Lazy W Marie

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

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soul cake

Hello, happy first weekend of December! Long time no blog, haha. That’s getting to be the usual around here, but not for lack of things to share or writing urges. Evolution is in the air, though, and I am happy about it. Blogging will pick back up in time.

A good portion of my week has been spent up in the Apartment, sewing aprons and towel sets, organizing Christmas gifts, making yarn crafts, and playing a not-low-key-enough game of fetch with Klaus. Between tasks we chase each other back and forth along the length of the second story and up and down the stairs. We have wrecked many a laundry basket and more than a few framed paintings on the wall in the hot pursuit of slobbery tennis balls. His slobber, to be clear, not mine. Okay.

These hours immersed in creative projects have been so nourishing. My thoughts are clicking into place. My physical energy is adjusting from slightly obsessive marathon training back to a steadier, stronger norm. And I have lots of beautiful textiles to show for the time.

This was a fun custom order!
This was a fun custom order.

The soundtrack of this past week has been mostly Sting Christmas music. One of the best songs kind of sums up life lately. Soul Cake. Do you recognize it? Please go give it a listen.

Soul cake, soul cake, please good missus a soul cake.

An apple a pear a plum or a cherry,

Any good thing to make us all merry.

I actually feel like we have been feasting on Soul Cake for weeks. Life has taken a delicious turn, and we feel nourished far beyond even the good done by a few days in the Apartment.

Thanksgiving with my family was beautiful. Aunt Marion and Uncle John hosted us locals, including sweet Grandpa Stubbs. My sister Angela was with us, such an answer to hopes and prayers. The nieces (when did they get so tall and skinny?) kept everyone entertained and stocked up on cuddles. As always the food and surroundings were perfect. We feasted and laughed and healed each other a little and made a thousand sparkling memories. We wrapped each other with love. It was an excellent beginning to a long, cozy winter.

My Grandpa the gardener and humorist, with his baby girl (my Mom) and his firstborn (Aunt Marion).
My Grandpa the gardener and humorist, with his baby girl (my Mom) and his firstborn (Aunt Marion).

 

Handsome keeping Kenzie out of reach of some intense romping from pup Sadie, seen here embraced by Chloe, freshly eleven.
Handsome keeping Kenzie out of reach of some intense romping from pup Sadie, seen here embraced by Chloe, freshly eleven.

 

I feel like this photo will go down in infamy.
I predict this photo will go down in infamy.

The Soul Cake feast began before that, too. Handsome and I managed to spend a few precious days in Estes Park with our oldest, maybe my fifth trip to visit since she moved there but Handsome’s first. Every minute with her is worth a hundred written pages. She makes us proud and happy, and we cherish the opportunity to see the world through her eyes. That quick weekend also gave us a good appetite for winter and all the wintry holidays. (But let’s not talk about extreme altitude sickness, which is apparently very real. I discovered the depth of this particular despair for the first time on this last trip and hope to never experience it again.)

We spent a frigid but sunny afternoon walking and playing at Lily Lake. She is in her element here. Can't you tell? xoxo
We spent a frigid but sunny afternoon walking and playing at Lily Lake. She is in her element here. Can’t you tell? xoxo

I often fall asleep saying thank you thank you thank you for so many things. From our marriage and family to my husband’s career and my own secret aspirations, from health and well-being to finances, and every little thing in between, life is amazing. So many answered prayers, miracles of every shape and size, unexpected blessings, and innumerable joys. Even the remaining heartache is so clearly encased in the glow of hope and faith that it barely casts a shadow. This is not one of those fake it till you make it seasons. It’s a bright, hard-won time for celebrating. And we intend to seize it.

God bless the master of this house

and the mistress also

and all the little children,

that round your table grow.

