While our day was fun, we had a bit more adventure than we planned, thanks to my own inattention to detail. My first mistake was to copy only the rights and lefts of the Google Maps directions without the distances between points, and my second mistake was assuming I knew where the place was and walking confidently off in that direction after we’d parked. It was after we’d walked several l-o-o-n-g blocks and the street numbers were going the wrong direction that I remembered a bit about cross streets and Laure pulled out her phone to locate it. Yup, we’d walked in the opposite direction.

We were lucky it was a gorgeous, cool-but-sunny day and the extra walking made us feel that we could indulge, perhaps, in a pastry as well as lunch. (What better way to celebrate 20 extra minutes of walking than by inhaling 800 calories of sweet and sinful delight?)

By the time we reached the bakery, which we had actually driven past on our way to the parking garage, we were more than ready for lunch.

What I ate:

Insalata caprese sandwich

Our reward for the extra walking:

German chocolate cake

Lunch was delicious and worth the drive and walk. Laure sketched hers (she writes about it here) and I took pictures. Perhaps a sketch will appear in my sketchbook, but probably not, because I still haven’t finished the sketches from Sunken Gardens (but I promise I will and I’ll share them here)! We’ll probably go back at some future date—we haven’t tried the chocolate croissants, after all.

The moral of this Field Trip Friday is: when exploring new places, go with the flow and don’t get too upset if things don’t go quite as planned. Oh, and be sure to reward yourself with cake. Definitely, cake should be involved.

Have you taken a field trip lately?

Eating: one of life’s great simple pleasures, but one that can quickly get me into trouble. In my quest for tasty-yet-mostly-healthy snacks, I’ve discovered the joy of flavored almonds. I started off with Blue Diamond butter toffee flavor, and…yum! Slightly sweet, but still mostly healthy. Next, a friend introduced me to the toasted coconut flavor, also tasty and just slightly sweet. And then, well, another friend warned told me about the salt ’n vinegar flavor, which is now my favorite. The only downside is that you have to be careful how many of these you eat, because one ounce weighs in at around 170 calories—no slugging down handfuls and expecting to retain (or regain) one’s svelte figure. 

Sure, plain almonds might be a bit healthier, and I do eat and enjoy them also—but when I want to have something that feels like a treat without totally derailing my health goals, I reach for one of these yummy flavors. They make me happy. (And yes, I do see that “artificially flavored” on the label of the salt ’n vinegar flavor—I admit they’re not perfect…but neither am I.)

What is your favorite healthy snack?

When spring finally arrives, it can be fun to see what winter left behind, and Jeffrey Harrison of Massachusetts is doing just that in this amusing poem. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Mailboxes in Late Winter

It’s a motley lot. A few still stand

at attention like sentries at the ends

of their driveways, but more lean

askance as if they’d just received a blow

to the head, and in fact they’ve received

many, all winter, from jets of wet snow

shooting off the curved, tapered blade

of the plow. Some look wobbly, cocked

at oddball angles or slumping forlornly

on precariously listing posts. One box

bows steeply forward, as if in disgrace, its door

lolling sideways, unhinged. Others are dented,

battered, streaked with rust, bandaged in duct tape,

crisscrossed with clothesline or bungee cords.

A few lie abashed in remnants of the very snow

that knocked them from their perches.

Another is wedged in the crook of a tree

like a birdhouse, its post shattered nearby.

I almost feel sorry for them, worn out

by the long winter, off-kilter, not knowing

what hit them, trying to hold themselves

together, as they wait for news from spring.

I cup my warm mug of coffee between both hands as I walk back to my office. Is there anything better than that first sip of coffee in the morning? I brew a mixture of half vanilla-flavored coffee and half plain coffee, keeping both myself and my husband happy. (Guess who likes the flavored coffee?) That first sip tastes so good, especially when followed up with a bit of cranberry orange scone. I use the coffee pot’s timer so when I get up the house smells like coffee and it’s ready for me to pour.

The sky over the trees gradually lightens, flushing pale pink to salmon. I look around my office at the many things I love: books, art supplies, pictures, little knick knacks. The birds begin to wake up, chattering and chirping in the trees. A pair of cardinals takes turns at the bird feeder.

Everyone else is still asleep—even the dog. I sit in my rocking chair—the one I’ve had since my son was an infant. How many hours did we spend here together, while I fed him, read or sang to him as he lay cradled in my arms or sleeping on my shoulder? He’s 18 and more than six feet tall now.

