Lazy W Marie

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

You are here: Home / 2015 / Archives for August 2015

Archives for August 2015

thursday morning magic

Somehow the morning sun is bolder, more gilded and alive, with the windows open. Or is it the time of year? This sneak peek of autumn? Wide, flat sheets of moving light slice across the wood floor and make floating bits of dust look like fairies. Magic. The early birdsong is definitely stronger. And I had forgotten how sweet the air can taste at this kinder temperature.

I passed by the upstairs hallway windows, the ones overlooking the middle field, and marveled at the thick prairie grasses and their diamond wet. Grey fog rolling upward off the pond in strong, thoughtful columns of energy. Water that normally has a reddish cast, this morning was a murky blue-grey, a werewolf shade in broad daylight.

Chanta was grazing just below these open windows. I could hear his gentle horse breath and the juicy chomp-crunch-swallow of his green breakfast. I wondered briefly what were my odds of injury if I were to pry off one of those window screens and jump down onto his broad, muscular back? I never made a sound, but I think he must heave heard my thoughts because he let out an extended snuffle and walked away, sharply to his right.

Now the Lone Ranger music is in my head and I need to go for a run. I need to taste the sweet air more deeply. Feel the brackish touch of sun and shade on my skin and let the dew splash high on my legs. As much as I love the brutally hot summertime, this cool morning is filled with magic and I love it. I won’t waste it.

pull magic

What magic are you pursuing today?

XOXOXOXO

 

friday 5: plans gone awry & a menu

Let me start by saying that nothing I had planned for today went quite according to plan. But that’s fine! Because far be it from me to only carpe the diems that go according to plan, right? Turns out, today has been awesome and as I type that sentence it’s barely halfway over. Today and I are buddies.

I spent almost two hours cutting, pressing, and pinning fabric pieces for some really cool gift projects before discovering my machine was busted. Womp-womp.
Before things turned around, I spent almost two hours cutting, pressing, and pinning fabric pieces for some sewing projects before discovering my machine was busted. Womp-womp.

After a weirdly frustrating morning of obstacles (like pent up energy from preparing for a long run that never happened then working on sewing projects before discovering a busted sewing machine) and rainy day cabin fever (although yes I most definitely appreciate the rain), my friend Marci agreed to meet me in Oklahoma City for lunch. It has been ten thousand years since just she and I were able to meet for lunch, and I loved every minute of it. We consumed the most beautiful food Panera has to offer, and we chatted efficiently in that condensed-soup girlfriend catch-up style.

490 calories of yum
490 calories of yum and nutrition (eat the rainbow!)

After lunch I stopped at a cheap but ritzy grocery store there, which I don’t frequent much because it’s basically forty five minutes away from the farm. I bought everything on my list and then some, including some freshly fire-roasted hatch chile peppers. Not a case of the beautiful things as you see below, just a 99-cent zippered baggie of them. Still, a treasure.

My new best friends. Sorry Marci!
My new best friends. Sorry Marci!

You guys.

The smell of peppers roasting in that big tumbler in the parking lot on a rainy day… The smoky, throaty fragrance in the air-conditioned store… Then the spicy cloud of mouthwatering goodness in the cab of my truck as I drove home… So intoxicating. I am such a sucker for good smells.

So anyway. Time with Marci and a leisurely trip to the grocery store helped me reset. I finished my in-the-city errands and made it home. The groceries are unpacked and all the animals are checked on and the last bit of laundry has been folded.

So now, the fun part… Writing our menu for the upcoming week.

Do you love this task as much as I do? I mean, of course you take a rough-draft menu and shopping list with you to the store, right? But while you’re browsing the aisles don’t you ever see something on sale or get inspired by a display and tweak things a little? Of course you do! Me too.

For example, these fire-roasted hatch chile peppers changed everything. The zippered baggie is marked “H” because I brought home the hot stuff.

friday groceries

So for Friday 5 at the Farm, here are some recipes I am really excited to make for us in the coming days. More than one of them includes my new treasure.

1. Chile Rellenos! Add homemade salsa from garden tomatoes and cream & cheddar cheeses, try ground Panko for crust.

2. Garlic-lemon baked salmon Serve with parmesean-roasted broccoli and a wild rice-quinoa mix.

3. Pasta night! Plain marinara for Handsome and vegetable-pesto sauce for me. Sweet Italian sausage, mozarella, and salad too.

4. Movie Night Nachos! Make with roasted peppers and shredded chicken, add salad.

5. Homemade pizza: Choose from grilled chicken, Canadian bacon/pineapple, pesto, Alfredo, olives, roasted veggies. Try whole wheat crust?

I also think these gorgeous peppers would be amazing in a frittata or as a burger sauce (look at this recipe by Katie!) or as a hot link topper… I probably need to go buy more.

These are perfectly delicious eaten plain, as is.
These are perfectly delicious eaten plain, as is.

