Balanced Rocks

"There's a fine balance between preparation and seeing what happens naturally." 

-Timothee Chamalet

Rock balancing is the fine art of naturally balancing rocks upon each other without any adhesive or construction devices to keep them in place. 

The process strikes some people as free form art, others as a meditative journey. And there's also a camp who consider balanced rocks to be a blight on nature, an unholy disturbance of an otherwise wild landscape, a straight pain in the neck.

I can understand all three points of view.

But back in the summer of 2010, when my family and I encountered an explosion of these striking creations on the beach of Kalaloch, I was entirely charmed. Here are my photos - along with the original captions - of the balanced rocks we saw on that trip. 

^ I went on my annual camping trip to Kalaloch Beach, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. It's a lovely wild place...probably my favorite place on earth.

But this year, when I got to the beach I found these...rock towers. Someone...or several someones...had built them here and there, all over the beach. I found them fascinating. 

^ The biggest stones you see here are bigger than my hand...the tiny ones are like a small coin. Look at how they are tucked into the little hiding places on this beach log. So cool.

^ Someone spent a LOT of time making all these. I built some myself and it is not so easy. 

^ These are the tallest ones I found. So great!

^ Top view, looking down. I feel like a giant looking down on a forest of stone trees. 

^ We built these.

^ Ranger had to be very careful not to knock them over with his leash. 

^ I wasn't the only one taking pics of them. Seemed like every person who walked by with a camera stopped to capture them too. 

^ When Ranger took his nap, we built a tiny tower on his head. 

^ Wet, sandy., tired, happy dog. 

^ This one was my favorite. I loved how the big stone is balanced on the tip of this log. I took so many pics of it!

^ See what I mean?

^ Beneath my favorite tower lies this cluster of mini towers, tucked into the crevice of this tree. 

^ Aren't they so cute??

I took way more pics of these than I posted to this album. Aren't you glad I edited??!!

^ I am harnessing the power of the sun.

^ Fully loaded. 

^ Ranger and me.

^ 'The cool air off the Pacific fills the beach with mist. 

^ Again with the towers!

^ Sun sinking lower, sliding behind the clouds along the horizon. 

Gone!

* * * * *

My family and I go to Kalaloch a lot. Here are stories from our trips over the years:

2019

Wide Open Spaces

Whale Bones

Ways To Play

The World Of Packet Dinners

Windows

2018 

Walking On Rialto Beach

2017 

Gracie Goes To Kalaloch

2015

The Last Day Of My Summer Vacation

2014

With Joy And Wild Abandon

With Hope And Desperate Longing

With Peace And New Beginnings

2012

 It's All About The Food

 It's All About Playing On The Beach

 It's All About The Sunsets

 It's All About The Artistic Inspiration

It's All About The Memories

2011

Discovering Tide Pools
Discovering Sunsets

2010 

Balanced Rocks

sometime before 2010

Golden Pup

Truffle Hunter

It's a well-known fact that pigs have an extraordinary nose for locating and rooting out the coveted fungi known as truffles. So in our family, a truffle-hunter is a white-gloved euphemism for, ahem, a pig.

* * * * *

As I prepared to leave the house this morning, I did all the normal things that people do as they prepare to go out for the day.

I grabbed a quick breakfast,

gathered up my keys and purse, 

and Gracie-proofed the house.

I stashed the half-full compost bin behind a cabinet door; she can and does lift the bin out of its normal place in the extra-deep kitchen sink and carry it off to the family room floor where she dumps it out and sorts through the pistachio shells, lettuce cores, and other delicious treasures.

I scrubbed out the delicious oils someone left behind in a pan after preparing their breakfast; she is entirely capable of jumping up with front feet on the counter, scooching her back feet up close to the cabinets, stretching her elegant neck deep down into the sink, and nimbly licking out every tidbit.

I rinsed out a mostly empty bottle of ketchup abandoned in the sink; no doubt my girl would haul that bottle off and work it over on the family room floor, leaving tiny splashes of red in a five foot radius.

And of course, I lifted the cats' food bowls from their eating spot on the laundry room counter, which she can easily reach, and tucked them safely on a high shelf.

This is all completely normal, right?