Soul cake is everything around us lately. The food we eat, the people who love us, the work we are lucky to do. Soul Cake is time and energy and reading material and music. Movie nights, cowboy parades, Santa sightings, and twinkling light displays. Scriptures, traditions, desperate prayers answered beyond our wildest dreams. It is all abundant for us, for our children, for the generations before us. Our friends are Soul Cake for us and we hope to be theirs.

Nourished in all these way, fed heavily on Soul Cake, the Christmas spirit comes easily. On this first weekend of December I am already effervescent and relaxed. Giddy, really.

bedspring-ornaments-c

Stockyards City Christmas Parade. One of our favorite traditions...xoxo Check out those longhorns!
Stockyards City Christmas Parade. One of our favorite traditions…xoxo Check out those longhorns!

We were talking this morning about the sustainability of Christmas traditions. We were between donuts in our pajamas and the Christmas parade in Stockyard City, and the radio ads were full speed ahead with materialism. I am feeling the exact opposite of worried about that. Because the extra nonsense always falls away in its own time. We are healthy and strong in our Souls, because of all the Cake, and that’s what matters.

donuts-c

We hope that you’ll be kind

with your apple and your pear,

and we’ll come no more a-soulin’

till Christmastime next year.

How is your winter starting out? Are you feeling hopeful and confident, or do you need a heavy helping of what nourishes you? Either way, I wish you all the very best. We have plenty Soul Cake to share if you need some.

Happiest of Decembers, friends.

If you haven’t got a penny
a ha’ penny will do.
if you haven’t got a ha’ penny
then God bless you.
XOXOXOXO

 

what to talk about at the holidays

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, friends! Are you reading this only because you are taking a break between pie recipes and adding one more flavor to the turkey brine? Is your apron dusted with flour and are your fingers sticky from lemon juice and Karo syrup?

Is your home filled with travelers and kids out of school, or are you home from the office and soaking up the quiet? Uh oh, are you at the grocery store right now? I’ll light a candle for you. My favorite local spot this afternoon was a bustling, happy place; but I can only imagine things will deteriorate gradually hour by hour. Ha.

However you are spending this beautiful evening, I hope you are happy and feeling loved. Truly. I am thankful for you and have love to spare because it has been heaped upon me.

fireplace-boys-c

Already late November. And in Oklahoma our weather only just cooled down, my chartreuse sweet potato vines only turned black two days ago, so the suddenness of the calendar is mixed with the weird anti-climax feeling like summer just ended, sort of, but also in a far away dream? Our autumns here are not like other autumns. They are elusive and indecisive.

pumpkins-nov-2016-c

New topic. I need to prepare for something and hope you’ll join in, maybe help me:

Is it funny-not-funny to anyone else that we are thrust into the holiday season immediately following such a pivotal and hotly contested election season? LOL. I mean, I’m not really LOL-ing, but I’m trying.

And it is definitely not that I have any disdain for the holidays. I treasure each of them. It’s the election and all the fallout that have me wound up. And at the holidays we spend time with people we don’t see very often. People we love, of course, or else why would we gather? But the relatively (no pun intended) brief gatherings can be a bit risky. We don’t necessarily have that smooth, easy, conversational rhythm set in place, you know? There is often a little rust that needs kicking off. And Thanksgiving dinner is just the beginning of about seven weeks of celebrating.

Cut to the chase: Either people agree on hot topics and can openly discuss them in safety and commiseration; or people disagree and get into fights, clinging to beliefs over bonds. God forbid either of these happens when people are wildly inebriated. I get nervous just thinking about the fallout of a political “debate” rising up like black crude in the otherwise verdant wildflower meadow of a family gathering.

To further this ridiculous metaphor, I guess it could be true that political discussions are nourishing to our families, like oil to our modern society, but MY GOSH it scares me. I vote for the meadow, ok?

Here’s the opposite extreme: I also don’t want to waste our precious time with family and friends time skirting so delicately around key topics that we only manage small talk. That’s weak.

There has to be a safe, beautiful, fruitful middle ground. There’s an ocean between these two dangerous extremes, right? Can we swim there happily, exchange some ideas and make some memories without hurting each other? I sure hope so.

