Greetings you sweet, creative, thinky people! How has your fresh new week started out? Are you off and running, pouring your momentum and energy into every task and whistling while you work? Or are you dragging a little, running a bit rougher than you would like? Or maybe somewhere in between? I don’t mind saying that I hit the ground running today, both literally and figuratively.

   After a few days last week spent actively resisting sadness and then mindlessly eating too many bowls of indulgent pasta, today was a healthier, happier day. I traded sweet notes with my baby girl on Saturday, her seventeenth birthday, and now she and I are looking forward to some time alone, hopefully very soon. I have tucked a few long, sweaty runs under my belt; and this coming week is filled with unusual and very exciting opportunities.  (I’ll be sharing some of this with you!)

   On top of it all, our weather in Oklahoma has shifted ever so slightly. The late evenings are cool, and the early mornings are downright crisp. Our afternoons have been sunny and warm enough to collect a few rays on my bare legs and shoulders, but they are no longer murderously hot. These are the sublime days. The days between summer and autumn, the days when at any moment you can turn off the air conditioner and shove open every window in the house. The days when horses nap with their bellies open to the sky instead of hiding beneath the cooling shelter of cypress trees. Even the herbs are responding to our friendlier atmosphere…

   So I’m feeling pretty good. Great, actually. Despite some recent disappointments in life and ongoing challenges in several areas, Handsome and I feel so blessed. I am more grateful than ever for good friends who care and who offer nourishing little bits of wisdom and encouragement when it is needed most. For others who laugh with us so hard that we forget ever not laughing. I am so grateful for this constant river of inspiration that somehow speeds along inevitable grief. Life at the moment is bursting at the seams with opportunities for growth, improvement, and comfort. Do you feel that too? There is something in the distance, but something wonderful.

   At a garage sale over the weekend, I snagged for exactly one dollar a framed oil painting of a garden door.   Believe it or not (I hope you do believe me) it is the spitting image of one of the ways that Worry Door appeared to me almost two weeks ago. I now have the painting propped up on my writing desk, gently reminding me to keep that door closed.

   As I close up this afternoon to move on to life’s next skinny little chapter, I am expecting some good news for my parents and little sister. I am trusting that my girls, my human chickens, feel the best of everything along with me. I have confidence in my husband and his future.And I crave Nutella like nobody’s business.

“My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.”
~Edmund Waller*
xoxoxoxo

*Edmund Waller was a seventeenth century English poet and member of Parliament.

   So did anyone notice the little egg counter over there creep up and pass the 800 goal? A couple of days ago I collected “the“egg plus a few more, then yesterday Handsome and I ate them for brunch along with orange segments and some toasted and heavily buttered homemade English muffin bread. YUM. Egg #804 was as delish as all the others.

   Well, this morning I was in the barn raking hay off a large bale for breakfast for the buffalo and horses, when my steel rake hit something hard. Clink! I climbed up and reached around (foolish, perhaps, as it could have been anything. Like maybe a snake. A metal snake?) But my hand felt a nest of cold eggs!

   So here in this photo we have eggs #805-808. Of course, the rake did some damage to one of these little liquid-chickens-in-a-package, so it was promptly donated back to the hens who have already devoured the extra protein.

We love our chickens!

   Okay! So it’s time for that custom apron set giveaway! Please feel free to comment here or on Facebook or Twitter. A few fine readers have already thrown their names into the hat on Facebook, which is awesome! The more the merrier, and enter as often as you like. I’ll do a drawing this evening.

   The winner will receive a complimentary custom apron with coordinating dish towel! Aaaannnddd…  everyone else who enters will receive a 25% discount on a Green Goose Textiles purchase, just in time for the upcoming baking season!

   Have a beautiful Sunday everyone. In our corner of paradise, the sun is sparkling and the air is cool. Love is breathing deeply and keeping us on track.

“Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul:

where there is compassion 

even the most

poisonous impulses 

remain relatively harmless.”

~Eric Hoffer

Be Compassionate. Everyone Needs It.
Including Chickens Whose Babies We Eat.
xoxoxo

   Today was strange. I read a lot, but not all books, certainly not all books I had decided were nourishing and worth my time. I thought and ruminated longer and harder than I planned to and went for an overly emotional run in the back field. I enjoyed a spontaneous lunch in town with my Momma. Then I went shopping for new vitamins, did some window shopping for my first born chicken’s upcoming birthday, and met Handsome at home for a sleepy and affectionate afternoon.

This beautiful baby will be seventeen on Saturday. When I look at her sweet face or think of the time that has passed, I cannot breathe.

   But tomorrow is Friday, an excellent day to extinguish that staleness! My lists are plentiful and always growing and shifting, just like space and time, but I am lucky blessed enough to have all the resources to accomplish whatever I decide is important. Maybe not every single thing I conceive, but surely every single thing to which I actually apply myself  What is that saying we all have been seeing on the site that rhymes with Zenterest?

   
   That is the crux, isn’t it? Deciding what should fall away, what is nothing more than a distraction or an outright attack.

 
   Resisting the pull of that door to the Worry Room, swimming strongly through the waves of pain and challenging emotions without succumbing to the old downward spiral.

   Looking up when the habit of staring inward becomes unproductive. Seeking beauty and surrounding ourselves with it, celebrating it in all of its intricate and surprising incarnations. These are the actions that replace the slippery, dangerous ones. These keep me out of the Worry Room and back on track, doing more than just whittling down lists of projects. These positive habits keep me in the business of building life and cultivating joy.

   Thanks for listening to me ramble! I just needed a little pep talk tonight, to be ready for a big, rich, textured day tomorrow! I hope you are closing up your week with a healthy perspective to match a satisfying routine. I hope you feel loved and are finding ways every day to show it. I hope you can look up and know you are seen and heard.

Oblah-Di, Oblah-dah!
xoxoxoxo

   One of my very favorite things about having this little farm is raising chickens. (Poultry-chicken is what I’m talking about today, not human chickens, although what a dream come true that would be!) The hens and roosters look so cool strutting and dancing around the yard. Their many, varied sounds are complex and beautiful. They control the worst of the bugs and most of the snakes. They contribute to the compost heap generously.

   Few are the people who eat a farm fresh, free range egg and still prefer to buy the thin, watery, comparatively anemic eggs from the grocery store. These are just so big and heavy and rich and flavorful, and most people who seem to know about such things say that farm fresh eggs are significantly more nutritious, too.

   Sometimes we find eggs that are even bigger than the normal giants we collect every day…