Then, feeling reasonably confident that I had anticipated and eliminated Gracie's every hope of finding a snack while she was home alone, I kissed her on the head and walked out the door.

* * * * *

Three hours later, my third-born and I came home to this little surprise:

Lying upside down under the couch, a good fifteen feet away from the kitchen counter, we found a family-size plastic storage box full of homemade oatmeal cookies. 

With craisins and chocolate chips.  

Apparently, I overlooked the box during my inspection, and left it sitting out on the counter while my truffle-hunting missy was home alone.

And thank the Lord that the seal held, because there were at least twenty-five cookies inside. Had Gracie managed to pry the lid off - and I have no doubt that she tried her darnedest - she would have scored herself quite a scrumptious feast. 

After yesterday's Skittle party, this would have been two huge back-to-back scores for my sweet-toothed sneak.

But alas, today, Gracie had to settle for kibble.

* * * * * 

To read the full story of Gracie's Skittle score, go here. 

Just Another Day

Today, Gracie ate two-thirds of a full-size bag of Skittles.

She also

got her tail fringe sucked up in the vacuum cleaner,
laid out in the sun near the front sidewalk while I gardened and  politely greeted several passersby,
and hunted down four squirrels on her walk.

Apparently, she did not get a stomach ache from all the candy.

Just another day in the life of my wild Irish lass.

* * * * *

To read about how Gracie's sweet tooth got her into trouble the next day, go here. 

Spoilers

For Christmas that year, my mom bought me the book version. I treasured it and still 

have it to this very day, even though my dog, Casey, did take a big ol' chomp out of the corner. 

What can I say, he was a chewer.

Back in the fall of 1965, I went with my neighbor, Vickie Terry, to see Mary Poppins in the theater.

I was six years old.

This wasn't the first time I'd been to a movie - I'd seen One Hundred and One Dalmatians in a proper theater when I was three, though my mom reports that I spent most of the movie asking her to take me for a drink of water, and then enjoying the long, slow climb up the wide, carpeted stairway at the majestic old Michigan Theater rather than getting the wits scared out of me as Cruella de Vil attempted to kill puppies. I'd also been to the drive-in once or twice, though that mostly consisted of wrestling my brothers for the bag of homemade popcorn and struggling to see the movie out the front window of the car.

But this was the first time I'd been invited to a movie by a friend.

Oh, those the double page color illustrations! Can't you just imagine the blast of wind that would send these nannies gusting off into the skies over London?

And it was the first time I'd been to see Mary Poppins.

Now back in those days, in small town America, popular movies blew in and out of town like the wind. A successful original run might last a month or two, then maybe six months later, that movie would pop back up again for a second run, and play for another few weeks. Immensely popular movies, like Gone With The Wind or Fantasia, returned year in and year out.

By the time I saw it, Mary Poppins was on her third run.

Now, I had never seen the movie before, but boy, oh boy, had I heard about it.

I'd watched countless previews and teasers on the weekly Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color TV show.

We'd been singing the songs from the movie in my music class at school for months.

But more than anything else, my friends had told me all about it.

Yes, many of my lucky schoolmates had caught a first or second run showing of this wildly popular movie, and countless recesses and lunch hours been devoted to their recounting endless details of the show. I'd heard about the talking parrot on the umbrella handle, the toys flying around the nursery, the sidewalk paintings at the park, and the carousel horses galloping off the merry-go-round and cavorting off into the countryside.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. 

What a perfect word for second graders to use in nearly every situation. And we did.

My best friend, Marilyn, had also seen the movie. She introduced to the Banks' parents' peculiarities - what's a suffragette, anyway? - and puzzled with me over Mary's relationship with the kooky chimney sweep and rooftop dancer, Bert. Was he her boyfriend? Her husband? Her brother? And what about the mean men at the bank who end up laughing so hard that the oldest one dies? Could that actually happen to a person?

Suffice it to say, by the time I sat down in my red velvet seat with Vickie and her mom, I was completely familiar with the story that was finally about to unfold in front of my eyes. I enjoyed every minute even as I anticipated every plot twist and knew exactly how the movie would end.

In today's vernacular, my Mary Poppins movie-going experience had been utterly and completely spoiled.

