The Porch Postscript

I’ve been pondering this topic of sharing without social off and on for a while now. Maybe even off and on for a couple of years. I enjoy sharing the food our house consumes, my artwork, and other fun photographs I take. The rub is with social media. I don’t want all the toxicity of F-book nor do I want the constant scroll of videos you now get on the gram. Where does one go to share without the dopamine hits of thumbs and hearts? Without the flood of memes and other chain-letter modernization. Where does one go to share for the sake of conversation and discussion? I’ve been taking a good hard ponder about blogging again, but do people still read blogs? I like Substack, but I’m already seeing it slip into the land of all the other socials with the addition of notes. It’s far too reminiscent of the bygone days of social. I will continue to write here for a while, but I’m also wandering back toward the blogs I used to write. The place that was mine, where conversations could happen and t...

 Choosing less doesn’t make me less, it might even make me more. Last week I wrote about how Hustle Culture is a Thief and I asked the question - “why is it not ok to be content with less hustle and less busy in life?” Today I’m going to talk about myself and why I choose less. Here’s a bit of background. I’m a skilled admin with a ton of customer service experience. When I say ton, I’m not kidding I’ve been answering the phone for a business since I was about eight years old. My dad ran a business out of our home and there was only one phone line for everything. My skill set is becoming rare in this current cycle of employable people. In my current job, I was hired for this particular skill set, that comes with a side of take no shit. The door opened to me, has allowed me to choose how many hours I want to work, and has given me freedom I’ve never had before. This job also came with an expiration date I set myself. When I was hired I agreed to stay three years, at which point my h...

 Friendships are a lot like pants, you gotta try a copious amount of them to find the perfect ones. We’ve all been there, the dressing room for trying on new friends. It’s a work party, a social gathering, and maybe even the line at the post office. You gather a few bits of information from your interactions and agree this could be a great fit. You buy the pants so to speak. The thing with pants and friends is not all of them are gonna fit. Sometimes they're cuter in the dressing room than when you get them home, sometimes they shrink in the wash, sometimes they’re seasonal, and sometimes they fit perfectly and you can’t imagine life without them. There are those accidental friendships that grow organically, like my best friend that I’ve had for nearly three decades. We met in a bar, his friend thought I was cute. Would have never guessed he’d become the brother I didn’t need and I’d become the sister he never wanted, but here we are. This is the friendship that is akin to cozy leg...

 Why do I need a why? Why do I need to hustle anything? Why do we need to be so busy we can’t live a life? Yesterday in my Instagram feed I saw a reel with a quote that deeply resonated with me - Time isn’t a thief, our “hustle” culture is. Let that sink in. Go ahead, reread that. Those of us living in the US have been brainwashed into thinking our lives haven’t been validated if we aren’t constantly in a state of work, a state of hustle. According to Fobes, 765 million vacation days go unused, and around 52 percent report working while on paid leave. Americans, as a culture, work constantly and when we aren’t at work all we can talk about is work. I find it interesting that valuing your time off or having boundaries for your work is almost frowned upon. I also find it interesting how many people have developed the habitual answer of “We’re crazy busy you know how it is” when you ask them how they are. That answer assumes that everyone in your circle is also consumed by being busy ...

 Knitting is very cathartic, meditative, and soul-soothing. When I put it down for long periods of time I often forget that. I walk away from projects and leave them in a WIP (work in progress) state, often for years. Knitting projects often get finished, but on occasion, they get frogged (torn out).  A couple of weeks ago I picked up one of the WIPs in my knitting basket. I finally finished a cowl that’s been on the needles for in the ballpark of a year, maybe a touch longer. The knitting mood has finally struck and I’ve reconnected with the joy it brings me to create with two sticks and some yarn. Upon completion of the cowl pictured above, I cast a new project onto the needles. I pulled some yarn from my stash and after doing a rabbit trail of a pattern search, I pulled out my much loved Gradient Shawl pattern. Gradient Shawl by Ola Grefling is available on Ravelry if you’re looking for what I’d call a relaxing pattern. It’s very beginner-friendly and perfect for knitting w...

This morning I was thinking about this as we ate breakfast. Our oven igniter went out two weeks ago and we’re waiting on the part, translation I’m unable to bake our weekly loaf of bread. Instead of a loaf this week we’ll be eating flatbread and pita pockets, both of which could be made on the stovetop. I kind of smiled to myself, we’ve been overcoming cooking challenges our entire marriage. Improvise, adapt, overcome is an unofficial slogan of the Marine Corps, and 16 years ago when I married a retired Marine this phrase became a way of life. We’ve lived in four states, owned three homes, and faced countless challenges along the way. Life has given us a lot of lemons, but that never stopped us from figuring out the challenge and moving forward.  When we moved to Missouri, in an ice storm, as newlyweds and took up residency in our first home we had no kitchen appliances. No biggy, we improvised. It was December so a cooler could be put outside our backdoor with groceries until we c...