Happy happy happy Friday!! Oh man. What a Friday it has been around here, too. What a WEEK it has been!
As if being the first day of Spring AND a New Moon wasn’t enough, today we are enjoying this fantastic upswing in energy just at the end of some very hard working, emotional days and then a short but vicious sickness. All better now. Lots of good energy flowing now. So yeah, celebrating this particular Friday is awesome. Handsome and I feel accomplished, happy, loved, motivated, and hopeful about so many important things.
Despite the busy-ness of this past week, I realized this afternoon that it has been a great tiny little season of connection. And I’m so grateful for this. People are important, you know? Too often I stay too busy to put people first. Certainly I would like to have seen even more lovely faces, but I am choosing to count my blessings. These people enriched my world this week in ways that are becomeing more and more clear to me.
So for Friday 5 at the Farm, how about just a short list and a few photos?
Friday 5 at the Farm: Connections
Jocelyn: She is no longer here at the farm, but we have been connecting nonetheless. Facetiming, texting, Facebooking, and snap-chatting like fiends. And I love it. Do you know how fun and silly snap-chat is? Well, I am 41 years old and I am telling you it’s more fun than you’d think. You don’t have to take selfies, but you can, and the caption element is hysterical, especially when you’re dealing with a fun loving, witty nineteen year old girl. She sends the most well planned line of photos with serial captions, and I just laugh and laugh! LOL Mostly it’s wonderful seeing her face in random moments throughout the day. Seeing her happy is the best, and it really helps me feel her close. I hope the same is true for her. Below is a “snap” I sent to her this morning.
Marci: Marci is probably my best friend, hopefully for a lifetime. We haven’t known each other the longest, and we both stay too busy to see each other even weekly these days, but that’s okay. We relate to each other on such a deep and supportive level that sporadic, meaningful conversations are often exactly what what we need. And that’s what I got today, out of the blue. She is a mother whose heart I admire more than she’ll ever really know, and her words of wisdom to me in our new season of parenthood, well, they are priceless. She made me cry today in the happiest way. I lover her even though she’s not a hugger.
Halee: Halee is my sister-in-law who lives in California. She is also a dear dear friend of mine and has been for as long as she and my little brother have known each other. Halee and I had been playing text-tag for about two weeks, and finally today she caught up with me while I was running. She endured my weird heavy breathing so we could chat, and I was so refreshed at the end of our call that I ran faster than ever. She’s awesome. I can always count on her for a laugh, a bullet pointed conversation (if you know Halee you know what I’m talking about), and a bright cloud of happy, encouraging words, no matter what is going on! Speaking of things going on, she’s got plenty of her own troubles in life, but Halee is one of the most determined positive thinkers I know. Send her some rays of sunshine, ok? Because she’s constantly giving hers away.
Heather: Heather is a friend I have made through Facebook, sort of, although I have been friends in 3-D with her sister Tracy and her daughter Mysti for years. (Tracy and Mysti are in my book club too, woohoo!) Heather and I have an uncanny amount of things in common, and finally this week we found a mutual blank spot on our calendars and made a farm visit happen. She drove all the way out here to buy eggs and meet the animals for the first time, and she took a bunch of beautiful photos too. Below is just a phone snapshot I took of her. We have plans for her to come photograph things again once the proper greening up has happened. Heather is so sweet and fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed her company.
Mari: Mari is a fellow Oklahoma blogger whom I have only actually met in 3-D maybe three other times? Yet we’ve become pretty well acquainted online, as is the glorious nature of blogging. And I just love her! She is so smart and dry and easy. Really lovely. Today, again the official reason being fresh egg purchasing, she brought her two darling offspring as well as her friend and her friend’s granddaughter to the farm. They didn’t get to stay long, but we had the nicest conversations. The kids played with the animals and ran the back field and climbed trees and raced around the pond. The three of us women commiserated and had a pseuo-urban-flair dance party with Pacino. It was awesome. I truly can’t wait for them all to come back. Happy birthday to Mari’s son Spencer, by the way! On Sunday he enters the rough and tumble world of Teenager Land. And he’s gonna rule it.
How wonderful that despite a crunched calendar, some happy but still emotional family changes, a bout of sickness, and all the normal crazy pie filling that is farm life and marathon training, the universe blessed my week with these five happy connections. I am super duper grateful. And my soul is full. Ready to be spilled out again.
I’ll say it once more, if only to remind my task-oriented and slightly reclusive self, that people are the most important thing. Connections matter.They make all the work worthwhile. Amen.
What connections delighted you this week? Who has made your busy days sweeter and more fulfilling? Did you buy any fresh eggs or snap-chat anyone young and cool?
Turn Down for WHAT!
XOXOXOXO
P.S. Speaking of connections, below is Geoffrey our only male barn cat. He is such a lover. He has been Jeep-napping all week, and when Fancy Louise is outside he has been watching over her. Fancy Louise is that cuddly little hen who is in temporary convalescence, and she definitely appreciates Geoffrey’s time and affection. I can assure you this is platonic and safe. He has neither romantic nor carnivorous leanings toward our chickens. Geoffrey is a good boy.
A beautiful week it has been.