Lazy W Marie

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

You are here: Home / 2017 / Archives for February 2017

Archives for February 2017

will I ever blog again & it’s fine

Stuff is crazy, man. Life is full to bursting, in the coolest and scariest ways, and by that I mean only the very best, most nourishing and fulfilling ways. Trust and gratitude, gratitude and trust. It’ll all be fine.

Day after day I have ideas of things that need writing. Most days I sketch them in the nearest spiral notebook and sometimes jam out a few sentences on Facebook, but the full depth and breadth and height of life will never be captured this way.

klaus kale shirt happy C

Even when I want to sit and spend the sunrise hours writing, it’s really time to feed the animals, play fetch with Klaus, drink my last cup of quite strong perfect coffee, make the beds (ours is a two-bedroom marriage now, it’s cool like being bi-coastal but together), start some laundry, scoop some manure into the compost, and BAM it’s finally time to lace up and run some miles. Preferably before my stomach starts growling obscenely and I cave and eat breakfast first. Fasted miles are my favorite.

Also, am I losing weight? Getting speedier? Slimming down or not? Do people care, should I blog about that journey? I don’t know.

It’s fine.

This morning I ran at the farm. Our sandy hills are doing their very best to dry out from all the glorious early spring rain, but they are still quite slick and mushy. Lost in thought, about halfway through mile three, my toe caught a slick tree root and somehow I fell up in the air instead of straight down to the ground. My mind commanded to my body, “Go limp! Go limp!” and my body obeyed. Not only did I go limp; I managed, at the apex of this weird tumble, to twist myself so that in a slow-motion moment I landed on my cush posterior, facing the sky. I just laid there looking at the pulsing blue, relaxed because I luckily had the presence of mind, mid-twist, to hit pause on my Garmin. Pace records are suddenly very important to me. Apparently as important as not crashing my porcelain teeth on a slab of red rock. Or this steel pipe gate pictured below. Anyway it was a very Matrix-James Bond moment for me, and the only damage was some damp red earth scuffing my clean white compression socks. My posterior is unharmed, as are my porcelain front teeth, etcetera.

forest gate C

Then midday, my friend Amber visited the farm for the first time, and we had the best real conversation. In less than an hour we dove deep and swam easily through topics like sex education for young women, honesty and transparency in the coming of age, marriage and how men apologize differently than women, motherhood, the importance of treasuring the exact chapter you’re in, how beautiful mundanity can be, smoking meats, and much more. I met Amber through beekeeping and learned that she practically lives around the corner from our farm, which happens so rarely I get quite excited when it does. I have the most wonderful feeling that she and I will be spending more happy time together this spring and summer.

My dog is in love with her. Awkwardly, I am afraid.

With what remains of today I plan to finish a small pile of ironing, sew one apron, and get a pork tenderloin started for a late supper. Then the chicken coop gets a serious cleaning and fresh supply of nesting straw and the middle field gets as many scrapes from my manure shovel as time will allow. More friends are visiting this afternoon, and I am pretty happy about that.

klaus cuddle sky C

The thing is, really, it’s fine. All those thoughts that swirl and pester us, the What-If needles, all the things that keep our hearts frothed up, they are under control. Let’s go ahead and relax. Enjoy the day whether it’s busy or mundane. Love your people. Say your prayers. Trust God with the stuff you cannot (and should not) control.

Blogging again soon, maybe. After Klaus is done snuggling my feet.

It’s better than fine. It’s perfect.
XOXOXOXO

 

 

the noticer (book review)

My dear old book club friend Melissa now works at the Commish with Handsome. She and another book-loving coworker Janice were recently discussing worthy reading titles within earshot of my guy and landed on something that was eventually loaned to me via my non-reading husband. That’s a lot of info you don’t really need. I do however want you to know all about the book itself.

Love you Melissa!
Love you Melissa!

Okay.

It’s called The Noticer and it’s written by Andy Andrews who is also apparently the well known author of The Traveler’s Gift and a widely celebrated corporate speaker.

This book is just 156 short, sweet, soothing pages of easy story telling. Nothing too cerebral. Nothing too terribly painful, though while reading my heartstrings were tugged plenty. (I only cried twice, which is not much for me.) The book is a nice spiritual refreshment but neither religious nor preachy. Motivational but not overbearingly so. I was hooked in the first few pages and immediately felt familiar strains from books like The Shack, A Return to Love, The Secret, a book by Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven), and more. Also, friends, my own story about the worry door.

I love echoes like these.

The Noticer message is all about perspective and how to adjust our own so that we see life and its problems and opportunities more clearly. More calmly. With greater capacity for love and growth. These are decent, useful things; and honing perspective is a skill that will serve us throughout life. As the book points out in various conversations, everyone is constantly in close relationship with crisis: We are either in crisis, headed for crisis, or recovering from it.  Have we not discussed that right here over and over again? And pretty recently? How comforting to remind each other that crisis is nothing special meant only for us, though it sometimes feels that way. Life is not about avoiding crises but about improving our perspective and coping skills so that we can live with more love and purpose.

