My New World of Hygge

It’s been about a week since my girrl headed out into the world into parts unknown, and by parts unknown I mean Italy, which has Wifi and other modern conveniences like FaceTime and WhatsApp. She has used these modern conveniences to post pictures of the charming medieval village where she lives: the gorgeous architecture, the cobblestone streets. So, we’ve been in touch and it turns out she’s okay. Happy even. Who saw that coming?

I have decided to follow her example and experiment with new life philosophy. This week I’ve chosen the Danish concept of Hygge, which, loosely translated, means that I should be 100 percent comfortable 100 percent of the time.

Luckily, this has been easily accomplished. I have simply gone out into the woodland garden and created spaces where I can lose myself in complete comfort. I have cleared brambles from beneath a blueberry tree to create a spot for my morning coffee.

I’ve moved stones (sorry for the thunderstorms) to plant roses to enjoy while I take my mid-morning tea.

I have enjoyed reading time (which may or may not have turned into nap time) here.

Or sometimes I switch things up and do some reading or restful contemplating here. Though Hygge advocates for the comfortably familiar, I want to be careful not to get too complacent. (Or maybe that’s missing the point. I don’t know. I’m new at this.)

My late afternoon coffee is taken here, near my way-in-the-back vegetable garden, so I can meditate and tell the deer not to eat my spinach.

 

Or sometimes here, for a better view of the roses.

Late-night chamomile tea, taken to offset the late afternoon coffee, is enjoyed outdoors under the stars and the moonlight, which is not crazy at all, no matter what people say.

I’ve also made some lovely new friends, who also speak a language that I don’t understand.

In short, I have stopped at nothing to create a world in which I am always comfortable, all the time. I believe the complete and total physical comfort promised by Hygge is a worthy goal, and if I have to suffer poison ivy rashes, insect bites, burns, bumps and bruises to get it, then I’ll do what I have to do.

So you see? Though my girrl is far away, she’s still inspiring me. I’ve embraced a different culture and a new way of life right here in my very own back yard, thanks to her ambition and boldness.

By the way, I’ve found Hygge to be exhausting. Next week I’ll try something else.

Time for an April Fool’s Snowstorm

Sorry. I’ve missed you. I took some time off from blogging to have some quiet time.

I spent my quiet time being quiet, in the garden and in the greenhouse mostly, meditating and resting.

Also, I was on a treasure hunt for the cause of some weird health issues. The whole thing is not completely sorted out, but I’m on the mend after months of doctor visits and blood tests that left me looking like a boxer who punches solely with her inner elbows.

Also, I worked very hard at work, because I love it so much. When asked to take on an overload, I can’t resist and won’t say no. I know am blessed to feel this way.

Also, I wrote a series of nonfiction children’s books on the U.S. military, which I found to be challenging because military information is, by nature, classified and top secret. I learned some kind of gross things that didn’t make the final edits, but I can’t un-know them and they’re really fun and gross, trust me.

Okay, I see it now. My quiet time was not all that quiet, but it was quiet enough for me.

Now I’m back. I supposed there’s no better time celebrate the noise and chaos of a busy life than right before an April Fool’s snowstorm.

This picture is from the last time we had an April Fool’s snowstorm. Elsie is a college graduate now and Nick is in his junior year at UConn. May it be that long before we have another one.

Happy Anniversary, Garden of Envy!

It’s been a year since I celebrated Father’s Day by going off by myself and enjoying a local garden tour.

I saw things that filled me with envy: strawberry patches, flower beds, climbing roses, sun-dappled frog ponds. I wanted them all, and I’m pleased to say that following a year of dirty, itchy, back-breaking work, I now have them, but they come with a price.

The strawberry patch has brought with it a game of drama and suspense. The strawberries are delicious—when I’m allowed to eat them. The chipmunks swoop in and grab them just before I decide they’re ripe enough to pick. So far owl decoys have not worked. I’m thinking of installing a motion sensor security alarm.