But with the basics under my belt before the movie began, my six-year-old mind was able to wrap itself around every magical detail and colorful character I saw. Rather than feeling confused or overwhelmed, I loved every single minute of the show.

* * * * *

This weekend, as the highly anticipated Avengers: Endgame and Game Of Thrones' The Long Night episode both hit screens for the first time, there has been a lot of chatter online about spoilers. 

To sum up the conundrum, when it comes to spoilers, there are two kinds of people: those who watch new releases right away and want to talk about what they've seen, and those who expect the world to maintain radio silence till they get a chance to watch.

Honestly, I don't get the fuss about spoilers. Most storytelling is fairly predictable - The Sixth Sense, Inception, and several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation notwithstanding - and it doesn't take a crystal ball to predict that the Avengers are going to use time travel to prevent Thanos from accumulating the Infinity Stones and thereby killing half the population of the universe, including many Avengers. Some way or another, the good guys will ultimately kill the bad guy, rewrite time, and bring all the dead folks back to life. I expect most of the Avengers to recover, except for a few whose actors' contracts were not renegotiated. 

Similarly, anyone who's been with Game of Thrones can safely assume that most of our heroes - Jon and Dany, for sure - are likely to survive the culminating battle against the Army of the Dead and one way or another, take the next step on the way to the Iron Throne. And since killing the Night King means certain death for the entire army, it seems logical to aim for his jugular. Sure, there are many secondary details to be resolved and Lord knows the GOT writers love to upset expectations and knock off important characters. But harming either Jon or Dany would be like killing Frodo and Sam on their way back from Mordor to the Shire, and it's a safe bet that's not happening. 

To be perfectly honest, I am fine knowing the key plot points of a movie that I'm about to watch. With those hand holds in place, I can better appreciate the richness of the characters, the details of the setting, the subtleties of the actors' performances. A movie takes on more texture and dimension, and I can more deeply enjoy every aspect of the artistic creation.

Just like that time I saw Mary Poppins. 

Luna And Gracie

When Gracie first came into our lives, she tormented our poor cats. Though they were polite and reserved around her, the big red shaggy newcomer had no qualms about chasing them with wild abandon, barking at the top of her lungs and gleefully tracking them to whatever hiding place they could find in a hurry.

This dog was a bit of a menace to our poor cats.

But. Times have changed.

Within a few months of her arrival, Gracie dialed her responses back from frantic to playful, and the cats learned to stand up to her. Never once did they scratch or hiss at her, but their feline brains soon computed that if they didn't run away, Gracie didn't chase them.

We achieved détente.

And now, we have this. 

Nose kisses. 

Between cat and dog.

No more dust-ups between these two supposedly natural enemies. Cats and dog have learned to love one another, and peace reigns in our home.

Oh, what the world could be if we only learned to live like Luna and Gracie. 

A Working Kitchen

After a full day of chores, grocery shopping, and a lovely walk with my dog, I headed back into the kitchen to start dinner. Before leaving on the walk, I'd taken a few minutes to tidy up so I rounded the corner ready to take in the calm and soothing tableau of my still-new simply-styled open shelves.

What I actually found was this. 

^ Now, I know this isn't exactly a mess. But the level of clutter here is far more than my eyes care to see, and to be honest, as I surveyed this busy scene, I felt deflated. 

There are a lot of things sitting around that don't belong here.

^ Next to the sink, I see four cans of cherries and a bottle of bourbon, ingredients for my husband's birthday dessert, a bourbon cherry crisp from Sally's Baking Addiction. 

For most of my birthday-baking life, I've baked birthday treats on the day of the actual birthday, but finally it dawned on me that with our typically busy birthday schedules, I'm creating extra stress and pressure for myself on these special days. My goal now is to proactively prepare birthday desserts on the day before, and since I'm planning to whip up the crisp before dinner, I'm pretty proud of myself for staying properly on task

The garlic bulbs will be roasted for tonight's pizza toppings. I peep off all the outer papery layers, use a serrated knife to trim off the top of the bulb so each clove is exposed, the drizzle about a teaspoon of olive oil inside. I wrap the whole mess in foil and pop it into the over around 400 degrees for a half hour. Don't be like me - let the garlic cool before handling it. But with a simple squeeze from the bottom of each clove, a perfectly roasted bit of garlic will pop out the top. Put it on pizza for a taste of pure heaven. 

