Seasons | M. Suzanne Terry

Archive for the ‘Seasons’ Category

In Like a Lion

Posted in Seasons on March 9, 2015| 5 Comments »

It’s that time of year again when people are ready for spring and it’s not coming fast enough for them so they’re beckoning it, and I’m sitting here like, “Shhh….it will hear you.”

Because the spring will come. Oh, it will come. But it won’t stay long. It will stay for its obligatory twenty minutes at the party, and then it will take its leave, and what will replace it?

Ten thousand days of summer.

This sweet lady at church yesterday said, “It was supposed to be warm today, but it’s so chilly.”

I replied, “I think it’s supposed to get up to 54.”

She looked at me like she was thinking, “Um…yeah. That’s what I just said.”

Oh. A temperature of 54 degrees is cold to you, while to me, it’s very much what I imagine Heaven will be like.

I waver between two reactions:

1. Wanting to collect the names of everyone whom I see lamenting the cold weather on social media so that I can set them up on an email list that will bombard them daily with complaints about the OMG-HEAT when our nine months of summer begin. Because payback. You ruin my perfect weather; I ruin yours. And fight every urge within you to tell me to “cheer up” when I am overheated and nauseated and feeling hopeless because I cannot get cool and cannot keep anything down because OMG HOT.

and

2. Embracing the inevitable and welcoming spring, urging it to hang on as long as possible, because the longer I can avoid turning on my A/C, the happier my world will be.

So far, I’m doing pretty well embracing. I embraced this little gem last night:

It really does taste like the first peach of the season. The first peach soaked in beer, of course. But the first peach nonetheless.

So go ahead and come, spring. And feel free to stay awhile. And if you could also stay 65-70-ish, that would be great, too.

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Pretty Little Summer – June Beauty Update

Posted in Beauty, Roots, Seasons on June 19, 2014| 4 Comments »

I have a hard time getting enthusiastic about summer. This summer is not so bad, for two reasons:

It’s hot. No – you don’t understand. I live in Texas. It’s HOT. We’re having what we call a “mild” summer. I am grateful for this. Unfortunately, “mild” in Texas means it’s only supposed to get to 97 on Monday. Yippee.
Summer usually means less money in the bank because I usually don’t teach. This unfortunately also coincides with having all the free time in the world to daydream about traveling and other expensive luxuries…because I usually don’t teach. But I managed to pick up a class this summer. My student loan corporation will be happy.

But even during the worst summers, I have to admit – it’s certainly pretty:

So I am thankful.

I am keeping track of beautiful moments and words this year on my Beauty board on Pinterest.

I am also linking up with Amy Young’s Trusting Tuesdays – check it out!

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Beauty Update – May

Posted in Beauty, Seasons on May 22, 2014| 2 Comments »

It’s summer here. Translation: I’m a walking sweat factory.

Or, as I prefer to think of it, “My thighs are so sexy, they can’t stop touching each other.”

My tendency in summer seems a little counter-intuitive to me. I feel gross and sweaty and hot (temperature-wise, not rawr-wise) and uncomfortable most of the summer (which in Texas is basically May through September). But summer is when I most want to dress up or engage in traditional beauty regimens. I wear jewelry more often. I give myself regular pedicures and paint my toenails. I am more likely to style my hair. I wear lipstick.

I steal hair clips. Oops.

I also – inexplicably – find myself more likely to exercise. One might imagine that I would want to sit in front of a fan and do nothing, but no. I do more Pilates. I dance around the house more. I am more likely to go to the gym.

I am also more likely to take on summer projects, like my Getting It Together series. Apparently, it’s not enough that I discover my own beauty. I need to surround myself with it. This will be fun.

One thing that does make sense to me is that I tend to eat better. I tend to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables – particularly if they can be eaten cold – and I eat less heavy food. I often lose weight in summer, not because I’m particularly trying to do so, but because I’m taking in healthier things and drinking more water.

I think the slower work schedule of summer slows me down enough that I remember to take care of myself. Maybe that’s what all these seasonal habits tend to be. I’m not running in three or four different directions at once. I can take a break.

And taking a break is beautiful.