I would like to tell you how sorry I am for all these mixed metaphors but really tomorrow we will start mixing foods, so oh well. Ha.

Okay, here are some possible conversation alternatives:

  • Weather lately (easy)
  • Health issues (obvious)
  • What is the weirdest thing you saw on your travels to get there?
  • What food are you most excited about? Do you know the recipe’s origin story in our family? Which recipes do you have memorized from making so long?
  • Do you know anyone who skips the holidays or eschews tradition? (Our friend Maribeth serves her family steak on Thanksgiving and they love it! And I love her.)
  • The year is almost over. Tell each other all about how your 2016 goals and resolutions are going.
  • What plans do you already have for next year? What would you do if money were no object? What would you do if you could not spend any money?
  • What stands out for you this past year? What prayers were answered? What have you learned?
  • How would you improve the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade? Carte blanche!
  • Design a new reality show casting everyone sitting at your holiday dinner table. (WAIT nope, better scratch that idea, haha. Never mind on that one. Terrible terrible idea.)
  • What reality shows would you maybe be on?
  • Thinking of the Native Americans showing the Pilgrims how to grow crops in a new land, what culture around the world would you most like to learn from? And, if not turkey and mashed potatoes, what kind of feast would you like to explore?
  • What is your favorite Thanksgiving kids craft? What is the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen?
  • Talk about charity efforts or community events or light displays.
  • Debate Black Friday ethics.
  • Talk about football.
  • Books and movies, music specials, and where to hike.
  • Specifically Christmas movies! What are the best ones? What are the worst?
  • Favorite SNL cast member or skit?
  • Talk about how much we all love Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams.
  • See who has the best story to share about a holiday kitchen failure.
  • Debate whether to let your food touch or not.

It goes without saying that for these family gatherings especially, but always, our hearts should be firmly set on gratitude. Drop expectations of each other and look for the best to shine through. It usually does. Resist the urge to compare and fish for conflict or hurt feelings. Feed the common ground you have, and it will only grow stronger. Show appreciation for each other, memorize each other’s faces, be sure your voice spreads only Love.

(I am telling myself all of this stuff, ok?)

Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope your celebration is everything you and your people need it to be. Please let me know how you plan to navigate things.

My favorite SNL skit is where Paul Simon and Victoria Jackson
smelt Christmas gifts on a desert island.
And I have had so many prayers
answered this year it’s not even fair.
XOXOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm: nourished

Hi friends, happy Friday! Lots has been happening, as always, and I am remiss in sharing a thousand great stories and photos with you. Life continues to be full to bursting with beauty and surprises around every corner.

For now, for Friday, let’s pause to notice the things that have been nourishing us, the features of average daily life that keep us going day to day, task to task. Are you game? Here are five of mine, lately. I would really love to hear what has been fueling all of your grand adventure and such, too. 

1. SOUP. I am really in deep over soup right now, maybe even more so than salad, which is saying a lot. My favorite ones to make at home involve lots of chicken broth and chicken and maybe lentils, some raw kale, a squeeze of lemon, twist my arm over half an avocado why don’t you. My favorite ones at restaurants lately have been this chicken Florentine potion (So creamy! So much celery!) and one gloriously plain and satisfying cauldron filled with clam chowder. Here in Oklahoma we are barely cold enough for soup yet, really, but every chance I get it’s happening. Makes me feel so great deep in my bones.

2. NATURE, always and forever, especially views like these…

view

lily-lake

3. TIME with my people. Romantic getaways with Handsome, quick caring afternoons with girlfriends, nighttime walks and long sunshine talks with my daughter, Face-timing with my sister-in-law and newborn nephew, meaningful conversations with my best friend (Handsome again), extended cuddles with my dog. (Yeah for sure he counts as one of my people.)

hike-w-joc-bridge-lily-lake-nov-2016

4. STORIES like that of Jesse Owens. Have you seen the movie Race? Friends, it’s so great. In fact, may I strongly suggest that you watch it with your family this holiday season. We all need some balm on our hearts. Agreed? His story is told beautifully in this film. And not for nothing that it’s about running, okay?

