Archives for August 2011
Second Chance Garden
We were ready, baby, MORE than ready. And the clock was a tickin’.
Pockets of Joy #1
On Fridays she graciously hosts a link-up where you can share your “Pockets of Joy” for that week. I groove this. I warmly welcome the intervalled practice of expressing gratitude and joy for the beauty in a person’s life. We have so much! And sometimes intending to just maintain an “attitude of gratitude” can be rather thin and quiet, at least for me. Sometimes it’s nice to share those feelings of bounty.
3. Feeding the chickens. I love delivering kitchen leftovers outside to the chickens and watching them jump and scurry for the best stuff. I love the way their little talons sound on the gravel paths, the way they skeedaddle and sprint this way and that in feathery bursts of energy. I have said it before and will say it again: Letting the chickens go free range in the mornings is the best animal decision we have ever made on this farm. This week the chickens are enjoying the cooler temps and have been especially joyful.
5. Blogland. Meeting people through blogging whom I would never have met otherwise, like Keda from South Africa. Hello there! Staying warm? Check out her blog too. Thorough, sensitive writing, beautiful lifestyle. Truly.
7. Music. I rediscovered a Carla Bruni album and listened to it three and a half times while plowing through my overflowing ironing basket. Something about her effervescent sound and her poetry got me thinking about bubbles, circles, fractals, and mandalas, so I detoured from ironing long enough to get these words out of my head.
Fractals
Revolutionary.
Like my own Oklahoma gardens, which even on their best days are a bit on the wild side, my spirit is probably less orderly than most. Even at 37 I mean 25 I am still brimming with confusion and questions, still wandering a bit more than I would like some days.
Have you ever seen Mandala art? It is sometimes used as a form of meditation in the Hindu and Buddhist cultures. Not worship, just a physical activity, guided enough to be focused but certainly freeing enough to allow for all manner of expression and intepretation.
In reading more about fractals I remembered the mandala and cannot help but sense the common ground here. Maybe there is a cosmic message to be found regarding circular motion, patterns, and following that inarticulate voice.
And how interesting that a Christian writer used this global mainstay to help his readers visualize the human spirit. I think it is a beautiful use of imagination.
Instant Gratification
- Stop everything and go get an incredible work out! Sweat and burn for twice as long as you normally do, then stretch until you want to fall asleep. You will feel better instantly, and it will be worth every minute.
- Mow the front lawn, weed JUST the flower bed, sweep the sidewalk (for me this includes scooping horse poop), and then water everything. It takes less time than you think, and it makes the whole front of the house look pretty incredible.
- Paint something. Anything. Preferably with either red or turquoise paint. Or chalkboard paint.
- Make exactly one phone call that you have been dreading.
- Empty and scrub every single trash can in the house then cut one fresh flower bouquet for every floor of the house. Light candles in every bathroom.
- Skip one meal and instead make yourself a fruit-yogurt-honey smoothie and follow it with some ice cold water with lemons. Let the inside of your body rest for a few hours. Use the time you would have spent cooking and cleaning up doing something you’ve been really, really, really wanting to do.
- Groom exactly one of the animals moseying around the farm. Groom him or her from head to toe. Pour your tender lovin’ care all over that beloved pet as if it is both the first and last day you have together.
- Choose exactly one project on Pinterest that is within reach today. Do that thing.
- Good grief, take a remodeling shower already and give yourself an at-home mani-pedi. Lotion up. Fix your hair. Wear some perfume. WHEW that’s better, and check it out… You can still work and be productive!
- Gloss up the house, make something wonderful to sip, and sit down to write an inventory of both your blessings and your answered prayers. Allow your focus to shift from problems to comforts.
- Clean the floors mercilessly. Like a shining clean sink, clean floors are contagious. So are dirty floors.
- Make contact with the people who are always on your mind. Show some love.
- Bake something incredible for Handsome, even though he INSISTS he doesn’t want any more sweets, because when you DON’T bake he might think you don’t love him so much anymore.
- Lay in the sun and read about fifty pages of something that loosens up your mind.
- Repot a living plant or reframe a beautiful photograph or some artwork.
- Choose and prepare fabrics for one sewing project. Cut the pieces and package them together with the pattern. If you have time to sew it, go ahead! But if not, that’s cool. You are half way there for next time.
- While doing laundry in the garage or starting a meal in the kitchen, STAY PUT. Stop multi-tasking and just stay in the room where the big action is. See what you can accomplish there during the waiting times. Pretend there is a force field at the doorway. Resist every urge to wander off and layer in other activities. Organize, clean, or decorate exactly one room at a time. Seriously, girl, focus. F-O-C-U-S.
- Do a good deed that you are pretty sure cannot be found out. Help someone in secret then walk like an Egyptian.