                     

 

I love the flower beds. Love them. But they’re new, so they’re not yet yielding anything I’m willing to cut. In fact, I wonder if they’ll ever yield anything I’ll be willing to cut. I planted those seeds, watered them, nurtured them, talked to them (yes, I do this constantly; do with that information what you will) and I can’t imaging going at them with a scissors. So much for fresh cut flowers in the house. You can only see them if you go down the hill in my back yard and sit among them on the bench next to this little fairy.

      

Oh, and the climbing roses. I wanted them so much. I’m so happy to finally have them. Here’s the thing though, they attract caterpillars. Caterpillars turn me into a barbarian.

Never before have I gone after a species with such violence. I step on them indiscriminately. I squeeze them with my bare hands. None are spared. I’ll take my life in my hands and climb to the top rung of the ladder to squish one single caterpillar. One. No leaf is worth sacrificing, and no caterpillar will be left behind. I look in the mirror after a killing spree and think, “Who am I?”

The frog ponds are the best.

They started out as vernal pools. They were always there, filling up in the spring and emptying in the fall; I just never paid them much attention. Now that I’ve cleared paths around them and created places to sit, I see that they are frog ponds. Frog ponds!

The music is majestic. Come sundown in my back yard, you’ll hear the birds, crickets, and frogs all singing together. It’s gorgeous, and worth every thorn, poison ivy rash, and muscle sprain.

I’ve spent a year creating the Garden of Envy. Now it’s time to sit and enjoy it.

How to Decorate with a Hammer

All I really planned to do was add some warmer colors around the house and sprinkle a pumpkin or two here and there, maybe light an apple-spice candle. But I wasn’t built for simple, at least not when it comes to home decorating.

For example, yesterday, while swinging a hammer in an effort to dismantle a wooden entertainment center, I explained to my son Ben that my mother had once done a similar thing to an upright piano. There was a moment when his eyebrows flew up with an unspoken question about the mental stability of his birth line, but then he took a swing with the hammer, and it seemed to all make sense. In any case, it reveals why, for me, just replacing the sheer summer curtains with richer brown panels to spruce up the place isn’t nearly enough.

And that is why, in changing the curtains, I also had to sand, prime, and paint the bay window and the surrounding frame. I mean, there’s no sense in hanging pretty curtains if the rest of the window looks shabby. And since I had the paint out, why not touch up the molding in the living room . . . and in the hallway . . . and in the kitchen? And look! These cabinets need touching up, and these shelves! And now that the molding looks better, look these walls!

So, I did what painting I could with the resources I had in the house (one must always have sandpaper, blue tape, gloves, and paintbrushes on hand for these types of emergencies) and was quite pleased with the results. Now, however, I couldn’t let the dogs back in from the yard with their grubby coats and long nails. They would have to go to the groomer or my white-paint touch-ups would all be for naught. So off they went, and while they were gone, I was able to iron and hang the fall curtains in the living room and place a red-plaid tablecloth on the drop-leaf table that Pippin used to leap up to the window and scuff up my new paint when she arrived home later, all clean and darling and smelling like shampoo.

Day Two of the fall decorating frenzy was spent on a procurement mission. Since I had waited too long to order online from L.L. Bean the dark-blue comforter that I wanted for my bedroom, I went to Home Goods to find something similar. I didn’t see what I wanted, but I did buy orange candy and an amber-colored glass bowl. So, close enough.

I tried Marshall’s next and right away I found the most adorable pair of red-plaid rain boots, so I knew I was definitely on the right track. At first, the bedding department yielded little hope that I would find an L.L. Bean lookalike, so I almost left, but on a swing through the dog toy section I found the comforter I wanted hidden in pet supplies.

Sometimes, I get all annoyed and judgmental when I see items conspicuously out of place in a department store because it means someone didn’t bother to give it to a clerk or return it to its original location when they decided they didn’t want it (and don’t get me started on the empty Starbucks coffee cups I see on the shelves), but in this case, a previous shopper’s laziness meant good news for me. I imagine there aren’t too many people looking for human bedding in pet supplies, and so my comforter was just waiting for me to snatch it up from the wrong place. (And yes, the comforter is definitely for humans, so you can all stand down.)

