Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Archives for 2012

Humilspiration (Blogger Event)

   Yes, I am pretty sure that’s a real word.
    Humilspiration: 
(hyoo-mil-spur-A-shun), noun
A luscious blend 
of humility and inspiration
resulting from gentle exposure 
to brilliant, accomplished people
who are willing to share their passion. 
   It’s what happened to me last Saturday when a small, cozy group of Oklahoma bloggers convened right here at our little farm for a few hours of chatting, nibbling edibles, and soaking up each others’ experiences. It was wonderful in every way.
   Honestly, I am still not sure how in the heck I scored an invite since every other woman there has been blogging far longer than me and has established herself in various ways both professionally and in the blogging community. But I am ever so grateful to Kelly from the Red Dirt Chronicles for her thoughtfulness.

Here are Kelly and Dee strolling with cameras and kind words.

Early on in the event’s planning stages I stuck my neck out and offered to host, trying to conceal the truth that I just meant to cement my attendance. I mean, eventually someone was bound to realize this *crazy* Lazy W lady was pretending to fit into the “real bloggers” club and then promptly revoke my welcome card. Have you ever seen Catch Me if You Can? Kind of like that. But if I was hosting, well… then my chances for retaining my invite just greatly improved.

Several home made dishes and decadent bakery luxuries filled the table that day.
   Anyway, the other eight women who joined in on Saturday were just dazzling in every way. About another eight were invited and had to decline, but I know they would have dazzled me too. I certainly look forward to meeting them eventually.

I can still smell the sugar…
   You may remember that last Saturday was a drop dead gorgeous day in Oklahoma. Bright sunshine, warm skin, cool breezes. As everyone arrived one by one and trickled down the driveway, we mingled outside and fed treats to the animals. Mia the gander bonded suddenly and passionately to Rose, one of the loveliest and warmest people you will ever meet. She has recently revived her blog OKRoserock, and I am so glad she did. Go find her post on International Women’s Day!
But Mia was rude and inappropriate with Brooke. (So sorry for that.. but Pacino did think it was funny.)

Here are Laura and Brooke are getting acquainted with Pacino the macaw, 
and moments later Brooke suffered some unwanted aggression from Mia the gander.
   I had the very real pleasure of meeting Sonya of Beyond the Screen Door, a woman whose exceptional seamstress work and talent for combining unexpected fabrics has been inspiring me for a long time.

I had to apply every ounce of self control in my body
to *not* ask Sonya, pictured here chatting with Allison,
her opinion on a fabric idea for my kitchen.
She is so gracious, I would have ended up taking advantage of her.

Another guest was a kind of local celebrity, Katie from Dishin and Dishes. She is a food blogger who appears weekly on Rise and Shine Oklahoma. She is also in the final stages of writing a book surveying all the best local restaurants in Oklahoma! This will definitely be on my Christmas shopping list next December.

Here are Rose Marie and Katie, two fabulous women 
who first forged an acquaintance on Twitter 
then had lunch together the week after this event!
I almost cropped this photo, but if you look closely 
at the bottom you will see Mia, 
the gander who chooses people to love. 
This day he had his sights on Rose, loud and clear. 
   Allison is the super energetic talent behind Refunk My Junk. All of her ideas are fresh and pretty, and she makes it seem doable! Love that. If you’re in OKC, you can find her wares over at The Feathered Nest. We also discovered that she and Handsome worked for the same big box bank once upon a time. Cool!

Allison is* hilarious* to listen to
and her style really flows over into her blog. 
(Stripper glitter, anyone?)
I managed to snap a photo of her during 
exactly the four seconds she wasn’t smiling and making friends!
So sorry, but it’s kind of my talent.
   Dee is the talent behind the curtain at Red Dirt Ramblings. Her topic of focus is my not so private obsession, gardening… Oooh la la… Plus she has spun her skills and knowledge into a full blown writing career. This is what I am talking about, you guys! These things are actually possible! After some note trading and chatting, Dee and I noticed that her children are attending my high school Alma mater, Mount Saint Mary in south Oklahoma City. Small, beautiful world where we live, huh?
   Laura is a young, gorgeous professional who has been stylishly chronicling her home renovations over at The Steen Style. She is one of those women whose smile is bright and whose energy is contagious. In fact, she arrived at the Bloggers’ Ball (as it was cheerfully dubbed) with another lovely young woman, Brooke, and we all assumed they were lifelong friends. Not so! They had only met in 3-D that morning, on the way to the Lazy W. How’s that for making connections real?
   Brooke has been writing Rural Gone Urban for a while and recently launched a brand spankin new site for Chickasaw Country. Very exciting. Now she’s writing a children’s book, so keep your eye on her!