Happy Friday, friends! Happy weekend to you. Happy life. I hope that even if things don’t go quite as you planned them, that you are surprised by something wonderful today and that you carpe this diem with great fervor. I also hope you eat well. Really well.

Thanks so much for checking in! Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow form some reading fun?

“Would you like-a-de-pepper?”
~Dana Carvey
XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

 

 

 

deep summer

For nearly a week now, every time I sit down to a clean, wordless draft page I freeze and cannot construct even one sentence. My eyes get too wide and my mouth goes dry and I am tempted to just delete this blog completely. Instead I click over to Facebook or scan Feedly to see what other people are saying. Or I shut everything down and read a book. It’s not that I have writer’s block, whatever that is; it’s that there is just so much happening in my life right now, both the internal, unseen stuff and the vibrant, flesh and blood thrumming relationships and the dirt and hooves goings on of our farm, that I scarcely know where to start. Where to dive in. How to begin unraveling the messy, twisted, knotted pile of different colored yarns that make up my life lately.

Last weekend my baby girl turned eighteen. That is a wonderful, amazing thing, truly a gift, but because of our family circumstances right now I have no idea how to write about it, except to say that my heart bursts with pride and withers in pain and bursts and withers over and over again, daily. I wrote for her and about her a hundred or so times and deleted everything. But my gosh, you know, it’s not all about me, even though mine is the only story I can tell accurately and with full permission. We’ve been through that.

So not writing about that has kept me from writing about anything else. Nothing else is as important except for her sister, anyway, and by the way her life story is taking more fascinating turns every week. If a moment arises where I feel unprepared or unworthy, I have to stop and say thank you because nothing here is abnormal. It’s all I’ve been asking for for years.

This is where I have sometimes had to read my own messages again about worry and faith. Prayer and positive focus. No doubt in my ribs and belly, these messages are sent to me first, for me. I realize that sounds goofy.

The hours between 6 and 8 each evening are the most gilded, most stilling, of the day.
The hours between 6 and 8 each evening are the most gilded, most stilling, of the day.

Everyone around us is geared up for a new school year, posting photos of newly sprouted, suntanned children in crisp new clothes, parents either bemoaning the end of summer or celebrating a quiet house that can finally be cleaned in the daytime. Meanwhile I am working to keep the small veggie garden producing and the animals happy in the heat and humidity. I am paying better attention to the flower beds in anticipation of a our niece’s outdoor wedding here in just a few weeks. And I am running hot, early morning miles and swimming every chance I get. Here at the farm, summer isn’t over until the pool closes and I have to wear a jacket to run. From the looks of things, we have several weeks remaining. This is good.

Have I told you yet that we bid adieu to two llamas? Romulus returned to his original home with Dean and Maribeth (thank you, friends!) and has already adjusted well to his guard post there. Dulcinea has a new home with the cousin of our transport and hay farming friend Billy, and that new home has a pond which I know she must love. Dulcie is a swimmer. We miss them both of course, but the purpose of this change was to bring our two horses home to graze freely in the middle and back fields. Previously, the horses and llamas could not mix at all. Lots of violence. So this has been bittersweet but ultimately wonderful. The youngest of the three llamas, Meh, still lives here at the W, and he and the horses have adapted to each other splendidly. This is all very, very good news for lots of reasons.

Meh frequently seeks kisses from the pup but never quite connects.
Meh frequently seeks kisses from the pup but never quite connects. Pardon the manure you see there. Middle field clean up is on the agenda for Thursday.

Also on the happy animal-integration front, Klaus our new German Shepherd puppy is learning more every day about appropriate animal relationships. He shows measured restraint with the buffalo, unbridled passion with the barn cats, and a dangerous sort of are-you-or-aren’t-you-a-stuffed-toy? curiosity with the smallest chickens. Our days and evenings are infinitely more fun with Klaus here. My Facebook friends have been very kind, indulging me with love on every photo of him I post. He is one hundred percent the best farm dog in the history of farm dogs anywhere on this planet. And he is already almost too big to sit in my lap, but yesterday I did manage to teach him to drive a stick shift. The Jeep is plenty roomy enough.

We had so much fun! And afterwards he had the hiccups.
We had so much fun! And afterwards he had the hiccups.

Things are good. I am catching my breath emotionally, having just realized I’d been holding it for a while. And working and playing and carpeing every diem to the best of my ability. Sometimes this includes an afternoon siesta on the deck.

hay

Are you happy we are midway through August? What does that even look like in your life? August used to be so hectic, so blistering hot and uncomfortable, such a month of transition. I am looking around now, happy to see that actually it is a month full of more of all my favorite stuff. Some extra challenges. But mostly? Overwhelming peace and hope. And so many beautiful sunsets.