It feels like I’m all alone in the world. I watch the Spanish moss sway in the slightest of breezes. I pick up the notebook I use for morning pages, the cardboard cover smooth beneath my fingers. I like to use composition books for morning pages. They’re a nice, portable size and sturdy enough to be used for months at a time. And they now come in many pretty designs—I usually stock up at the beginning of the school year when there’s more to choose from.  Some mornings words flow unstoppable from my pen as I perform a sort of brain dump onto the page, lightening myself for the day ahead, working through my plans, clearing out emotional fogs, aches and pains, happinesses. After I fill my three pages, my hand and arm ache pleasantly and I know that at least for today I’ve written something, even if no one else ever sees it. (My husband says when I die he’s going to read all my notebooks and journals. I say go right ahead—I won’t care at that point!)

I used to be a night person, loving to stay up past when others went to sleep. Now I’m too tired by nightfall, and I’d have a hard time staying up past when my son goes to bed (I think he’s nocturnal). I still love the beautiful, quiet hours near midnight. They still feel magical if I ever manage to stay awake that long. Perhaps I’ll gravitate back towards being a night person again when I no longer need to get up so early in the morning.

Both late night and early morning share something in common: solitude. I have a great need for solitude and quiet which I struggle hard to meet. My husband works at home and is always around. We still have our son at home. I’m lucky to get an hour or two alone in my home each week. I try to make up for that by getting up before everyone else in the morning.

Pretty soon, alarm clocks will go off, the dog will need to be walked, my day’s work will start. But for right now, I’m enjoying my coffee and the morning quiet.

What’s your favorite time of day?

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then,

is not an act, but a habit.”

—Aristotle

“Good habits, once established, are just as hard

to break as are bad habits”

—Robert Fuller

“Motivation is what gets you started.

Habit is what keeps you going.”

—Jim Rohn

Habits—good ones—can be our best friends. Research studies have revealed that as much as 45 percent of what we do each day is habitual—done automatically almost without thinking about it, driven by cues such as a specific place or time of day, a series of actions, certain moods, or the company of specific people. (Do we feel the need for a snack while watching TV perhaps, or do we check email as soon as we come back from lunch?)

In the areas of my life that run smoothly, I’ve developed good habits: I have a regular exercise schedule and a system for completing household chores, for example. However, I also have habits that need to be reassessed, like when and how I access email and Pinterest, and new habits I’d like to build, like sketching 15 minutes a day. How can I begin to develop new good habits and change bad ones?

The first step is simply to begin…somewhere, somehow. Since I want to add sketching to my days, I can pull out the kitchen timer, set it for 15 minutes and choose a time of day I feel will be conducive to that activity. I may have to try different times of day until I find one that works. I’m usually pretty good at this getting-started stage—it’s the sticking to it that’s a problem for me.

And stick to it I must if I want to firmly establish a new habit, and not just for 21 days, as we’ve often heard. Apparently, “21-days-to-a-new-habit” is a myth. One study found that on average it took 66 days for a new habit to form (so if you’re instituting a New Year’s resolution, you should be prepared to keep at it until March 6 in order for it to become a habit). The time it took to form a habit depended on how difficult the habit was (drinking a glass of water as opposed to doing 50 sit-ups, for example) and the individual him/herself. It seems some people simply find it easier than others to form habits. (During the study, one person took just 18 days to form a habit, while another was forecast to do so after 254 days, long after the study had ended.)

What if I want to change a bad habit? I found an interesting little tidbit about that when I was reading up on habit research: “…habits are responses to needs. This sounds obvious, but countless efforts at habit change ignore its implications. If you eat badly, you might resolve to start eating well, but if you’re eating burgers and ice cream to feel comforted, relaxed and happy, trying to replace them with broccoli and carrot juice is like dealing with a leaky bathroom tap by repainting the kitchen. What’s required isn’t a better diet, but an alternative way to feel comforted and relaxed” (Oliver Burkeman, “This Column Will Change Your Life: How Long Does It Really Take to Change a Habit?” The Guardian).

When I check email or putter on Pinterest, I’m usually looking for a way to relax or (I admit it) I’m avoiding doing something I don’t really want to do. To relax, maybe I could try simply sitting in my rocking chair with my eyes closed and taking a few deep breaths. I can also schedule email checks at certain times of day, instead of randomly doing it when I’m trying to avoid another task. Pinterest or other internet wanderings can be used as rewards after I finish some work, and I can pull out that timer again so that I won’t be completely sucked into the internet abyss.