These ladies showered me lavishly with unnecessary but much appreciated hostess gifts. The funny thing is they didn’t know it’s also my birthday week, woo-hoo!

   After we pressed the clock for every spare minute sharing stories, ideas, questions, and hopes for the future of our little group, everyone said goodbye and drove away from the farm. I was literally stunned into silence. Not the normal post-party fervor or exhaustion, just a wonderful, bizarre sense of possibility. 

Possibility for my blog.
Possibility for Oklahoma, my heart’s homeland.  
Possibility for the universal experiences 
of creativity and sharing.
   I could barely speak for about fifteen minutes. See… each of these women started blogging for intensely personal reasons (like me) and each has gradually discovered her voice, mission, and platform in her own unique way. Now they are evolving unapologetically and sharing those mindful resources.   Collectively these bloggers were an ocean of knowledge on IT and had a firm grasp on social media, all of which is crazy useful to me. But their greatest gifts were openness and drive.

Kelly’s Twitter stream of most quotable remarks during the session was priceless.
“Blog drunk, edit sober.” Solid advice, ladies. Solid.

In a nutshell, it was one of those times when life shows you exactly how much you don’t know but simultaneously offers you a chance to learn it all. And to learn it through some really delicious connections.

I am whole heartedly looking forward to the next event and expect to see some of you between now and then, too. Thanks again for visiting the Lazy W, thanks for the gifts, thanks for the generous exchanges. Best wishes to everyone this spring and summer!

Birds of a Feather Can Still Be Mighty Different.
And That is Very Good.
xoxoxoxo

Urgent Prayer Request for Savannah

   Friends, please stop and take time as soon as possible to pray for this beautiful, sweet little girl. Her name is Savannah. She needs a touch from God immediately, and her wonderful, loving parents need Him too.

“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, 
and the Lord shall raise him up…”
~James 5:15

“I shall not die, but live, and 
declare the works of the Lord.”
~Psalm 118:17

“Then shall thy light break forth as the morning,
and thine health shall spring forth speedily:
and thy righteousness shall go before thee;
the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.”
~Isaiah 58:8

Thank you so much!
God is able.
xoxoxo

Quiet Beauty Abounds

I went on a short walk through the forest today, after all the work was done, between luxurious bursts of cold rain, and was overwhelmed by the quiet beauty there. The earth was spongy. The trees were soaked, leaves dripping and limbs nearly black. The breeze sent this fresh, ozone like fragrance through every open air space. Deer paths were easier to find today too.

Nothing fought for my attention. I just walked and admired and said inward thanks for everything that thrives without our “help.”

God is so good. In the dark of a deciduous grove just around the corner from Yoga Meadow, I discovered three different flowering trees. They glowed against the pine trees and dormant blackjacks. I couldn’t resist bringing home enough branches to fill one vase.

Then I circled the grove once more, then the meadow, then home where the horses welcomed me with that weird attitude of indignation they have anytime we leave.

I hope you have time to go quietly absorb some natural beauty today. What you find today might be fleeting.

XOXOXO

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Things I Forgot to Tell You Guys

