Tag: Encouragement

Posted in Five Friday Happy Bringers

Five Friday Happy Bringers 2/7/25

Posted on by Neal Saye

My weekly gratitude journal, of sorts.

1. Savannah winter camellias … in my bathroom.

2. My Crock Pot Sunday Sirloin Tip Roast, which we had, well, last Sunday.

Here’s a photo timeline of how it went down.

Put it in the Crock Pot, then walk away for eight hours.

But unlike Lot’s unfortunate wife, you know in the Sodom and Gomorrah saga, I did not look back and be turned into a pillar of Morton Salt.

Gracious, do I ever look like a grumpy old man, even if I am wearing my Christmas jammy pants, which may be out of season, but oh so comfortable and fashionable.

Eight hours later …

And because I’m sure you want to know, I’m out of my Christmas jammy pants by now. But seriously, do they expect you to wear your holiday attire ONLY on the holiDAY itself?!

Oh my GOODness!

Okay, I’ve probably brought you to near catastrophic boredom ranting about this roast, but do you know the difference between top and tip sirloin? I admit that I did not. Well, let AI inform us …

Here is what AI did not tell you: “tip” is substantially cheaper than “top,” (which is why I bought it to begin with).

You can now splash some cold water on your face and continue reading about my remaining Happy Bringers.

3. The amazing ability to SEE! In any direction. Take a moment to be grateful for this miracle. Everybody doesn’t have it.

4. Somehow, on a walk yesterday afternoon near us here in Savannah, being able to see a little beauty even in the wake of destruction.

A tree which had to be cut back because of disease.

Or maybe that’s not beauty. What do you think?

5. Completing 14,000 minutes of meditation this week.

But seriously, wouldn’t you think I’d be a bit more … enlightened by now?! Instead of still sometimes wondering what meditation actually is.

May you have a WONDERful Weekend ahead.

Posted in Five Friday Happy Bringers

Five Friday Happy Bringers 1/10/25

Posted on by Neal Saye

My weekly gratitude journal, of sorts.

1. My Roasted Tomato, Garlic and Basil Soup.

With HR’s gooey Habanero Cheese Toast.

YUM!

2. Heated homes for cold winter days.

3. This Peanuts blessing I received the other night. I pass it on to you.

4. Reading Ina Garten’s fascinating memoir.

(Do you think it’s too late for me to become a world-famous, multimillion dollar celebrity chef?)

5. The memory of this little silk arrangement of spring daffodils in the downstairs winter bathroom of our Airbnb at a recent stay in Baltimore.

(It doesn’t take much to make me happy.)

I hope it doesn’t take much to make you happy this weekend.

Posted in Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling?

Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 1/6/25 “Small Kindnesses”

Posted on by Neal Saye

Marveling this Monday Morning at the simple and beautiful truth of poetry.

Small Kindnesses

By Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

Danusha Laméris’ insightful poem asks us to notice and cherish the many “small kindnesses” we exchange with strangers as we move through the world. Though quick, these moments have the potential to fulfill our shared need for compassion. 

Posted in Encouragement

“Almost Everything”

Posted on by Neal Saye

As I mentioned in a previous post, HR and I are up in Baltimore for his aunt’s funeral. It has been an extraordinarily busy couple of days, and we are both worn out.

So this afternoon, the last day of 2024, I found us a little independent bookstore/coffeeshop/winery, Backwater Books, in Ellicott City, a beautiful little hamlet about thirty minutes west of Baltimore.

From the moment we parked in Ellicott City’s parking area by the bubbling Patapsco River, we began to slow down.

OK, maybe my hair didn’t.

Stepping into the shop, holiday bookishness (can that be a word?) greeted us …

We looked around at the inviting stacks …

Robert got us got a dram of wine and we settled down …

For calm and quiet for the first time in days.

Posted in Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling?

Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 12/30/24 “Big Foot”

Posted on by Neal Saye

Marveling this Monday Morning at … life.

Robert and I are up in Baltimore for his dear Aunt Pat’s funeral.

We are staying at a lovely old Airbnb in the Fells Point community at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor (our favorite area of the city).

On a walk yesterday afternoon, Mother Nature reminded me of her incredible strength and resiliency.

Surrounded by all of man’s “built-ness,” one of her daughters stands strong …

… her foot firmly planted in the ground.

Alive.

Posted in Five Friday Happy Bringers

Five Friday Happy Bringers 12/27/24

Posted on by Neal Saye

My weekly gratitude journal, of sorts.

1. Morning coffee with Robert at Flora and Fauna, the coolest little coffee bar/supper club here in Savannah.

2. Youngest granddaughter Isabelle, one on one with Santa.

3. Mindfully recognizing and appreciating that I Feel Good whenever I Feel Good.

4. Christmas Day Supper with just HR and me. (We do a bigger Thanksgiving with family, but fam is scattered across the state, so now everyone does their own thing for Christmas.)

This year I told HR uber-enthusiastically that “I am making OYSTER DRESSING for the first time!”

He looked at me as I had just told him there is no Santa. (He still believes. See recent blog for proof.)

I got quickly to work, convinced that I could win him over. Even though he doesn’t accompany me when I have a hankering for …

… at one of Savannah’s fabulous oyster houses. “Neal, what must have been wrong with the first person in history who somehow—probably by freak accident—cracked open an oyster and said, ‘I’m gonna eat that slimy thing right now.’”

But I got him to like Susan Boyle, so how hard could a little mollusk shellfish be?

I opened up my two pints of oysters …

Prepped my other ingredients …

Fancy HR tells me this part of kitchen work is called “mise en place” (everything in its place).

All ready for the oven …

Forty-five deliciously anticipatory minutes later …

(I managed to place NOE—Neal’s Oyster Extravaganza—in the center of our little buffet in an attempt to make it the star.)

And guess what? (I’m sure you’re a nervous wreck by now wondering if he liked it.)

He did! He did! The joy bells rang triumphantly through Historic District Savannah!

(Although I have to confess that he took most of his dressing from around the edges … to avoid the possibility of slimy you know what. And covered it with his yummy mushroom gravy. But still, I declare Victory!)

5. The Seasonal Pause of Quiet and Calm that seems to occur each year between Christmas and the New Year (at least in my mind).

May you find some Quiet and Calm this final weekend of 2024.