Lazy W Marie

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

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friday 5 at the farm: snapshots of life lately

What a week! Starting with last Sunday, which was refreshing and restful in many ways, this past week ran the gamut. We experienced so many highs and lows, worked so hard, and loved so intently that as I type this early Friday evening I’m feeling kind of amazed. Amazed that we made it unscathed. Amazed by how surrounded we are by goodness and how perfect God’s timing is. Amazed that springtime has finally won the tug of war with winter. There’s a metaphor in all of that, I’m sure.

It’s Friday, so how about five snapshots of life lately?

Monday around lunchtime Jocelyn texted me, asking was I busy? Never too busy to see her. I cleaned myself up and drove to the City. We spent several hours talking, shopping, and drinking these drinks you see below. She is a boba tea devotee, something which I feel only “Kids These Days” really understand, and I enjoyed a viciously strong iced coffee with a not skimpy amount of real cream. Monday happened to be her last day in Oklahoma for a while, so we soaked each other up. (I didn’t even cry!) She brought a friend to the farm that evening for dinner, and all four of us laughed so hard and so much that a big grin was plastered on my face the rest of the night.

Sidenote: Handsome had just endured a ridiculously difficult day at the office, so a night of good food, hard laughter, and face to face time with our Girl was the perfect antidote. xoxo

f5 coffee C

I mentioned that Spring has sprung. The best evidence of this is how sheddy the horses are. A few weeks ago I could brush the loose hair off of their ample bodies, but now a light breeze cause great drifts of it to float away, and by the end of March we will once again look like the tribbles from Star Trek have invaded.

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Our evening meals all week long have been to die for. Handsome and I both feel so much better when we eat “well,” which means some thing slightly different for each of us. After many consecutive but worthwhile days of feasting with family around the time of Grandpa’s funeral and then celebrating my birthday, both of us were happy to settle back into a more deliberate eating routine. Our bellies just needed a little break. My faves, as always, are big bowls of leafy greens topped with roasted or raw veggies (currently obsessed with radishes and cucumbers) and whatever protein we have available. In this photo I also topped my giant salad with one sweet potato, cooked to perfection in the air fryer. Love that gadget. Zero oil needed.

f5 food C

Don’t you love how once the landscape wakes up, even shrubs and trees that had been more or less green all winter, suddenly look vibrantly green? Check out this unruly beast behind my metal rooster. Those tendrils grew several inches this past week, as they will continue to do all the way up until about Thanksgiving. And the color! Like someone turned on a light bulb inside the branches. I love it.

f5 rooster C

Sewing! I have spent a couple of days in the Apartment this week getting reacquainted with my sewing machines. That’s been fun. Watch for a big Mother’s Day event soon!

f5 apron C

We have been aggressively thinning our decorative and collectible hoard, which feels wonderful. Every day I continue work on manure/compost and take a long walk to see what is growing (nearly everything). We’re so happy the hens are laying again, and with enthusiasm. And of course so many interesting beekeeping jobs. The Lazy W Honey-makers are doing so great, I have a lot to tell you soon.

Ok, that’s it for now! We are off to relax for the night and are excited for a hiking and car show event with friends tomorrow. Then more running, eating, romancing, farm working, and keeping the stress demons at bay.

Wishing you the best weekend ever!

“Misguided urgency can be the enemy of progress.”
~The Minimalists Podcast
XOXOXOXO

 

43rd birthday snapshots

This week I turned 43 years old! It feels weird. Crazy good weird. Weird in the best sort of way things do, because (as so many of my people have described to me in other ways) time passes fleetingly yet not at all with as much damage as we expect when we are younger. And by younger I mean, obviously, either 8 or 36. 43 is nothing like what I thought it would be at either of those tender ages. I am grateful to report that I feel happier, healthier, and more involved in the business of living life than ever before. 

This year for my birthday I got some new bees. Honeybees, as I am sure you assumed, and lots of them. A fully developed, robust, mellow colony, complete with brood and a speck of sustenance honey. Maribeth helped me cut them out of a shed made available to us by a friend and his sweet family. I will write that whole story soon for apiary record keeping. Suffice it to say I was romanced and enthralled by the whole experience and am deeply happy about having a third colony at the Lazy W!

Cheesy grins and a hug following a successful afternoon of bee wrangling.
Cheesy grins and a hug following a successful afternoon of bee wrangling.

new bees C

A few days ago Handsome took Jocelyn and me to an early birthday lunch of some of the best Tex-Mex food you can find in OKC. Do I need to tell you guys at this point how much I love tortilla chips? And all the things you eat with them? It was so good. More importantly, the three of us had a much needed conversation that I will treasure for years to come.

I made my own 43rd birthday dessert, as part of a random bucket list I wrote for this year only. I had to lovingly stress to my cake-ordering guy that it was my actual birthday dessert wish, truly, to try my hand at a homemade tiramisu. It was a disaster in every way, but we got a great laugh.

ingreds C

My sister Angela sent me the most perfect and hilarious birthday card, accompanied by the most perfect and hilarious written note. It was off color just the right amount, and I laughed all the way from our mailbox back up to the house. She and I only live half an hour apart, and we had already planned to see each other in person this week, so the fact that she snail-mailed me a card made the whole thing funnier. And sweeter. And more perfect.

In addition to new bees, on my actual birthday (Wednesday) I was super happy to collect the first green eggs of the year! And it happened on what was also the first ten-egg day of the year, so go Lazy W hens!! They all taste the same (cue heartfelt lesson on character content, not skin color, although this smacks of cannibalism now), but I can’t help it. The mint green shells are my favorite.

green eggs C

Birthday Week continued with some easy, low key running, some Apartment organizing, and more time with Jocelyn, her friend Garret and the pups. I kinda can’t get enough of that stuff. I laugh so hard with her.

