Lazy W Marie

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

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worries melting like snowflakes

This morning Handsome and I crept outside for a later-than-usual Hot Tub Summit. The air was cold and gray, the sky already quilted white and releasing a slow, reluctant curtain of snowflakes. We soaked up both the cold and the heat and unbraided ourselves from sleep. With nowhere to go today and a blessedly short list of duties, we had a really easy time staying relaxed. Oklahoma weather teams have been preparing us all week for a snowfall today, maybe an inch. And while we never fully trust the forecast, we did get a little excited. If not for the cold (Handsome belongs only on the beach), then certainly for the unwritten excuse to hibernate. We are happily immersed in season two of Dexter right now. Plus, so much romance… We have lots of ways to pass the time.

While we were sitting in the steaming froth I watched several fat, lazy snowflakes flirt in circles in the cold air around us. They melted easily, even before touching our skin. The steam probably dissolved them. I closed my eyes and took a silent inventory of all the little dagger-shaped worries that have bothered me this week. So many small, panicky moments, so many sudden fears piercing my happiness. Mostly what-if thoughts about my children.

Phantom worries that never came to fruition.

I am so lucky to be nourished by crystal-clear scripture, good literature, the best of friends, and more than my fair share of Love. Basically, grace. Loads and loads of grace. Had those dagger-shaped thoughts landed on a cold heart they might have stuck. They might have pierced me through and drained me of all my life. But instead, they fell over and over again on a warm, healthy place. They melted before they really touched me.

I have nothing against the snow. It’s beautiful and muffled and rare. It is infinitely more pleasurable that ice, after all, so when we get a blanket of the magical stuff I don’t mind celebrating it. I especially don’t mind hibernating with my handsome husband.

In the hours since this morning’s hot tub magic, we have received much more than the single inch the weather folks predicted. The farm is heavily snowed under, thick piles of it everywhere. But the message is still clear to me: Tiny worries melt quickly in the heat of faith and Love. They can pile up too, if we let them.

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Please forgive my mixed metaphors, friends.

More importantly, feed your faith. Nourish you heart and keep it warm. Stay healthy and receptive to the best of things. It helps you resist worry. It helps you stay whole.

Signing off to count my blessings and go watch a baby llama play in the snow.

Thank you for stopping in, friends.
Much love and many melted snowflakes to you.
XOXOXOXO

magical, grateful november day

What a gorgeous, sparkling-sunshine afternoon. I feel the magic of November all around me. And several hours stretch between right now and the next hectic time, so I want to frame this moment. Before I ask for anything else, before I think of what’s coming around the bend, I want to give thanks and breathe deeply the Love that has already been offered.

nov 9 porchnov 9 fall bordernov 9 aging crepe myrtlesnov 9 travel pecan treenov 9 dormant sunflowersnov 9 brilliant maple

A quiet walk around the farm is stunning right now. The colors, textures, and easy sounds of autumn intoxicate me. And our life is so combed through with mercy, I feel the need to pause and take stock more often. The weight of uncounted blessings is wonderful and keeps me conscious. Keeps me wide-eyed and in the moment.

We all have big problems and we all have heartache that has been sapping our strength for so long we almost can’t remember what life was like without it. But maybe just for today, lay it down. Maybe just for today, allow the particular beauty and magic of November to refresh you.

Just look around and see how beautiful life is, just exactly as it is, right this minute. Be content with your abundant blessings. Let yourself feel overwhelmed by beauty. Be stirred by the mystery of things you could never accomplish on your own.

And tomorrow, or whenever you have to deal with reality again, your soul will be refreshed.

“Gratitude is the memory of the heart.”
~Jean Baptiste Massieu
XOXOXOXO

12 lines for mama kat

Oh, Mama Kat. Brevity is not my strong suit, so thank you for the challenge to write an entire post in twelve lines. May I include photos, too? And does this into paragraph count? Hoping not.

1. The Lazy W Honeymakers have a couple of challenges but are overall thriving.
2. I recently found both queens and am winterizing the hives.

bees

3. The campus gardens keep me going during long lectures in Master gardener class.
4. My own gardens are also doing great but will be so pretty next year!

garden

5. My baby isn’t a baby anymore.
6. But she still has the same sparkly eyes and my heart still leaps when I see her happy.

joc

7. I’m rethinking pesticides.
8. Please tell me your thoughts, and I’ll write a post on it soon.

poisons

9. Time to gather supplies for indoor winter bulb forcing!
10. For me it includes pretty vessels, bulbs, and Moo Poo tea for excellent hydration.

bulbs

11. I love these sidewalk koi.
12. And I love New Orleans, which I where I saw them.

koi edited

Whew! That was not easy. Please feel free to email for more details. Nobody tell Mama Kat.

The End.
XOXOXO

stuck

It happens to the best of us. We get stuck.

And it’s inconvenient and maybe embarrassing. And possibly painful.

We get stuck in difficult situations. Dilemmas that test us. Spotlights that terrify us.

We get stuck in traffic, stuck in debt, stuck in toxic relationships.

So frustrating, right?

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A few days ago our tomcat Geoffrey got himself stuck in the layered wire ceiling/roof of the chicken coop yard.

geoffrey stuck 1

geoffrey stuck 2

Poor Geoffrey. It’s not uncommon for him to spend all night in the coop with the chickens and geese, as he is a great nighttime hunter but not at all interested in the flock. In fact, he’s probably in more danger from them than they are from him. Often we release the birds at sunrise only to find him bolting out at high speed, ears flattened and eyes wide, having been hiding in some corner, probably either from Johnny Cash the violent gander or Randall the Redneck Rooster. But this morning was the first time we’d found him in quite such a predicament. Stuck. So stuck. Handsome had to loose our fluffy boy from his wiry womb and sooth his frazzled little feline nerves. Happily, Geoffrey was uninjured. Just embarrassed and a little stressed.