  • Last week M Half and I got lost in the adjacent Pine forest. (It was fairly nightmarish and a full story is coming soon.) Then this past Monday we reentered said forest to unearth an old rusty bike and take some photos of the path of our original trek. Because we’re cool. That made twice that we made it through the Pine forest alive.
  • This past Saturday I hosted eight other Oklahoma bloggers at the farm. They made a huge, lasting impression on me and, big surprise, a blog post is coming soon. I have delayed it only because I wanted to do it right. These women are wonderful.
  • A few mornings ago Mia the gander joined Handsome and me for  Hot Tub Summit. What that means is that he actually got into the very warm water with us. I was a nervous wreck because I have never literally cooked a goose before and was unclear as to the required water temperature. I mean, for an egg it can be considerably cooler than for a chicken, so… Anyway, Mia is totally fine but the hot tub needed cleaning immediately thereafter.
  • My two daughters and my nephew are stair step ages, once upon a time ages 1, 2, & 3. Now they are 14, 15, & 16. Takes my breath away. Hope is swelling, though. Please continue to pray for these three incredible young people. Thanks. xoxo
  • My mother in law recently gave me four brand new apron patterns that are begging to be cut and served with luscious scrap fabrics. I occasionally sew and sell aprons and towels and such, so if you have a hankerin to add some textiles to your kitchen, drop me a line! 
  • Our chickens are laying regularly now, which is just plain thrilling. A Vietnamese woman who came to buy a sleeper sofa from us asked if I sell them. I said no but gave her a dozen because I had refused to barter more on the price of the sofa. This totally assuaged my faint guilt.
  • To my eternal shock and awe, our fruit trees are alive. Yay!
  • Handsome and I are shopping online tonight for furniture to go in our green room, where we watch t.v. and play games if friends are here etc. This is where a relationship shows its true colors, folks. To illustrate, here is what I think we need, in duplicate:
Regarding photo source here, 
Pinterest is leading me on a wild goose chase.
The best I can summon is designer Kelly Wearstler.
Or possibly Country Living.
  • Seventeen days until the beekeeping class! Woohoo! I get to bring one person with me. Raise your hand if you’re surprised Handsome isn’t that interested in going.
  • Tomorrow is my thirty-eighth birthday. Aside from being spoiled rotten by my husband, I just feel so happy. Life has reached this glowing, vibrant, wide-view chapter. The problems we have are in pretty solid perspective, we are blessed beyond what we deserve, and our hearts are brimming with hope. 
Talk to you Guys Tomorrow!
I Might Be the Luckiest Girl Ever.
xoxoxoxo

5 Senses Tour as Spring Warms Up

   In Oklahoma, we feel like Mother Nature has most likely abandoned winter, which was wonderfully manageable this year anyway. While I am in shock that the first week of March is already here, all the excitement of early spring keeps me from doing the normal where did time go?! dance of panic and self denigration. The fruit trees and saucer magnolias are quietly budding; the daffodils are providing strong shots of neon yellow in every hidden corner; and the chickens and four leggeds are steeped in romance, if ya know what I mean. Wink-wink!
   Today is Tuesday. I have a long list of chores to finish and an even longer list of blog posts I’ve been intending to write, but only the standard number of hours in the day. So in the mean time here’s a little Five Senses Tour.
********************
Hearing: Wind. Strong, familiar, almost violent wind whipping us silly from every single direction, several times a minute. This is in stark contrast to the calm, idyllic days we’ve been noticing lately, but now noticing the wind isn’t a complaint. We’re really used to it. It’s how we all know we’re home. Today the wind is so strong that even the guineas have found shelter and are keeping quiet. No television, no music, no people talking here at the farm, just the clackety clack of my keyboard, the hum of the CPU, and the incredible, four corners of the globe Oklahoma wind. Wait, I also hear Mia honking for love.
How cute is this?? #OkieLove
Seeing: I am anxious to finish the book Game Change ahead of the HBO movie which airs this weekend. Also seeing all the quiet, sneaky details of early springtime all around us.
Smelling: Coconut candle given to me by Rose, clean hair, the end of my last cup of coffee, and new perfume.
Tasting: *Imaginary* fresh local honey! Yesterday I received the very happy news that we are signed up for a beekeeping class later this month! More on this when it’s not Five Senses Day, but for now, pretend with me that you have just collected honey manufactured by your own fuzzy little bees, unprocessed, raw, perfect, molten-lava honey. Bliss…
Feeling: Running and exercising in new tennis shoes rather than bare feet. Umm, yes. Weird-feeling. But I think this is a good move. Also feeling the belly button suspense that precedes a heavy storm.
Thinking: About the choices we have between hope and despair. About the power of Love and trusting Him. Romans 8:28; I Corinthians 1:23-24
Planning: To rearrange the downstairs furniture in order to welcome a new couch tonight. Also planning to clean up this cool old bicycle that M Half and I extricated from the Pine forest yesterday.
Praying: For Jocelyn and Jessica. That they continue to thrive, that they feel our love, that the gap between us closes in the right ways, at the right time.  For my sister Angela and her children. For my husband’s sister Tyrene and her family.

This was the first glimpse of a special sunset we caught over the weekend.

Yes, I know that is more than five senses. 
But it’s still far less than what 
we are able to perceive when quieted.

Live fully today.
xoxoxo

5 senses tour