Join us at Amy Young’s Trusting Tuesdays to read how others are doing with their OneWord365 and add a post of your own!

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Summer Begins

Posted in Seasons, Work on May 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

My summer began today.

The weather has been telling me it’s summer for about a week now. But today is move-in day for Summer Housing, so this is the first day my mind can wrap itself around summer.

I am moving to my other building this summer. This makes me happy for several reasons.

Reason #1: Every time I walk into Santa Fe, I hear Christian Bale singing in my head:

Reason #2: Summer Housing means I get to continue working with college students instead of working with the often younger patrons of Summer Conferences. I might make a cameo appearance at some of the bigger conferences, but most of my summer will be spent working my regular job. I get to fit this summer instead of feeling like a fish out of water. Happy.

Reason #3: We have a new friend in the Santa Fe lobby.

We haven’t decided on a name yet. Josephine, maybe. Or Smokey (because of the fireplace. Obviously.).

Reason #4: It’s so cool over here, temperature-wise. It’s pretty cool in my other building, too. But summer tundra, here I come!

Reason #5: Debbie and I have the summer to spruce up the Santa Fe desk and to see what it needs so that it can be more functional in the fall than it has been.

I don’t say this very often, but YAY FOR SUMMER!!!

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Home

Posted in Hope, Seasons on December 17, 2013| 7 Comments »

Today is my first day of vacation. For two weeks, I am free from both jobs.

The downside is that I have lots of time to deal with my apartment. I’ve always said that the state of my home and the state of my mind seem to parallel one another. And this is true. Right now, both of them look a little like this:

That’s what the bench in my office area looks like after grading. That’s kind of how my mind feels, too. A chaotic whirlwind of thoughts and ideas and decisions that swirl around and land in one big heap.

All is not lost, though. The next two weeks, I’m putting home back together, and hopefully, my mind will follow.

Of all the places in the world, I want home to be the place where I find tiny pockets of the kingdom of God. I want it to be a place of creation. I want it to be a place where people are welcomed and fed, where the wine (and the coffee) never run out. I want it to shout good news.

The semester end falls at a good time. As in Advent we are preparing for Jesus, in this time off from my regular work, I am preparing as well. Preparing to be well and to spread joy and to welcome in the new year with expectation and hope.

I’m synching up with others on the topic of Coming Home here. Click to read more!

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Longing for Fall

Posted in Rants, Seasons, Work on August 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

It’s so hot here. I know I should be used to it. I’ve lived in Texas my whole life. But every year, it’s surprising that it’s so very, very hot and that humans are actually expected to live and work in it.

It’s also the first week of classes. Living and working just got active.

I see the words “Fall 2013” on my syllabus, and I look outside and think, “LIES!”

I want to do all the Fall things:

I want to see pumpkins at the farmers’ market. I want to pick some out for carving and soup-making and seed-roasting and pie-baking and puree-canning.

I want apples to be in season here. I want bushels of them, again, for pie-baking and soup-making, but also for applesauce and having the smell of roasting apples in the house.

I want to go to my one football game of the year and remember halfway through it when the buzz from tailgating wears off that I don’t really like football.

I want to start getting invitations to Halloween parties. I already have costume ideas.

I want to see the leaves turn on that one tree that doesn’t know that it’s in Texas and that trees don’t really do that here so much, so it goes ahead and turns anyway.

I want Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite.

So I anticipate the changing of the wind, and I long for apple cider and other warm, snuggling drinks to show up on menus at my favorite coffee shop.

See you soon, Fall!

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Resolutions: A Love Story

Posted in Resolutions, Seasons, tagged resolutions on June 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I love making lists. I also love goal-setting. Making New Year’s resolutions is like a drug to me. I do it every year.

My resolutions this year were designed to give myself a break from the “stress” (if absolute joy is stressful) of having lists and keeping tabs on my progress. Whatever need I felt at the time to do that…yeah, I’m over it.

So here is my revamp – mid-year – of my resolutions. Some of you who have been around for a while will notice similarities to my resolutions from a few years ago – the “100 things” year. I was re-reading those posts and remembering how much fun I had that year. So I’m going to do it a little differently, but still…list-y.