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When you’re stuck, how do you cope?

You can rail violently against your circumstances, throwing little fits and pouting,

at your leisure expounding on all the injustice thwarting your obviously good and noble efforts.

(You can spin your wheels, basically, which is the first natural thing we all tend to do.)

 

Or you can calm down, be very still in mind and body, and take a deep, cleansing breath.

 

sunset blue

 

You can focus on what is going right, what is going really well in fact, and cultivate again that seed of gratitude.

You can let the anxiety fall quietly away and gather instead all the positive energy available to you.

Consciously remember that you have vast resources within you and around you,

resources that can change your circumstances in amazing ways.

Reach out in prayer. Faithful prayer. Harness your imagination.

Then start to work.

Do the first simple task in front of you. Do it really well.

Then do another thing.

And another.

And keep moving.

Be so filled with momentum and living energy that old anxieties and worries cannot distract you.

Just keep choosing to see the Light and continue working.

Trust that you are being helped in unseen, supernatural  ways, because you absolutely are.

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Geoffrey is fine now, by the way. He shook off that stuck stress quickly and was in a minute dreaming up his next big tomcat adventure. My heart tells me he was thankful for Handsome’s intervention. But it also tells me that deep down Geoffrey knew help would eventually come.

Interrupt anxiety with gratitude.
Do your part.
Trust.
XOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm: random photos

Happy Friday!! We made it to another weekend, friends. The farm has certainly been hoppin’ lately. Our oldest daughter Jocelyn has been spending more time here, warming up the place and pouring her music into every room. We spend some of our time at home, just breathing deeply and moving slowly, and some of it driving all over creation getting stuff done. I love every minute. So thankful.

We’ve got more seasonal autumn spice happening day by day. And the gardens are enjoying a lot less brutality from Mother Nature, although the chickens have tried to pick up the slack where the weather has left off, scratching and pecking lots of gorgeous plants almost to death. Dang chickens. But I do have new gardening gloves, so that’s nice.

Things are overall great! My husband is working too hard at the office, but it’s because he cares so much and has such high standards. And that will never change until I write a book or otherwise hit the jackpot and he can retire.

How about a quick Friday 5 at the Farm, just some random photos and captions? Okay.

 

f5f nieces

Last weekend my parents and little brother Phil and our sister Angela’s three gorgeous kiddos visited the farm for some autumn fun. Our oldest daughter also surprised us with a visit and brought a friend. I didn’t even know she was coming! She just walked in the front door saying “hellloooo!!!” Such a crazy fun surprise when your kids are old enough to do that. I love it. And my nephew’s friend Matthew came, too. We’ve watched those two boys grow up together and love them very much. The place was full of happy people. We ate soup my Mom brought (delicious) and snacked on chocolate-chip pumpkin bread (also yum) and tried pretending like it was autumn weather while really we were sweating under the shade trees. But painting pumpkins and building scarecrows helped a little. It was a wonderful day. I love my family so much.

f5f frogs

Our daughter was able to spend the night after all the family fun, and late in the evening after cleaning and resting and just as we were about to go to bed, I offhandedly mentioned that the tree frogs had recently had babies. She LOVES animals. I mean, LOVES ’em, even more than I do. Especially babies. Especially any difficult to love variety, like frogs. So of course her eyes lit up like diamonds and of course I relented and we took a clean bucket outside and went hunting for frogs. So, that was perfectly terrifying.

f5f calzone

One evening this week we had homemade calzones for dinner, and I promise to post the recipe soon.  All it is, really, is pizza dough with your fave fillings, folded over, brushed with egg wash, and baked. The best part of this story is that after she watched me make one batch of Alfredo sauce Jocelyn asked me to teach her, and with very little guidance she made a second batch perfectly. She’s a natural! In fact she’s been cooking here a lot lately, and it gives me so much peace and happiness knowing she can do this for herself as a young adult. In my opinion, cooking well and regularly is more than a novelty.

f5f seeds

As if the wealth of knowledge I am gaining at master gardener class isn’t enough, nearly every week someone brings live plants to share. And also, we have lately been collecting dried seeds from the campus gardens to bring home and fill our own little Edens. So exciting! Now when I walk past my herb bed or shrubby border, or when I see any garden for that matter, I ask myself What can be saved and propagated? And as for my growing knowledge base, right now I know just enough to be really dangerous.

f5f bat

Thursday midday as my girl and I were walking through downtown Oklahoma City, we happened to see this fuzzy little guy. It’s a bat. I know! A real live bat in the middle of downtown OKC, not Austin TX, and in broad daylight! Warming himself, it seems, on the concrete step. There was much begging and cajoling for me to bring it home to live at the farm (we already have lots of bats here, but this assurance meant nothing to the girl who wanted to “save” this one), and there might have even been a dare for me to touch it. Our crouching, squealing, photo-snapping spectacle drew the attention of a few passersby, and surely by now the Legend of the Downtown OKC Bat is thriving, at least locally. I’d like to add now that late last night I couldn’t sleep and watched a NOVA program about the current Ebola crisis. Apparently, bats are strong and common carriers, so… That is almost as terrifying as tree frogs suddenly having lots and lots of tiny babies.

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How has your week been? Give me a headline or a funny story from your corner of paradise. Or tell me your favorite meal this week. Better yet, assure me that looking closely at and maybe touching only the fur of a bat will not give me Ebola.

Happy Weekend friends!
XOXOXOXO