An evening trip to Target with Joe to get a flat screen TV for downstairs because Ben got a drum set for his birthday completed the Procurement Day festivities. I know this sentence is odd. It will make sense in a moment.

Fall Decorating, Day Three: This was the most ambitious day of all, although it had less to do with autumn and more to do with a crowded space. Ben, my youngest, is a sporty fellow and loves his baseball especially, and he also does quite well in school. But we’re after raising up well-rounded types, Joe and I, and so we thought we should bring back music into his world. Naturally, the drums are his instrument of choice. The new set he got for his September birthday was set up in the only available space: right in front of my office.

The drums would have to be moved, but where? Well, if we move the green couch to the center of the room and faced it toward the back wall, and swing the blue couch over to the other side, we could fit the drums on the side with the weird angle in the triangle-shaped room. That means the TV will have to be mounted on the wall and the entertainment center will have to go. Enter the hammer-swinging.

Dismantling the gross, oversized, 17-year-old monstrosity was a thing of beauty, and one that put me in touch with my deep, eccentric home-decorating roots. When something has to go, it has to go today. (Just ask my mom when, sometime in the late eighties, she wanted to put a table where the piano was.) There is no time for hemming and hawing and beating around the bush. Time is tight. Weekends are short. To make your space pretty, comfortable, and livable, you must seize the moment. So, the next time your own home-decorating inspiration strikes, by all means, grasp it. Paint the windows, wash the dogs, buy orange candy and new rain boots, and swing that hammer. I promise, you won’t regret it.

Garden of Envy

Since my blatant disregard for Father’s Day led me to a delightful day of garden hopping, I’ve experienced something that I’ve never felt before: envy.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m jealous of everyone. This is what I usually look like at Christmas:

Me loving my present but wishing that I could have Ben’s present, too.

I am one of the grabbiest people I know. And so, as it often does, envy has driven me to embark on a most outrageous project. I am trying to create a woodland garden like the ones I saw on the garden tour.

I want the aroma of summer sweet flowers wafting in the air as I sit by the vernal pool. I want birdsong and frog song to serenade me as I walk along, my feet luxuriating in the soft, forest floor. I want a place for vignettes and garden gnomes and quirky, flea market finds (like it says in the magazines and on the HGTV shows).

In short, I want a woodland garden worthy of this guy:

For the past week and a half, I’ve been clearing brush and digging muck and experimenting with all manner of ways to mutilate and remove skunk cabbage. Here is what I’ve learned:

1. If it grows on a vine, no matter how many leaves it has and regardless of whether or not those leaves are shiny, I am probably violently allergic to it.

2. There comes a time in every poison ivy victim’s life where she will want to sever her afflicted arms and rip her own face off. With extra doses of Benadryl and generous slatherings of hydrocortisone, those impulses will pass, and so they are best not indulged in the heat of passion.

3. Due to the evil nature of muck, no matter how much muck you shovel, there will always be more muck.

4. Dogs don’t like it when you’re on one side of the fence and they’re on the other.

5. Physical labor is really quite difficult and so if you can hire an 18-year-old football player to help you, you should do that. Thanks, Wyatt!

6. Keep telling your husband that your efforts are for him, for Father’s Day, and he won’t mind at all that the dishes are piling up and the dust bunnies are coming to life inside the house as you ignore them in favor of your outdoor project, which you really know is for this guy:

 

Enjoy every minute of the heat, the mosquitoes, the poison vines, all of it. Because this is the alternative:

The (Real) Russo Family Christmas Letter

Dear Friends and Family,

We are all enjoying the holiday season so far, despite being overbooked and overextended and short on time and money. In fact, the picture that accompanies this post is, I believe, from 2012. That is the last time we were all together in the same place and looking nice enough to have our portrait taken. We are not great at posing.