(I am also going to include some things I’ve already done for these lists, because I don’t have a year at this point, and I am loathe to shoot myself in the foot from the onset)

I picked five things that make me happy/make me feel grounded and centered/make me feel like I’m actually doing something with my life besides waking, working, drinking coffee, and sleeping (not that there’s anything wrong with those things).

1. Reading – 100 books. I’ve already started on this goal, and Goodreads informs me that, while I have read 31 books so far, I am 15 books behind schedule. But I will not be daunted. I haven’t decided if I’m going to update every book that I read here, or if I will just give you what I love the most (or when I hated it and need to vent about it). But you can follow me on Goodreads if you wish to get book-by-book updates, because that’s where I really keep up with it.

2. Cooking – 100 new recipes. My favorite thing about the “100 things” year was all the new recipes I tried. Trying new things keeps me out of Food Rut, and this is important, because Food Rut is what puts me in the drive-through of Taco Bell, and nobody wins there (well, maybe the CEO of Taco Bell, but I think he’ll be okay). I will update these here, because I will be super excited about them. Fair warning – I am taking a Sacramental Baking Course. Look for a post on my first sourdough when I get around to writing it.

3. Writing – 100 hours. Whether I’m blogging or working on one of the multiple fiction projects I have going on, I have to write to be sane. I will be starting from scratch here, because I haven’t been logging my writing hours so far, but even starting now, I have twenty-eight weeks left of the year. And November is National Novel Writing Month. Even if it wasn’t, that’s only a little over three and a half hours a week. The writing of this post puts me at 0.4 hours. 99.6 to go!

4. Thanking – 100 admissions of gratitude. Gratitude keeps me from being so cynical that I get sleepless and achy. I may reminisce about a few of these, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had 100 MORE stories this year about how beautiful life can be? Here are my first two, just from today:

4a. I just got to encourage someone who assumed that a college degree was too lofty a dream for them to achieve that they could do it. That’s my favorite thing that’s happened this week.

4b. This – oh, my soul – THIS. Thank you, Jesus. And more, please.

5. Watching – 100 pictures. Sometimes, I just go through my photos, and my day is better. There will probably be way more than 100 pictures, and all of them might not make it to the blog. But all of them will make it to the Facebook (here’s Spring and here’s Summer), where I basically live, so peruse and enjoy!

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Spring turns into summer

Posted in Books, Seasons, Work, Writing on May 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »

It’s summertime for me. I know, it seems a little early. Summer camps haven’t started. The summer reading program at the library hasn’t begun. The kids aren’t even out of school yet.

My seasons tend to start early, though. I work with college students, so the seasons tend to go with the semesters and their breaks. Also, I live in Texas, so it starts to feel like summer here earlier than most places. In fact, it’s not so much fall, winter, spring, summer for me as it’s fall, holiday, spring, summer, because February might not always feel like winter here, but it always grades like spring. I turned in grades on Monday for Spring 2013 and have started working for summer conferences, so in my mind, I’ve transitioned.

It’s a new season. A new photo album on Facebook. A new goodbye, making way for a new hello.

I will miss my residents. Well, most of them. I will not miss teaching, but I’ll be ready to go back to it in August.

Summertime means conferences, the part of my job where I feel most like a fish out of water. Day desk has been rougher than I expected it to be, but conferences are even rougher. Training is my strength; customer service is not. And customer service is all that summer conferences entail. On the upside, it’s easier to leave behind when I leave work for the day. I gratefully flee. No chance of it following me home.

Summertime means reading. I read a lot anyway, but there’s more time for it in the summer. I am not reading many deep things this summer. I actually have romance novels on my list. I might flip out and throw some Proust in there or tackle Infinite Jest, but I make no promises.

Summertime usually means more writing, too. I am going to work on my Fishbowl story this summer. I am also submitting a few posts in a few places as a guest blogger. And I have the urge for the first time ever to try my hand at poetry, so perhaps I will do some of that, too. I am in love with poetry these days, from E. E. Cummings’s “I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach a ten thousand stars how not to dance,” to Pablo Neruda’s “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

But most important of all – summertime means snow cones and popsicles and yoga. Cooling off and calming down. It’s my sanest season.