good. Maybe this is baseless information and I’m full of it, I don’t know… but when Chw made scrambled eggs one day, and I (from an entirely different room) smelled a STRONG eggs smell the second he started, my stomach turned and I couldn’t eat them. A few days later, I went to fry up an egg for a bowl of ramen and the second I cracked the egg (the NO WHITES egg that sent horrified chills up my spine!) that same smell about knocked me back ten feet. I couldn’t eat the egg, (sad ramen). I replaced the entire batch and we had eggs over the weekend and I did not smell that smell or get nauseated. This may all be baseless information but I don’t care. If I ever smell that putrid scent again, I will not be eating the eggs…
  7. HOWEVER, in my EGG-UCATION (ha!!! I know… Lame. But also, kind of funny…) I also learned that the brighter the yolk color the more natural and healthy the hen’s diet was, thus meaning the paler yolks are the less healthy.
  8. I attending an amazing workshop and learned how to not only give myself an “energy massage”, but how to give one to someone else. Fascinating stuff!
  9. I had my first King Cake… and listen, if people are binging on these before Lent, I understand the idea behind abstaining from sugar. WOW, that was the SWEETEST cake I’ve ever put in my mouth!
  10. Even though there are increasingly terrible things happening in the world, as well as in many of our lives and the lives of our people, it is CRUCIAL that we honor and celebrate our good moments, small wins, and progress.

to a close…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

As January comes to a close I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned… As the clock brought us into this new year, it was with cautious optimism that I greeted 2022. Usually, New Years Day holds big Monday vibes and anyone who knows me knows that Mondays are my favorite, but this year I only felt tired.

I learned to choose fun in the everyday moments, and while I’ve likely learned this lesson before (and will again) somehow it rang truer.

I learned how essential it is to embrace the extra effort that is creativity. To try new things, even if I’m not good at them. This played out in the form of digital drawing on Procreate, making homemade sugar cubes for tea, and painting my first small canvas. None of them were perfect, but each one breathed a sense of life into me–the very thing that dancing with creativity does.

I was reminded of all the loss we’ve had in recent months. My mother-in-law has been struggling with her health since September and so I sent my husband across the country to spend some time with her. It was here where I learned that life–or in this case, SNOW–will hit the hardest when we are alone. During this time of being snowed in, I once again reconnected with fun. I did at-home spa treatments for myself, as well as the dog and cat. (I imagine you can guess which one was less than thrilled and which one loved it.) This was also when I learned to ask for help when I need it instead of insisting on being the helper.

As I seem to every month, I learned more about my writing journey–this forever quest towards something… Align is my word of the year and already these lessons I’m learning are bringing me more into alignment.

For this I am grateful.