So, what is the latest, you ask? I tried to cook recently because Joe works extra hours at the end of the year, and I nearly severed my index finger (this is an exaggeration, but that’s what Christmas letters are for) so I won’t be cooking around here anytime soon.

The Christmas tree looks great, but only if you stand to its left and tilt your head to the right a little bit. We knew the star was broken last year but waited a full year to replace it and when we brought the new one home, it was also broken. Instead of returning it, we attached it to the top with a clip we use for the tomato plants in the summer garden. This ensures that we will have the same problem next year except we won’t be able to find the tomato plant clip.

Also, we have about ten fewer snowman ornaments than we used to have. The dogs report that the wooden and cotton snowmen are delicious, but the Styrofoam ones were surprisingly disappointing given their sweet and puffy appearance.

 

The kids were busy for a while with school and work (Elsie corrects hockey statistics as a fact checker for a publishing company and Nick sorts microscopic water fleas as a lab technician) but now they’re all home and in the way. Elsie uses my favorite coffee mugs for her tea and Nick uses my favorite smoothie tumblers for his own smoothies. It may be important to note here that all the smoothie tumblers were gifts to him last year so that he could have a healthy breakfast on his commute, but I recently discovered that I like fruit smoothies and so I’ve decided all the tumblers should be mine. This happens fairly often. I am a shockingly selfish mother.

Ben isn’t working yet, but he’s still very involved in sports. Since he doesn’t have his license, this means I drive all over the state of Rhode Island looking for well-hidden baseball diamonds and sitting on bleachers that are sadistically designed to cripple and maim. People sometimes ask me what the score is or what inning we’re in, and I never have any idea.

Joe’s strange propensity to attract the world’s worst drivers continues unabated. I’ve never really seen anything like it. Slow-moving texters find him and drive in front of him, tailgaters drive behind him, and directional-challenged lane-changers weave in and out alongside him. Just recently, a 100-year-old driver (again with the exaggerating) in front of Joe cut off an enormously scary truck and proceeded to drive ten miles per hour down the road. Joe averted the near-accident unfolding in front of him with his usual aplomb. He found himself behind that same driver a few days later and saw the guy almost get broadsided when he drove through a stop sign at a busy intersection. Joe spends most of his time in the car shaking and scratching his head at the wonder of it all.

I no longer get the workout that I used to get at work, carrying books and papers around up and down staircases as I changed classrooms every time the bell rang. Now, I take an elevator from my office to my air conditioned and heated classroom. I spend a lot of time sitting and resting. As a result, I really need to spend more time on the treadmill, but I really don’t see that happening anytime soon. Isn’t it enough that I have healthy fruit smoothies for breakfast?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Russo family!

Me loving my present but wishing that I could have Ben’s present, too.

My Baby Brother’s Birthday, a.k.a. The Purple Finger Paint Debacle of 1974

A long time ago in a faraway land (actually, it was 1974 in Mrs. Cleaves’ kindergarten classroom at the Nash Elementary School) there was a magical corner with coveted toys. Among these treasures was a set of finger paints, only one of which had the royal color, purple, the color befitting a fairy princess.

Not every child could use the finger paints everyday. No, indeed, the finger paints were special and could only be used on a rotating basis, two children at a time, once a week, and so, of course, every child wanted the paints all of the time. In retrospect, this was my first exposure to the principles of economics, a brutal lesson in supply and demand, but at the time, I didn’t care about all that, I only wanted the purple finger paints.

Nowadays, mothers can insist that their children have regular access to all special things at all times, citing potential self esteem damage as a severe and inevitable repercussion, but back then, mothers generally told their children to suck it up and wait their turn, especially mothers who were pregnant and due any minute with their fifth child. My mother was just such a mother.

Finally, my turn came. It was a glorious September day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the crisp smell of fall hung in the air. I skipped to school in a sweater and red plaid, Polly Flinders dress with smocking, lacy ankle socks, and brown, buckled Mary Jane shoes. I clutched my snack for recess (two graham crackers and an apple wrapped in a pleated, plastic sandwich bag – No, Ziploc had not been invented yet – You know what? Just shut up.) in my fat, dimpled, baby hand. At age five and still a voracious thumb sucker, I was adorable, and that day, all those years ago, it was finally going to be my special day. My name was on the list AND on the finger paint chart, or at least that is what I was told. It is possible that I couldn’t read my own name yet.

