Life of Larisa or LOL

This past week was a busy one---preparing for Zach's tenth birthday (we buried a time capsule...another blog on that to come), ongoing homeschool, work at the farm, and it was Gabe's first week of college!  Lots of milestones happening this year.  It seemed like there was a lot happening in the world outside of ours as well, so I took it as an opportunity to spread kindness .  My latest "new thing" was RAOK or Random Acts of Kindness.  I took the boys on five new random acts of kindness and in the process realized opportunities for kindness are everywhere if you just open your eyes and look.   And of course I had to incorporate the boys in my latest "new thing".   The first thing on our random acts of kindness tour was dropping off groceries to a friend who had to quarantine...although I guess that wasn't random, more a deliberate act of kindness.  Nevertheless, it was a great way to kick the week of random acts off.   The next RAOK (or officially the fi

  Dirty thirty!  My latest "new thing" is a game.  Rockstarr Band Battle is the newest game in the Majors household.  We are a game family.  We love cards, dice, and board games.  Over the past year or more of the pandemic, our love of games really paid off.  We are semi-professional gamers at this point.  Since we aren't a big sports family (our kids never did soccer or Little League or anything like that for an extended period of time), our weekends are generally free.  We have no commitments to be at a field or a gym at a certain time.  Our lack of organized sports creates room for lots of organized game play . Since we aren't a part of the organized sports crew, you might assume that we aren't very competitive.  One of us isn't (Isom).  The other is (me).  The boys are usually interested in winning , but the true competitive spirit resides inside me.  If you're going to play the game, you might as well win the game! I like trivia.  I like music.  I l

  I'm creeping up on thirty "new things" for this year.  This week, I started a new morning ritual, courtesy of a new drink I'm trying made by a company called Mudwtr (no, that's not a typo).  Number twenty-nine on my "new things" list, is a new take on my morning coffee routine .   I love coffee.  I love drinking it in the morning during the quiet before everyone in my house starts to rustle and wake and bombard.  It has been a happy routine for most of my adult life.  The smell of the brewing.  The sound of the percolating.  The anticipation of the pour.  The warmth as your favorite blend fills you with that coffee euphoria.  It's scientific.  Your morning cup of Joe literally mimics a dopamine rush.  So why would I ever want to change that?    For all the goodness of coffee, she also has her negative qualities---addictive, expensive, a crash, a jittery vibe.  So, when Gabe and I came across this "new take on coffee" called Mudwtr, we w

This weeks "new thing" got my creative juices flowing.  My inspiration for this "new thing" was based on an ancient art practice known in Japan as Suminagashi.  This ancient art form inspired "new" art created by me, Zach, Gabe, and Isom.  The longer this "new thing" adventure goes on, the more everyone in my house becomes involved! In our house, art and science are fun activities for my almost ten year old.  They are interests that we try to support even if we don't love all things art and science.  Science tends to foster curiosity and a way of thinking that can help with problem solving.  Art tends to foster creativity and a way of thinking that is often outside of the box.  Recently, Zach and I went on a Friday Fieldtrip to the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) .  Before leaving, of course we had to check out the gift shop.  Inside the gift shop (where I could have wandered around for hours) we came across another DIY art kit.  Zach was exc

"New things" come in all forms---reading, listening, watching, climbing, tasting, cooking.  The latest "new thing" is writing.  Writing with a purpose.  Writing with the kids.  Writing mindfully with my kids.  We started a family gratitude journal.  Number twenty-seven on my "52 New Things" list, is a new way of journaling.  If it wasn't already enough documenting photos on Facebook and Instagram almost daily, and combining pictures and writing on my blog (mostly) weekly... now I am trying a new way of journaling .   Throughout my life I have kept diaries, planners, journals, calendars, lists...I like to have a handwritten visual of what my days, weeks, months, and years look like.  In the past, such private thoughts have mostly contained the goings on of the day sprinkled with some humor, some milestones, some hardships.   For my "new" take on this old thing, I am changing a few things.  First, the new journaling process is no longer solita

Last week I was gleaning sage words of wisdom from the "new thing" I blogged about, a new book (see previous post). This week, more sage words of wisdom, but from a different and "new" source, a Podcast.  For my halfway point on this "new things" journey, my twenty-sixth "new thing" is author and speaker Glennon Doyle's (and sister) Podcast called "We Can Do Hard Things" .   Podcasts are like talk radio I guess.  It is the (most times) soothing sound of a voice of reason or humor or murder (most of the other podcasts I listen to are on that morbid subject) right in your ear, ready for when you go on a walk, a jog (rarely), a solo hike, sitting on the beach watching your kid surf, doing housework, or driving to work.   Like most things that I do, I can become obsessed rapidly.  I dive in...deep.  I listen to a variety of Podcasts on both the Apple Podcast App and through Spotify.  The beauty of Podcasts are that they are free and th

Twenty-five new things, and finally one of those new things is a book.  Throughout this process of involving myself in "new things", I have tried to incorporate "old things" with the "new".  I have been operating from an "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of mentality.  Reading is not a new thing or even a new love, but it has been on the back burner throughout this pandemic and my "new things" journey.  Just in time, I came across this book, this diary of sorts, and renewed my love for stories, story telling, and the extremely personal experience of reading for pleasure.   This week, my "new thing" was diving into this short book that reads like a love letter.  The Rural Diaries by Hilarie Burton Morgan was this weeks fun and self reflective "new thing".  I read the book over the course of a couple of days...that were spread out over the course of a couple of weeks.  I was savoring the experience.  The w