5. THANKS and all the amazing energy that flows from the giving of it. Gratitude is a trans-formative force, lest we ever forget. I have lately been enjoying a ribbon of happiness thanks to, well, thankfulness. The more you rest your mind on your blessings, the more you show your appreciation, the more you mean it, the better. I think soup helps with this, as does spending time in nature and with your people. So do great, inspirational, true stories; they give us hope on so many levels.

Pretty great little cooperative effort we have here.

What is nourishing you these days?

“I consider that all which lives must feed itself and nourish itself
in a manner suitable to the way in which it lives.”
~Giordano Bruno
XOXOXOXO

early november saturday reading links

As I offer you these links to browse, and I hope you do so at a leisurely pace while drinking your favorite Saturday morning hot beverage, I am on a mandatory rest thanks to strep throat. After sleeping eleven hours last night I don’t feel like resting; I feel like being up doing stuff. Buy my husband insists. So at least I have more time for reading at a leisurely pace and sipping my favorite coffee and later gulping homemade soup, right?

Okay then let’s make that soup filled with chicken and kale and ginger and garlic. Because I forgot to buy more acorn squash, again. Oh! Maybe some pumpkin or lentils in the soup? Maybe. For now, this morning, perfect dark coffee. Maybe some cream. And antibiotics.

Shall we?

Over at Hither and Thither we find a succinct and elegant commentary on a New York Times Magazine article about the freedom that comes with minimalism, sort of. The author of Narrow Down Your Sense of Need draws a distinction between sailing around the world (physically) and sailing through it (spiritually). I loved this so much. Maybe it’s a lesson we all need to refresh once in a while, and of course it grooves me these days as Handsome and I strive make the farm literally less cluttered.

But it occurs to me that narrowing down one’s sense of need for external validations and affirmations could be another way to think about how to access freedom.

Somehow while sewing aprons on Thursday I stumbled onto a series of lectures by a group called Healthcare Triage. I listened to maybe twenty in a row, of varying lengths, and became smitten by their pairing of process-heavy research, casual but helpful explanations, and some pretty funny skepticism. In a world noisy with buzzwords, this information source was a breath of fresh air. Rather than point you to a specific article or video, I just want to introduce you to the whole shebang. If you are a wellness junkie like me but crave more fact-backing and less corporate sponsorship, then this might be worth your time.

The next link was brought to my attention on Facebook when a dear friend posted it and I unwittingly entered a barely heated exchange. I have been thinking of both the article and the fallout ever since and would love to hear more people’s opinions. The 30-Day Relationship Revitalization Plan. I will resist framing it too much and just let you read it for yourself. Please feel free to email me if you’d rather keep your opinions private.

The title of this Minnesota Public Radio article caught my attention, then its short content just raised more interesting questions. The statistics just made me want to read more, but more of what I already read. Not so much poetry. Literature Reading Rates Down.

You know by now that I have the biggest girl crush on Joy the Baker, and it’s not not because she lives in the most magical city ever. Really, the two just fit each other to my thinking. I am excited for her new cookbook to release, and I am really excited about her Bakehouse announcement! The interior decor here is spot on, and how amazing to open your home to students and readers. Very cool. Very cool indeed.

forever new orleans

Have you seen this documentary yet? Sugarcoated. A lot of it will feel familiar, but many of the statistics are new and get extra credit for being disturbing. (All eyes on liver disease in kids who never drink alcohol.) I am paying close attention to my sugar intake not just for fat loss but also because eating it so often makes me feel weird. My mom was diagnosed with diabetes just a few years ago, so it has my attention. I mean I still want a perfect, steaming, complicated homemade cookie now and then. Please make sure it’s oatmeal-chocolate-chip with crushed walnuts or pecans, and please bring me cold milk. Otherwise, yeah let’s pay attention to our sugar intake for many good reasons.

