joy | just ponderin'

… on advenditures

June 28, 2017 by Lisa Dingle

This morning, super duper early, I headed out on an adventure. Because the other day my friend Chris (a.k.a., ‘ChrisChrisChris‘) called and asked me if I was comfortable getting up very early in the morning (to which I replied, “Um, I am kind of an expert at it as I have stumbled out of bed and nearly fallen over the cliff in front of our house – on many occasions – trying to take pictures of the sunrise.” (I did not […]

Categories: aspiring maine-iacs, joy, just ponderin', Maine, musings • Tags: Boothbay Harbor, humor, joy, just ponderin', maine, midcoast maine, photography, tall ships, windjammers

… on the acting locally thing

June 26, 2017 by Lisa Dingle

Okay… I’ve given up. Maybe one day every single thing will be unpacked and put away… but strategy right now for the wedding is a good one I think… Hide it. This decision to take a break from the ‘moving’ has allowed me to live closer to the idea of ‘moved’, which has been kind of awesome. Each year that we’ve owned The Inn*, we’ve waited for the kids to get out of school, spent a couple of days packing […]

Categories: just ponderin', Maine, musings, secrets to happiness, the maine thing, warning: irreverence • Tags: Blessing of the Fleet, Boothbay Harbor, joy, just ponderin', maine, midcoast maine, musings, photography, Windjammer

… on signs and flamingos, but mostly signs

June 19, 2017 by Lisa Dingle

It all started with a pink, plastic bird – one of those ones with funky metal sticks for legs, so you can stand them in your dirt. Now. I am totally cool if you love these plastic birds in your yard. I have actually been known to point and smile at them in other folks’ yards. And I totally supported Mac’s high school senior project where she and her partner ‘pinked’ yards with oodles of flamingos for charity (okay… you […]

Categories: family, Feel good stuff, freakin' things, joy, just ponderin', memories, musings, Old Yankee Man • Tags: humor, joy, just ponderin', musings, old yankee man, secrets to happiness

… on touching dreams

June 15, 2017 by Lisa Dingle

So… you know we moved to Maine. Well… I know I know I moved to Maine. No… it’s not the boxes still unpacked in my bedroom (I’m ignoring them, hoping they will go away. But they are not. Dicks.) And no… it’s not because I can smell that heady mixture of salt and pine and spruce. Nope. It’s not because I can hear – right now in fact – the bubbubbub of a lobster boat’s diesel engine as its crew drops their […]

Categories: aspiring maine-iacs, Granny, joy, just ponderin', Maine, musings, Nearly Perfect Husband, secrets to happiness, the maine thing, unique observation • Tags: humor, joy, just ponderin', maine, musings, secrets to happiness

… on landslides and new landscapes

June 3, 2017 by Lisa Dingle

There’s this song that’s been following me around for about a year, maybe a little more. Creepily showing up at the oddest times, sometimes with grating frequency. The Dixie Chicks sort of revived it a few years back, and had either a yellow malleable or grayish white noncorroding ductile metallic element song. It went gold or platinum… I’m just messing with you because I’m cranky because I’m still waiting for the coffee maker to beep. Oh! There it goes. Hang on […]

Categories: aspiring maine-iacs, Feel good stuff, home, joy, just ponderin', Maine, musings, the maine thing, Uncategorized • Tags: joy, just ponderin', maine, musings, photography, secrets to happiness

… on tucking in a house

May 31, 2017 by Lisa Dingle

It occurred to me yesterday, alone in the house I have mockingly referred to as ‘The Disposable Shack’… After the family packed itself into two cars, with two dogs and a pile of The Stuff… And after the movers finished up and drove down the driveway and away with more of The Stuff… It occurred to me, as I was going through the house, sweeping and gathering the minimal Stuff that remained (some quite cleverly hidden), that it was a little […]

Categories: aspiring maine-iacs, family, Feel good stuff, home, just ponderin', musings, Uncategorized, unique observation • Tags: joy, just ponderin', moving, musings, photography, prose

… on drop offs (and drop outs) and pick ups

May 20, 2017 by Lisa Dingle

I’m not sure if that magnet, which sits above Gronk’s* gas tank filler upper door, is about Marshal Dillon Dingle, or about me. I suppose it’s about him, literally (yep, he flunked his first time through), and me more figuratively – but only because I never actually attended something called ‘obedience school’. Being a rather irreverent participator in life, however, it fits perfectly. Which is probably why I am currently in the middle of the selling-closing-moving of either a house […]

Categories: aspiring maine-iacs, family, Feel good stuff, joy, just ponderin', musings, my perfect cherubs, road trip, unique observation • Tags: everyday life, humor, joy, just ponderin', musings, secrets to happiness

… on nicknames lived up to

May 11, 2017 by Lisa Dingle

The Disposable Shack. Disposed. Well, not quite. But now I am thinking it was so unfair to refer to this wonderful home as the Disposable Shack for so long. It all began… well, actually I don’t remember how it all began. I think it was as we were making the decision that The Inn – our Maine house that was once (in the early 1900s – really an inn, but is not really an inn anymore… anyway, I think it […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: empty nest, everyday life, family, home, joy, just ponderin', musings, secrets to happiness, selling the family home

… on making sense of self

May 5, 2017 by Lisa Dingle

So… there’s this dress. I can’t tell you much about it because it’s a secret. Not being a member of the Wedding Tradeworkers Union, I had no idea what to expect when we shopped for a wedding dress. Turns out, you can find one you like and then they make it just for you! (I know, I know, other people might know this when they are born – like some sort of bridal genetic memory or something, but it’s all […]

Categories: family, Feel good stuff, joy, just ponderin', memories, musings, my perfect cherubs, Uncategorized, unique observation • Tags: humor, joy, just ponderin', musings, photography, secrets to happiness, wedding

just ponderin'

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