“Deep Summer is when laziness finds respectability.”
~Sam Keen
XOXOXO

 

 

worry door cracked open

This is the door to our smoke house, which is actually more of a garden shed right now. The door was salvaged from a century-old Land Run house in northwestern Oklahoma, a property belonging to my husband’s family. I fell in love with the chipped milk paint (original, not fashioned in a trendy boutique), the heft of the door, the memories attached. Its hinges are rusted and the window opening is only covered by hand pleated drop cloth fabric stapled on, a band aid really, but it’s beautiful to me. I love how ivy grows around it and how it creaks and swells with rain. How difficult it is to open and close. You have to kinda lift and scoot it. At the threshold, mud collects and sometimes we find snakes and scorpions.

worry door

Most doors are easy to open and close. That’s the nature of most doors, to be used and used easily and often. But we barely use this outbuilding, at least not on a daily basis, so having a cumbersome but beautiful door here is fine.

Speaking of doors that aren’t supposed to open much…

Do you remember the Worry Door? The vision I had almost exactly three years ago of the big, thick door that was forcibly (but lovingly) sealed shut against a room containing all of my worst fears? Well, something strange and wonderful has been evolving here lately. The Worry Door has been cracking open, only to be either pushed shut in a spongy, gentle way (like we do this antique wooden door with the muddy scorpion-rich threshold) or maybe, sometimes, left just barely ajar.

Weird, right? After so many lessons on keeping it locked shut, no matter what?

Well, in the time since my first hard lesson that worry is wrong, I have been on a spiritual and emotional roller coaster. I’ve learned a lot not just about the direction to worry not and only trust but also about my own personal strengths and weaknesses, my own propensities and, honestly, addictions to negative thinking.

And you know something? I have made a ton of progress. I have literally broken my addiction to negative thinking, and now I kind of have a healthy aversion to it. When I am in the company of people who cannot resist bitterness or anger or something similar, I get itchy. My vision narrows and turns inward to sort of protect myself, you know? Like a filter. My heart can feel some fear but now I deal with it swiftly. My mind can be aware of horrible possibilities but sort through them and take action instead of simmering in awfulness and poisoning my reality. I’m learning how to magnetize for amazing things, not terrible.

For these changes I am so deeply grateful.

The reason it is now safe for me to sometimes leave the worry door cracked open is that I have learned how to funnel that previously dangerous energy into prayer and allow a healthy amount of fear to fuel my days instead of douse them. Does that make sense? This is such a far cry from how life was before the Worry Door vision. The world is expanding, in really tangible ways and in beautifully abstract ones, to so many possibilities. Imagination, prayers, faith, and exponential growth. Love is ruling everything, even the cracked open doors.

We have a lot going on in life, a whole lot of really heavy stuff that never makes it to this blog. Private struggles, family issues, church problems, seriously life altering stuff that Handsome and I never thought we would face. As cathartic as writing can be, I have so far felt like sharing most of it here is just not appropriate. We barely even discuss most of this stuff with our closest friends and loved ones, because we know by now that only prayer and trust will change anything. Talking about problems tends to grow them, you know? Still, some people know a little about what we are dealing with, and occasionally a well meaning friend will ask me a question like, “Well have you heard from…? How long has it been now?” And when I answer truthfully the look of shock or maybe disappointment in me as a person is pretty hurtful. Or maybe, in an incredulous tone, someone challenges me, “Well what if (this) happens? What will you do? What is your legal recourse? Aren’t you gong to do anything?” Surely from the outside some people may think me apathetic by taking less action than they would in my situation, but they don’t see how firmly I am trusting God. How excited I am by what is coming.

Maybe they don’t see that praying and believing is doing.

Yep, I know this sounds a little vague and for that I’m sorry, but it’s just an example of how your Worry Door can be cracked open by someone else. Despite your best efforts, sometimes other people will very nearly insist that you fret over stuff. They mean it with love, usually. They want what they perceive to be the best thing for you. Okay. And sometimes they could be projecting their own fear onto you. Trying to find solutions ahead of time in case the same tragedy befalls them later. That’s human nature. Don’t waste energy being mad about this, and please don’t let it end any otherwise good friendships; just learn how to field it.

One more thought, then I will leave you to your beautiful Sunday: Yoga has been a useful tool in this journey. Often in a sequence, the instructor of choice will offer advice to just acknowledge a toxic thought and let it pass. Spending too much energy resisting or battling opposition can sometimes heighten the threat. Instead, combat these moments with a flood of positive thought. Replace the What if this horrible thing happens with What if this amazing thing happens? Try that for a while and see if your outlook improves.

Love is far more powerful that you are by yourself. Learn to tap into the power of prayer and faith and stop relying on your own muscles to hold this door shut.

Deep breath. Balance. Center. Clear mind. Peaceful heart. Trust that Love is in control of everything and faith can move mountains.

XOXOXOXO