Mrs. Cleaves had thought of everything. There was an apron to protect my dress, an easel so I could stand and create like a real artist, and a table nearby to hold my supplies which were, well, um, just the finger paints and a roll of paper towels.

I can see it all in my mind’s eye as if it happened yesterday. The sun streamed through the windows, the other kids busied themselves with whatever peasants did when they were not allowed access to the special toys, my apron was tied snugly, and my sleeves were rolled up. Finally, I dipped my hands into the gloppy, sticky purple substance that I had so yearned for for so long, and that smelled faintly of chalk and Elmer’s glue.

I was about to apply purple to paper when, what a surprise! That’s Papa! My father strolled into my kindergarten classroom in his suit and tie, the same one he wore when he left for work several hours before. What is he doing here? Come to see me, of course. This is a special day – my first, wonderful, long anticipated day with the purple finger paints.

Time sped up and events unfolded in a bit of a blur after Papa arrived. My hands were washed and dried with the rough paper towels, my apron was removed and replaced with my sweater, and before I knew it, I was in the car on the way home to be cared for by my grandparents while my parents sped to St. Margaret’s in Dorchester to prepare for the imminent arrival of my baby brother.

About a week later (post natal hospital stays were far more civilized back then – six days minimum), I finally met the boy who stole my purple finger paint moment. Okay, I didn’t get to meet him right away, exactly. I had a cold, you see, and so I had to stay far away from the new baby, but my mom made me some chocolate milk, which we all know is an acceptable substitute for painting with purple finger paints and getting to hold the new baby, NOT. Wait, did that last remark sound bitter to you? What makes you think I’m bitter?

Turns out, it wasn’t long at all before my little brother Dan, who arrived on that glorious September day in 1974, became one of my all-time favorite people, so I guess I got what I really wanted in the end – someone to endure my teasing and complaining about the Purple Finger Paint Debacle for the next forty years.

Happy Birthday, Dan!

Here is Dan on July 4, 1976. He’s the kid in front who is not feeling particularly patriotic. Although I am clearly attached to my cat, Fluffy, the truth is, I liked Dan better.

Who but a baby brother would agree to reenact American Gothic? Dan is an excellent sport and one of my all-time favorite people.

“The Luckiest Woman on the Face of the Earth”

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

It’s true. I dumped a bucket, or rather a bowl, of ice cold water over my head.

It had to be a bowl because I don’t normally keep clean buckets hanging around the house for such a purpose.

In fact, since all of my buckets are either filled with dirt and weeds from the garden or lined with sand from the beach, I used the big, green bowl, the one that holds the pasta salad at cookouts, and has held the Halloween candy for neighborhood trick-or-treaters every year for the past 21 years.

Then I posted pictures of my silliness on Facebook, and I did it all because my nephew asked me to, or rather, threatened me, blackmailed me, extorted money from me.

Well, which is it? Was it a bucket or a bowl? Was it a request or extortion? Do these details matter, as long as it was all in good fun? I think maybe they do, because they speak to how this type of crazy, online, social phenomenon can show us how lucky we all are.

It’s been almost a week since I saw my first ALS Ice Bucket Challenge video on Facebook, and with time, I’ve noticed the game has changed. It’s like the Operator game we played as kids where the message whispered into the first person’s ear differs dramatically from the message called out by the last player at the end. The rules are changing as the days go on, with a bit more money being extorted, I mean requested, from players now than it was at the beginning.

This is the video that started it all for our family – my brother, Dan, getting doused by his children, Caitlin, Nathan, and Lindsey. Nathan, the kid with the bucket, will soon face his own challenge and will call me out.