Speaking of sweet stuff…

At a recent beekeepers’ club meeting in Noble, OK, I heard some folks talking about the winter forecast, about how mild it promises to be, and how that’s more or less good news for our fuzzy little ladies-not-of-leisure. The Farmers’ Almanac agrees, and so far Oklahoma weather is holding steady. I just yesterday bought a few fall plants on clearance (what few they had left), and it still feels too early. This does make being outside nice, though.

30 Thoughts Runners Have at the Grocery Store. “I’m so virtuous!” Ha. Yep. Also, bring on the kale.

Side note: I had approximately nine more running article to share with you guys but decided to have mercy.

Okay, Klaus’ brother Lincoln has spent a couple of nights with us at the farm, and those two big German Shepherds plus one husband are beckoning for a cuddle. I hope you have a wonderful Saturday filled with great reading and zero strep throat germs. Send me a link or a new book title!

“Rest and be thankful.”
~William Wadsworth
XOXOXO

 

 

 

friday 5 at the farm: random updates

Hello, and happy November! We are on the verge of the first weekend of a brand new month. How are you spending it? Around here we have been waist deep in another round of farm improvements ranging from interior paint and clutter management to relocated fences and garden editing. The to-do list seems to regenerate overnight, growing longer and more urgent all the time, but so do the rewards. The fruits of our two-person labor are more luscious and nourishing all the time. The Lazy W feels more and more like ours every season.  

moody-sky-novemebr-2016

How about a quick and random update before the sun comes up?

  1. Shoulder Chicken is growing her feathers again. I am so happy about this, because she has a beautiful soul and deserves to have the outer beauty to match. Also, one day this week she bolted out of the chicken coop to sit calmly next to Klaus, who (much to my absolute shock) sat calmly next to her. They both just looked at me, him giant and hulking, terrified of gazing downward, and her microscopic next to that big dog, yet afraid of nothing. I scolded her gently, to which she cocked her pretty head and scampered back inside the coop yard. Silly chicken. Klaus was visibly relieved to have the temptation removed and also overly proud of himself for not accidentally murdering anyone in that moment.
  2. We are due for a winter stock up of hay for the horses, and they are letting me know. Last night Chanta nibbled my ponytail until he fell asleep on the back of my neck. Should I take this as a comment on the abundance of my split ends?
    chanta-ponytail-bites
  3. Moody interiors are my favorite lately. I have been organizing books and rearranging artwork downstairs and kind of groove the interim feel of everything propped against the walls or stacked in cozy piles on the couch. The vibe is definitely “mysterious elegant French Quarter book store.” It begs you to brew some dark coffee, sit among the pillows, and write. 
  4. The gardens are cleaned up and ready for fall plants, but it just does not feel like fall yet. So I have waited not just all of September but also all of October and not added so much as a single pansy to our dirt. What remains is still fluffy and colorful (all hail lantana!!); but I do crave some autumnal details. One of my tasks today is to buy some little treasures to go with my one container of ornamental cabbages, a hostess gift from our friend Ashley. 
  5. The Apartment is once again serving well as the sewing room! I have my sewing and embroidery machines dusted off and humming, and a pile of fabric is washed and pressed and ready to be transformed into fun new garments or aprons. If you try hard enough you can find a “shop” page here on this blog, but it’s vacant so far. As I finish more products not spoken for I will work on making that easier to navigate and let you know. These textiles make really nice gifts!
    apron

Lots more is happening, including plenty of interesting stuff at the Commish and in the beekeeping world, also I might have strep throat?? but those things deserve their own posts. And anyway the sun is up now, time to get going. I wish you the most beautiful Friday and a happy, productive, or restful first weekend of the new month… Whatever you most need it to be!

“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.”
~Henry James
XOXOXO