One night Handsome and I drove to the city to watch the Thunder play San Antonio (THUNDER WIN!!) and another day we went to Cars and Coffee (debuting our gigantic pink Cadillac) and then to see a matinée with my parents and little brother Philip, KING KONG SKULL ISLAND. Oh man, you guys, such a great iteration of a classic creature feature. My gosh. Bring on the next Monarch installment!

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Somewhere in there my sister Angela drove out to the farm, another much appreciated dose of belly laughter. She and Handsome and I lingered over homemade pizza and had the best conversation for hours. Sometime I will tell you why this is beyond nice, why this represents a long string of beautiful miracles in our family. In the meantime, look how much my dog loves her too:

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I made another happy stop at the Savory Spice Shoppe, to pick up my birthday treat plus more, and the owner recognized me as the Instagram lady who makes aprons, ha! That was fun. I feel like I want to start sending personalized aprons and towels to local businesses.

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The rest of the weekend is likely to be cold and rainy, so some reading and cuddling might be in order. Then starting Monday (possibly before) running ramps up again in earnest and life will return more or less to normal. I’m feeling very loved and wildly blessed. In every way I have shared and a million more I haven’t, turning 43 has been pretty great. I would only like this coming year of life to move more slowly, just to soak up more things, more deeply, and to pursue some exciting goals harder. 

Thank you for all of your birthday wishes all over the place! I appreciate you guys so much. Thanks for reading.

XOXOXOXO

Posts to watch for the coming couple of weeks:

  • Collateral Beauty movie discussion
  • An amazing week of togetherness with my family
  • Joy Luck Club book discussion
  • Spring has sprung! Farm update
  • Bee yard update
  • Running update: New goals, new methods
  • Listen to Your Mother: I am on the 2017 cast!
  • New Lazy W recipe!
  • Cheap gardening project ideas

 

 

 

 

 

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.

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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

 

 

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

 

saying thank you for 2016

Soaking in our second Hot Tub Summit of the day, this time drenched in bright sunshine instead of stardust, I casually asked my husband how will he remember this past year. What stands out to him about 2016. He said that was too big a question to spring on a person, and of course he’s right. I have been meditating on this question for days and still have not distilled a complete answer.

These past twelve months have been wildly textured, rich with hurt and joy, adventure, romance, back-breaking labor, stress that made us brittle then relief that rinsed us clean and made us pliable again, accomplishments, failures, more accomplishments, and so much popcorn.

Thank goodness for homemade popcorn, really, and all the cuddling that comes with it.

I do not count myself among the folks who are weighed down mourning the apparently disproportionate loss of celebrities this year. To each his own, for sure. I admit that our 2016 In Memoriam will be a tear jerker when those video montages start circulating, but my real actual life has been such a roller coaster of grief and joy, and that roller coaster has lasted for so many years with almost no acknowledgement from the outside world, that I have little need to mourn strangers. Does that sound cold or dis-compassionate? It doesn’t feel that way. I just feel fairly focused on this gorgeous little nine-acre bubble here. Well, these nine acres plus all the places on Earth where our disconnected loved ones call home.

Love knows no property lines, of course. And maybe also not time.

I can barely remember whether I declared a big glittering resolution a year ago, but I am so happy to look back and see that the year was far better than I could have hoped or achieved on my own. The Law of Attraction must have a built in clause about excess and grace, because so many things have happened beyond my wildest imagination, it’s thrilling. I feel healthy, settled, strong, grateful, excited, nourished, and eyes-wide-open, you know?

That last one bears a cool distinction because for a while (a few years) there I was living so much by faith that my eyes were shut tight. If that makes any sense. I had to drive fast and hard and follow the curves completely blind in order to keep moving forward.

I am still relying on faith, as it always should be, but now minus the constant terror.

Anyway. If I had a resolution or even a theme word for 2016, I don’t remember it and have little interest in searching my blog or journal to know for sure. Life has brought me (us, I hope) to a better place.

Instagram “Top Nine” offers the following memories, based solely on likes:

top-9-2016-c

It was fun to walk down that lane. But I don’t put everything on Instagram. Those photographic archives don’t show the late night conversations with Jocelyn, the private moments of reflection spent reading challenging books, and certainly not the irreplaceable romance I enjoy with my husband. Even logging most of my sweaty, hard-earned miles one digital place or another, I cannot see anywhere online how much running has changed my life. My sister Angela’s full-spectrum journey back to health and the family is nowhere on the internet, and neither is my husband’s amazing career evolution.

No collective experience on social media, not even on this blog where I indulge myself constantly, can paint the full portrait of my life lately, and that’s good. That’s really, really good.

We still have unfulfilled longings, unanswered prayers, and goals for which we strive constantly. This also is really good, because we remain (mostly) humble and hungry.

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It’s the last day of a spectacular year, and I just want to say THANK YOU to God, to all the elements of the Universe that have converged to answer our hopes and reward our work. I want to say thank you to our friends who have helped shape our world so beautifully, and even to our few enemies who are just living their own lives, after all. We learn plenty from you, and we don’t feel hate anymore.

Handsome and I have not quite decided how we’ll celebrate New Year’s Eve, because we both assumed it would be easy to find the right event, but everything locally is sold out, ha! It’s fine. Friday night we attended a wonderful engagement party for our friends Tami and Jason, and tomorrow night we are hosting a casual bonfire to kick off 2017 with easy fun. So if tonight we stay home with our animals and soak up a quiet countdown to midnight, that’s fine by me.

Homemade popcorn and cuddling sound perfect.

Then on to dreaming big for 2017.

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See you next year, friends!

XOXOXOXO