Lazy W Marie

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

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My Morning Commute

   My morning commute is tough, friends. I mean, really tough.

   Just as the sun is crawling over the front field, I have to weave my way downstairs to my favorite coffee shop. Luckily I am always the first customer. And luckily they always get my order just right.
   Then, before I even realize what day it is, I have an early morning meeting with the CEO of our company. We almost always meet in the hot tub. Luckily he keeps a pretty loose dress code around here. And luckily he is really cute.
   Then, once I am caffeinated and have a decent grip on the day ahead, I have to battle gridlock. Chaos ensues when the chicken coop doors open and the guineas mix with the hens and and roosters. Sometimes I try to sort out the conflict; other times I tell them it’s their problem. Yesterday someone filed a complaint in HR over abuse of the clear water in the wading pool. It’s never ending drama around here. Luckily, I have lots of garden hoses to refill that wading pool. And luckily we also have a pond.
   Then we have the geese. They are the lobbyists around here: Noisy, overfed, and in my face when I could be doing so many other far more productive jobs. Luckily, four of them are afraid of me, And luckily, the fifth one loves me more than life itself.
   I try to stay calm on my morning commute. I try to work through the obvious difficulties and focus on the tasks at hand while maintaining a healthy perspective. You know, see both the forest and the trees.
   Luckily, I have the sweetest coworkers and am surrounded by beauty. 
   And luckily of course I never really have to commute anywhere.
   It’s a tough job, and I am so happy it’s mine.
   Linking up with Mama Kat today.
Prompt chosen because it was inspired by my good buddy Rose
who blogs over at OKRoserock.

Senses Inventory: Surprise Midmorning Rainshower

   This morning I was sitting in one of my red wicker lawn chairs, near the herb bed, drinking my last cup of coffee and making messy but intricate lists of things I want to do in all of the gardens. So many ideas, from lots more edibles to dedicated “wedding” flower beds, plots for animal foraging, and much more. The skies were moody and quiet, the clouds low, the animals in a muted kind of suspense. Then as I sat there enjoying the kaleidoscope visions in my head, a seductive little rainstorm washed over the farm. From the low northwest corner uphill to southeast, right on top of me and my myriad lists. It soaked my trusty spiral notebook. It washed the dirt off of my bare feet. It brought me gently back to reality.

   Obviously this necessitates a Senses Inventory.

See:  Black ink smudged on my lined paper. Raindrops splashing with abandon into my coffee cup. (I have mixed feelings about this.) Badly painted toenails. Bright yellow and orange marigolds, green pole bean vines, and red cannas in the herb bed. Wonderfully voluptuous mounds of basil and sage. Piles of withering weeds outside the herb bed, pulled this morning. An empty tuna can licked clean by Fast Woman. A purple haze of feathery prairie grass in the middle field. Low clouds in every shade of navy blue and charcoal. Seraphine looking at me with those arrogant but beautiful llama eyes, as if the rain was my idea.

Hear:  I heard the rain before I felt it; it was hitting the metal loafing shed downhill in a syncopated, excited rhythm several seconds before I felt the first cold drop. I still hear that chorus, as well as the birdsong of cardinals and crows and our neighbor’s turkey gobbling and our own roosters crowing.

Touch:  Zero breeze again. The morning feels like New Orleans in so many lovely ways. I feel cool rain tapping my shoulder and running down the back of my neck and the fronts of my shins; the fringe of my cutoff denim shorts tickling my legs; and the squeak of the painted wicker on the stool beneath my bare feet. The air feels brackish… Warm overall with pockets of cool. My notebook gets heavier and heavier on my lap as it soaks up the rain.

Taste:   I sill taste minty toothpaste kisses collected from Handsome before he left for the office, and of course perfect sweet, creamy coffee. Also a New Orleans memory.

Smell:  Most fragrances this morning are green, green, green… the grass, the trees, the gardens, especially the herbs. My hands smell like oregano and lemon-thyme from grooming the plants a few minutes ago. I love this smell… But so near the pool I also smell a nice bleachiness. And so near the animal fields I also smell a nice manureness.

Think:  My mind’s eye sees the gardens overflowing with so much delicious, healthy food that I can’t share it or sell it fast enough. I’m thinking about the reflective properties of the Universe, that the more freely you give the more you will have for giving. I’m also thinking of some fun construction projects Handsome and I are planning for the pool area, things that will make gathering our loved ones even more awesome. I’m thinking of my girls, grown, coming home for the weekend with friends, boyfriends, husbands, grandchildren. Just coming home.

Feel:  Happy. So, so happy and truly relieved from some recent heartsick worries. Feeling deeply refreshed and powerful. Wide eyed and aware of how good life is. Thankful for how real miracles are.

Tiny Mr. T celebrating the Fourth of July at an Oklahoma car show.

   I hope you had a wonderful holiday yesterday! We sure did. It was by comparison a quiet Fourth for Handsome and me, but a very happy one. We have needed and enjoyed easy holidays lately.

   Redeem you time today, friends! Redeem your liberty, in every way that it presents itself. Soak up the detailed beauty all around you.

