#109 One Of Those Days...
We all have them.
Those days.
The days when, from the moment you wake up, you are already thirty minutes behind.
You try to carve back a minute here and a minute there.
Often you resort to multitasking.
Which is how you find yourself, instead of cooking a healthy lunch, or packing a healthy lunch, or at the very least grabbing a salad from the golden arches - instead of doing any of those things - you find yourself scarfing down as many free samples as you can at Costco during your grocery run and calling it a day.
I’m not proud.
I’m willing to lean into this one.
Copyright© 2025 Anne Morse Hambrock All rights reserved.
Or There’s This Kind Of Day…
Finding Light In The Dark
A huge THANK YOU to everyone who came to my talk yesterday!
We had a near capacity crowd!
Here is an excerpt from the printed program:
Finding Light in the Dark
“We will none of us escape grief.
Grief can take many forms.
We grieve for the losses of those close to us, we grieve for others facing terminal diagnoses, we grieve for personal losses, perhaps from a house fire or other disaster, we may even grieve for the loss of a job or other challenges to the fabric of our daily lives.
We all process grief differently but one thing tends to be consistent – we usually have to find a way to keep going. The rest of our life is still calling us, demanding things of us, pushing us forward.
That journey can be eased if we come to understand that laughter and sorrow can be companions. We can experience humor and joy without diminishing the memory of the ones we cherish. Finding laughter in the often ridiculous situations that life continues to throw at all of us, or remembering the humorous foibles of a loved one, is not a sign of disrespect. It is simply another form of loving.
Helping people navigate their grief by lifting them up with laughter has been my most important work for the past fifteen years.
Today I invite you into the behind the scenes world of creating and sharing humor in the darkest of times. I hope my talk will help you face down any struggles you might currently be facing as we all laugh together at the absurdities of life on this funny little planet.”
Making Music Installment 5
I really liked the waltz from last week - and so did readers, apparently - so I’m sticking with it for a bit. This week I added a little bit more harmonic interest with a few different chord changes. After this I’ll be taking a break from posting the piece for a few weeks while I figure out if I want to add any percussion or other tracks to it.
Garden Near Disaster
Again, it was one of those days.
When I awakened to temperatures easily 25° warmer than just seven hours earlier, I knew the weather was going to be, what I believe meteorologists call, “funky”.
And it was.
We were eating a nice quiet dinner out on the enclosed porch when we heard a loud “CRACK!!!”
And I mean it was LOUD.
Gunshot loud.
Electrical socket explosion loud.
We looked at each other.
Trying to puzzle it out.
“CRACK, CRACK!!!”
Light was dawning.
Fifteen seconds later all hell broke loose - as you can hear in the video.
Actually the video doesn’t do it justice - the full force of ¾ inch hail pummeling a polycarbonate roof reaches an astonishing decibel level.
Fortunately, my most tender plants have not yet left the “makeshift greenhouse” that is my back porch so the main garden dodged the worst. But the begonias I had put in only a week before are looking pretty battered.
And the cherry tree, which was chock full of blossoms, is looking a little worse for wear.
I’m hoping enough pollination had already happened to generate a future crop.
My family is expecting summer pies.
Books
If you like my work there are two book collections for sale.
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Note: Lately I’ve been getting book orders that seem to have fraudulent payment methods so my store is not letting those orders through. If you have tried to order a book without success please reach out to me and we will dig into the problem. Either reply to this newsletter or message me via substack.
Archives And New Subscribers
If you are just joining us I’m so happy you are here!
Consider poking around the archives - there’s some fun stuff.
Tip Jar
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Keep The Messages And Comments Coming!
I appreciate the feedback and knowing how often I have struck a chord with your lives.
Wow, no hail here in SoCal, but my sympathies on your garden challenges. I hope to hear more of pie when your tree recovers.
Loved the harp piece—hypnotic, propulsive rhythm, but I haven’t listened to earlier versions to compare.
The comments on laughter as an antidote to grief struck home. I realize I can’t navigate the current shark-infested political waters without a friend or two to make me laugh. Funny, thoughtful bloggers help too. Thanks, Anne!
I like this harp piece, very interesting melody, very Spanish-sounding.
That sounded like a Texas hail storm. I didn't know any other part of the country ever had them. Every few years, our insurance companies buy us all a new roof and repair our cars. I keep waiting for them to stop covering hail damage, but they haven't yet.