^ Over here by the cook top, we have mushrooms and arugula for the pizzas, as well as three Boboli shells. We usually make our crusts from scratch, but my third-born who has been denied the joy of a good Boboli pizza during her many years in Asia, made a special request.

The raspberries, rinsed and sorted, will accompany the pizza for dinner tonight. Fresh and simple.

And the oats are another ingredient in my husband's cherry crisp.

^ Up on the shelf, I spy four apples for Gracie, and hiding beneath the checkered napkin, a tiny wedge of coconut cake left over from Easter. The apples normally sit on the marble stand, and our cakes usually live on a different cake stand that sits above on the top shelf. But this cake is a three-layer cake, too tall to fit under the glass top of the other stand. And so it lives here, and the apples must find a new temporary home. 

^ I turn around and come across evidence of my mid-afternoon menu-planning session. Several cookbooks sprawl across the bit of counter space; Instinctively, I flip the books shut and stack them  before taking the picture. 

* * * * *

As I survey this busy scene, I still feel my original sense of dismay. I prefer to start cooking in a perfectly tidy kitchen, I tell myself. I think of the immaculate, not-a-single-thing-out-of-place kitchens I see in shiny magazines, TV shows, and online photos, and I can't help but feel like I am falling short of the design world's standards for pretty kitchens.

And then.

I realize how completely silly that is. 

My kitchen is not an ornamental space.

It is not meant to be an object of art, nor a place of purely aesthetic appeal.

This is a working kitchen. And while I definitely want a room that pleases my eye, I can't feed my family if I'm cooking in an art gallery. I want a workspace, a place where projects are always in process, where I can allow myself to make a good and proper mess. 

And take joy in the process.

Because there will always be time to clean my working kitchen up when I'm done. 

And my faithful dog, Gracie, will stay with me until I'm done. 

Reading Inspiratiion

The Year Of Less by Cait Flanders

This millennial personal finance guru and mindful consumer wannabe set some intense goals for herself: aggressive decluttering and editing down her possessions, living on about half of her paycheck, and enforcing a self-defined shopping ban for one full year. What Cait loses along the way is far less than what she gains; this book breaks down her journey and celebrates her discoveries. Though she and I find ourselves in different seasons of life and face different challenges in our growing edges, Cait's story inspires and encourages me to act. 

* * * * *

The Year Of Less intersects my life at many key points. Like Cait, 

I'm an avowed declutterer and minimalist.

I love to set challenges for myself.

I believe that self-discipline sets me free from my own worst instincts.

I value the potential energy of saved money. 

I am a superfan of mathematical statistics and metric data to track my progress.

I am always looking for new ways to grow.

And most of all, at this point in my life, I am impatient. No longer do I want to wait to get things done, to make changes, to improve myself. Now. 

No day but today. 

These forces, strikingly similar to those that drove Cait to make changes in her life, are demanding a response from me. As I read the final pages of her book tonight, I felt the gauntlet thrown down within myself. I've decided to commit to my own Year Of Less.

My Year Of Less will be based on Cait's plan, but not exactly the same. I'm going to spend the next week or so mulling over the changes that I want to make in my possessions, my savings account, my shopping habits, and then I will share my plan.  

I'm committed to starting my Year Of Less on May 1, 2019.

Thanks, Cait. You have inspired me. 

* * * * *

Read more about what I've been reading:

Reading Afternoons

Reading Mornings

Reading Children's Books

Reading Memories

Reading Recommendations

Reading Inspiration
Reading Insights
Reading At The Pool
Reading About The Desert
Reading On Repeat
Reading Natalie Babbit
Reading The Truth
Reading Books That Are Blue
Reading Mysteries
Reading About Walking

* * * * *

Read more about my journey to mindful consumption:

Reading Inspiration

My Shopping Ban Rules

My Decluttering Rules
The First Test

Sometimes It's Okay To Hold On
Setting Myself Free
Armed And Dangerous
A Decluttering Update: Family Photos
A Shopping Ban Update: Three Months In
Keepers

Shop Slow And Don't Settle

Don't Let 'Em Push You Around