“I am chained to the earth to pay
for the freedom of my eyes.”
~Anotonio Porchia
xoxoxoxo

And So It Begins…

   Tonight for dinner I enjoyed the season’s first bowl of hot pasta topped with olive oil, garlic, and…

FRESH HOMEGROWN BASIL

   And this is how I felt about it:

   The end.

13 Things We Do

1. When the garden hoses are already stretched across Kingdom Come so we can fill the water trough in the front field, we usually take that opportunity to spray down the buffalo. He loves it, especially if he’s shedding like now. Then he wags his glorious wet mane at us and gets us all muddy.

2.  We collect fresh eggs every morning and sometimes again in the afternoon. If our hands are full, then we carefully slip an egg or two in the back pocket of our cut off jeans and go about the day. Then later we forget about the secret cargo and sit on the Talking Tree swing and end up with a smooshy, crusty back pocket that is glued to our posterior.

3.  We listen to Johnny Cash classics on our iPhone while doing outdoor chores, often causing us to break into a groovy little two-step, often causing us to get long awkward stares from passersby. Few though they may be, people driving on our road have impeccable timing.

4.  We paint stuff turquoise, chalkboard, or more recently… gold.

5.  We have so many pairs of flip flops all around the house, and all of them are broken.

6.  We speak to the baby chicks in pretend foreign accents, guaranteeing that not only will they grow up to be terrified of us; they also will have no idea what any human is really saying, ever.

7.  Declare to each other every other day that we will eat more cleanly. Go to fewer restaurants. Never buy bread again. Cook less pasta. Ignore ice cream cravings.

Tuesday afternoon edit, just as I post this: 
Handsome just called me on his way home from the office.
We’re going out for dinner.
I had just this morning harvested great quantities of fresh veggies for eating.
These facts may or may not be related.

8.  We watch History channel and Discovery channel shows voraciously. Especially if they are about nature, Armageddon type stuff, or World War II.

9.  We pack our social calendar and generally over-schedule ourselves to the point of exhaustion. Then we take a breather. And immediately feel bored and as if we are missing out on something big.

10.  We groom the horses exactly thirty minutes before they had a pond bath appointment. This is akin to washing cars right before a big rainstorm.

11.  We consider it a noteworthy personal achievement to walk barefoot across the gravel driveway. This is exciting but necessitated by, of course, the broken flip flops.

12.  We play a made up game called “Name That Internet Meme.” Handsome is an avid Reddit peruser, and I am an avid Redditer’s wife. In other words, he watches the funny stuff and occasionally calls them out to me or posts them to my Facebook wall. I have gotten pretty good at identifying the meme just by its caption and punchline, with very little voice inflection on his part. This game is kinda hard to explain. If you “do” Reddit then maybe you get it. If we are friends in 3-D we can play it sometime. Super funny.

13. aaaannnnd… We watch llamas. We watch the heck out of the llamas.

The End.

Senses Inventory: Sleepy Stormy Morning

Good morning sweet friends.
I don’t know about you, but I am a little sleepy today.
Thunderstorms, lightning, and heavy rain woke us up in the wee hours, 
gripping the house rudely, slashing apart the sky, and rising the pond another foot or so.
I think I was already seventy-three or seventy-four percent awake when that started, though,
so my mascara-smeared eyes are about five hours short on sleep.
The dark, moody environment is beautiful but not exactly conducive 
to a chipper, energetic launch into activity. 
As I finish some excellent coffee and gather my scraps of energy
for today’s work and projects…
a quick senses inventory.

See:  Blue-white twinkle lights draped on our fireplace mantle. Colorful living rooms furnishings around me and new artwork on a gallery wall to my left. Clean wood floor. Spiky houseplant adorned with a bright blue parrot feather. A lidded, blue mason jar filled with pens and pencils. Short stack of notebooks, magazines, and books to read.

Hear: Wind pushing angrily into the chimney. Crashing, rumbling thunder. Rain. Groaning doors and windows, like I am in a ship on the ocean not a house on the plains. Guineas alerting us to a raccoon caught in a live trap overnight.

Taste: Perfect coffee. Remnants of breakfast, which was a cheesy sausage omelette. Minty kiss from Handsome still on the front of my lips.

Smell: Coffee. Coconut-vanilla scented wax. Occasionally a waft of rain or the last trace of that wonderful toasted bread fragrance.

Touch: Air conditioning kicking on early today, slicing charitably through the humidity. Lace tablecloth at my wrists. Bare feet on a squeaky, shiny wood floor. Cuffed jeans I have now worn for three days straight.

Think: How do I measure up? Should I rearrange my schedule? Should I stop blogging and just write? Will my little cucumber sprouts survive the floods? I hope the herb bed fills in soon.

Feel:  Cautiously optimistic about some important unknowns in life. Grateful. Creative but sleepy. A little wistful to have said goodbye to Mortimer the garden-munching turtle. Homesick for my girls but so thrilled for their health and well being. Excited for the big things coming for each of them. Also still feeling extremely, shamefully romantic.

Thanks for joining me today! 
I would sure love to know how the world looks, 
smells, tastes, and feels where you are.
Have an amazing day.
xoxoxoxo