The Noticer was, for me personally, a mellow touchstone for all these lessons I’ve been receiving about practicing gratitude. A brief exchange about two-thirds into the story has the fascinating main character, Jones, suggesting to a work-obsessed friend that upon waking each morning he spend ten minutes listing things in his life for which he is grateful. When I was about 28 years old my husband’s grandmother instructed me to do almost exactly the same thing. I started doing it then, and it was transformative. Even now, when I fail to physically write on paper my gratitude, just sitting quietly with my thoughts and expressing gratitude sets the tone for my day and relaxes all my tension. Sometimes I do this at night when I can’t sleep. Just using gratitude to adjust my perspective from worry to peace often puts me right into a deep, restful sleep. It’s amazing.

After all, our blessings far outweigh our problems. And focusing on them only magnifies them and magnetizes you for more of them. Don’t forget that.

Okay friends. I could sit with you and discuss this interesting, inspiring book for many hours. I hope Melissa reads it soon so we can meet for lunch and do exactly that. (hint hint lady!!) If you are looking for a quick, uplifting read, something to refresh your thinking without making you feel like you’ve just visited a church you don’t recognize, find The Noticer and let it gently suggest a better perspective. Easy peasy.

Your vision, my boy. It is incredibly cloudy at the moment, but I am certain we can clear a pathway from your head to your heart and into your future.

Thank you Melissa for thinking of me and Janice for the loan! I loved it.

Oh and by the way? Watch out for the garden seeds metaphor. You know I hated that. : )

“Keep your fork.
The best is yet to come.”
~Andy Andrews, The Noticer
XOXOXOXO

 

 

friday 5 at the farm: green goose garden goals

Hey friends, I cannot BELIEVE it’s Friday afternoon! Like not at all. I fell ill sometime Tuesday and have been in such a weird feverish daze ever since. It truly feels like I lost a whole week of life. Thank goodness Monday was crazy productive and that my husband is amazing. He did all the animal feeding and dishwasher loading Wednesday and Thursday and stocked us up on groceries and medicines, too, after some hellish office days. All I had to do was try to sleep and fight off coughing fits and not complain too much about sitting still. Pretty sweet deal.

For Friday 5 this week, I ran across this old snapshot that inspired a short list of gardening things on my mind. The little girl there with the round bare belly is me, having just harvested fresh carrots from my Mom’s garden in my childhood home. Those boys were neighborhood friends. And yes, for sure, in addition to gardening I have been hooked on patchy jeans and bleach blonde hair ever since. Also flip-flops.

baby gardener C

 

The 2017 Green Goose Gardens are already in process:

  1. Wider curving herb bed near the kitchen window, to accommodate multiples of each herb.
  2. More organized composting system (we finally have a grip on manure management).
  3. Three Sisters will grow out front along with watermelon, pumpkin, and sunflowers.
  4. I’m building a modest shade garden near the pool house.
  5. Overarching goal of producing all our own edibles plus lots of certain things to sell at the local market (Saturday mornings beginning in June). 

Number 5 is really the kicker, and of course it cooperates with all the rest, especially number 2. We have all winter been plotting and planning and setting aside both space and funds to make these things happen. I have been gradually relocating compost, one wheelbarrow at a time, from the middle horse field to the front field, with the goal of improving the soil texture there (right now it’s mostly sand). Handsome has been scheming fence reconfiguration, ordering seeds, and designing me a three-bin compost box. I have been reading and pod-casting up a storm, getting my brain filled with other people’s good-experience wisdom for small-scale, high-yield market farming. It’s so exciting.

What makes all of this seem more possible in 2017 compared to years past is a beautiful alchemy of life changes. One key element is that I have greatly reduced my outbound volunteering. I rarely leave the farm now to do anything other than errands for us, and I like it. I am more focused, my housework stays up to date (except when I am sick, like this week), and I have far more hours now to dive deeply into making this place more than nine lazy acres. We feel like the W will be coming into her own soon, and it’s thrilling.

Yay for so many mild January days that gave us a head start on spring! Looking at this list of five garden goals, I am so happy to know that each of them is well in motion. Oh and I started some lettuce trays today, so watch Instagram for seedling updates!

Happy weekend to you! Stay healthy! Grow something green!
XOXOXOXO

 

smack between two equinoxes

I recently finished a book Jocelyn gifted me, Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places by Bill Streever. The book was unlike anything I’ve read before, smoother than a documentary, more informative than a personal narrative, way more fun than a science textbook, and all of that together. I liked it.

Anyway, it’s about cold places, the cultures that grow there, the implications for the planet’s future, you name it. The book includes all kinds of fascinating lore and weather explanations from around the globe and all throughout history. It also more or less follows the calendar, telling stories month by month.

When the author gets to February he offers some anecdotes and little known facts about Candlemas Day, February 2nd, what we know now as Groundhog Day:

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
Winter will have another fight.
If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain,
Winter won’t come again.

I offer you this because apparently the groundhog saw his shadow this morning, and everyone thinks that means another long chapter of winter. But at least here in Oklahoma, the skies are dark and moody. No shadows! Also, consider that the Old Farmers’ Almanac predicts the next two months to bring us some moisture, possibly even snow, but overall above normal temps.

All of that and my irises are about four inches high already. So. For the mid-point between the winter solstice and the spring solstice, I’m optimistic.

even a false spring

Bring on spring.

XOXOXOXO