Nutella and finches and other summer experiences (7 Quick Takes)

~1. Always for Elise~

Some weeks I wonder whether I have the energy and creativity to share 7 quick thoughts from our week. Then I remember that my niece Elise wakes up every Saturday morning and reads them while eating breakfast. So, here we go.

~2. Something old and something Nutella~

We’ve reached the moment in stay-at-home/quarantine life where I make sure everyone has a personal labeled jar of Nutella. I really don’t know what that says about my homemaking skills, but here we are.

~3. Finch in a pinch~

Inspired by the adorableness of our finches, my friend Mary’s mother decided she wanted to get some finches. But there were none to be found nearby. So, she ordered six finches from an aviary in New England. The bird salesman had to wait until the weather was cooler to ship them.

Then, the day he shipped them, Tropical Storm Isaias moved in, and the birds didn’t arrive at the post office.

I was nervous that when the box landed in her hands, the birds wouldn’t be alive. But they arrived safe and sound, and they are beautiful. As I turned the whole situation over to St. Francis to plead with him to intercede for these feathered creatures, I realized I really am a bird person now.

~4. Bird expertise~

When I saw the picture of the birds that had safely arrived, I knew right away that two of them were females. My knowledge of finches has come far since June when our salesperson mistakenly told me you couldn’t tell a finch’s gender without a blood test.

~5. Whine vs. wine~

This has been a very busy week for me at work—the kind of week where one night my dinner was Sprite. Still, it has also been a good week, and I have been thinking that even though my colleagues and I are all working remotely, I feel very close to them. We check in on one another, and I try to make sure that I am connecting personally and not just professionally with people when we talk.

On one particularly busy day, one of my colleagues asked me for my address, and he and his wife had a bag of wine, sangria, and beer delivered to our porch. I was so touched and grateful.

~6. Tasting summer~

We’ve been having our groceries delivered. I love not doing the shopping myself, but I realize I am not always remembering to eat seasonally. The other day John mentioned we hadn’t had caprese, which is something I usually serve during the summer because it’s fresh and cool. So, I ordered the ingredients, and they arrived.

Next up: peach cake, if I can get my hands on some juicy ripe peaches.

~7. Broken road~

One of our neighborhood roads was repaved this week. The old road needed to be stripped before the new surface could be laid on top. It made me think of the importance of not just patching problems, but really digging down below the surface first. I found myself thinking about how we have to work to address deeper issues before we can really be repaired, refreshed, and renewed.

Somehow that seemed so appropriate for this time.

Find more quick takes at Kelly’s blog, This Ain’t the Lyceum, and have a wonderful weekend!

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