And the creativity in the videos has exploded, thanks to the one-upmanship we humans exhibit when engaged in any sort of challenge. At first, it was simply people dumping water over their heads. Now, there are bobblehead toys and men in bikini tops getting doused, and dogs, way too smart for such foolishness, running away from the challenge, presumably to get their checkbooks to make a donation to the ALSA.

Also, as the game goes on and the rules change, reactions to it have changed. Comments that were once positive and supportive are now turning a little critical, pointing out that people would rather freeze than donate money to a worthy cause. Others say that the game is too gimmicky now, and why should people feel pressured to give to a charity when they have favorite charities of their own, and didn’t we leave peer pressure behind in middle school?

I say, everyone gets to be right here, and everyone gets to win this game, whether they accept the challenge or not, whether they donate money or not, whether they approve of the collective silliness or not. Because this is the type of phenomenon that reveals our good fortune.

For many of us, this is just one of those goofy things that brings us together, that gives my nephew, whom I don’t see often enough, the chance to reach out to me and say, “My auntie is a good enough sport to go along with this,” and it gives me the chance to say, “I’ll do whatever you ask me to, Nate, because you mean so much to me.”

And it gives the sufferers of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, a voice, and with it, the chance to say, “We’re here, and we need some help, and thank you for what you’re doing for our awareness and fundraising campaign.”

The Big Chill.

And it gives me a chance to use my big green bowl for yet another fun purpose, to add to the memories it holds of backyard cookouts and my annual Halloween sugar coma. But most importantly, it gives me the chance to say, thank God I don’t have ALS, and thank God I do have friends and family who recognize my silly nature and are willing to call me out and share this challenge with me, so that we can all help the ALSA with their mission, to lead the fight:

To treat and cure ALS through global research and nationwide advocacy while also empowering people with Lou Gehrig’s Disease and their families to live fuller lives by providing them with compassionate care and support.

In short, to paraphrase the great Lou Gehrig’s famous speech, the ALS Ice Bucket challenge makes me feel like I am the luckiest woman on the face of the earth.

 

My son, Ben, getting in on the fun. Who will be next?

Ferocious Competition: A Fourth of July Tradition

Once a year, we rise early in the morning, head to the center of town, cover our faces with war paint, and engage in ferocious combat with our neighbors. If all goes well, we’ll finish the day soaking wet and reasonably successful at blowing the blueberries out of our noses.

Welcome to Scituate’s annual Fourth of July Old Home Days, an old fashioned holiday celebration that features games, a teddy bear decorating contest, hug-a-bunny, pony rides, face painting, crafts, pie eating contests, fire trucks and more.

Attending this celebration has been a tradition in our family since we moved to Scituate, RI in 2001. The first year, we didn’t know about the teddy bear decorating contest, but by the next year, we were ready. Our bears were outfitted in the best red, white, and blue doll-sized costumes that Wal-Mart had to offer. All three of my kids earned blue ribbons in their bear’s category. We would accept nothing less.

One year, I almost won the adult musical chairs competition, and I proudly sported the resulting bruises on my arms and legs. These were war wounds, and I was a warrior. I am fully aware that the term “almost won” means “lost,” but as my hyper competitive personality will not allow me to admit defeat, I’m just going to have to stick with “almost won.”

My kids have entered (and even won a few) water balloon tosses, hula hoop contests, checkers tournaments, and limbo lines, but victory in the pie eating contest eludes us all. It’s possible that I may have influenced my children with my hyper competitive nature, because there was one year when I think Nick nearly choked on his blueberry pie rather than accept second place, but he did not perish in combat, and so that yellow ribbon is just as much a thing to celebrate as a blue ribbon would have been.

At the end of the festivities, the hot and sweaty combatants, I mean, community members, are usually free to frolic about in their bathing suits under a cool shower at the end of a fire hose, thanks to the North Scituate Fire Department, although tomorrow it may be Hurricane Arthur that cools everyone down.

Tomorrow’s festivities will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the grounds of the First Church and Community House. I hope to see you there, though maybe you shouldn’t challenge me to a game of checkers. Someone may get hurt.