Lazy W Marie

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

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Introducing 31 Days of Proverbs 31

   A group of eight well established and supremely inspirational bloggers is embarking on a thirty-one day surge of focused writing, each selecting her own topic for the month of October.  For every single day next month, including weekends, each woman will offer up a blog post related to her topic of choice.  Lots of the writing topics are domestically focused, and I am very excited.  I am looking forward to 31 days of organizing, 31 days of entertaining, 31 days of fitness, etc.
   October is such a great time to actively switch gears and delve into a fresh perspective, a different routine, a new season.  I am super excited.  Super Duper.  Excited.  Ready for inspiration and specifics.  Thirsty for input.  Ravenous for stimuli and encouragement.  Sometimes hearing how one person finds success is all it takes to finally dive into something new and challenging yourself.

   Another yummy gimmick!  I am powerless to resist.

   SOOOO in addition to normal writing I am going to participate in this.  Write about what, you ask?  The Bible book of Proverbs 31 has been speaking to me for years, sometimes more clearly and purposefully than others, and I need the refreshment.  I am also in the midst of a calmer Bible study with friends right now, so this feels just perfect.

  And hello?  31 days?  
Proverbs Chapter 31?  
Kind of a no brainer.
I feel like it was meant to be.
.  So this October I will try to explore this book more deeply than before.  I will try to offer some history, common interpretations, daily life applications,  questions, artwork, etc.  
   
   Previewing some of the other planned writing bonanzas, the month of October can potentially drench us in ideas and inspiration for the coming winter and help us focus on lots of worthwhile topics.  
Happy Autumn Everyone!
I would not upset of you wished me luck.
xoxoxo

   


Cobra Dream Comes True Early

   We dream many dreams in life.  Some of them are based on relationships or legacy; others revolve around ambitions; and still others are aimed at material acquisitions.  The dreamer feels the dream first; then he decides what is worth his continued dreaming.  Finally, he decides whether and how to go about making his dreams come true.
   Since he was a little boy, Handsome has been a car guy.  He developed an appreciation for all sorts of motorized vehicles and established his opinions on aesthetics and mechanics at a pretty early age.  Looking back over the years on his constantly rotating collection of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and watercraft, you can see his life change and witness his personality evolve.  You can see him experiment with style, rebel against authority, protect young children, go lunching with white collar colleagues, flirt with speed and danger, bond with his dad, and even fall in love.
   If you know him personally then you know I am not exaggerating one bit to say that his car collection represents much more than transportation; it is satisfaction on many levels and self expression in the truest sense for him. 
   Though many of his selections have come and gone, keeping that “visiting” spot in the garage pretty warm and filled with mystery, a couple of cars will always hold a place in his heart.
    One of them is the Shelby Cobra.
    He started loving this car in 1981 when he was six years old.  His specific memory of a date perked up my ears.  I asked him, “What happened?  Was it a significant event?  Where were you?  What was the weather like that day?  Were you hungry?”
    He said, “I saw one.”  Simple as that, I suppose.  Love at first sight.
    Someone gave Handsome a poster early in his Cobra love affair, and it hangs today in his car shop, barely tattered considering its age.
   He had a toy car model that represented his ultimate Cobra package:  Blue, white rally stripes, white pipes, single roll bar.  He keeps it in his office.

Here is a painting our oldest daughter made for him when she was about ten years old.  
That was almost six years ago, before we lived here at the farm, 
before Handsome’s career took such an unexpected and incredible turn, 
before a lot of family changes frankly.
She captured the blue paint, white rally stripes, and single roll bar.
It was a spontaneous work of love and gift for him, and we will treasure it forever.
Side note:  At that age, her dream car was a pick up truck, painted sparkly purple.

   He never expected to own it until after retirement.  But thanks to a slightly depressed car market, incredible long term financial discipline, and very, very, very patient searching, my dream guy was able to buy his dream car a bit early.  
One of the truly beautiful cars we considered and ultimately declined.

   When we shopped, we shopped for a long time and looked at a wide variety of cars all across the region, understanding that the unexpected and limited opportunity to buy might limit the colors available, motors, etc.  He considered a yellow paint job, an aqua blue one, and a black body with red pinstripes.  All of those cars were gorgeous and any of them might have been fine, but none of them was his dream.
    Fate intervened.

Unloading the Cobra was almost surreal that night.

   He gritted his teeth, waited, and got exactly the car he wanted.  It matches his model car almost perfectly but also needs just the right amount of tinkering to make it his.  He has big plans for his Cobra, knowing it will be a lifetime investment and treasure.  
      So far he has had it for about nine months, 
and we expect to enjoy it together for many decades.
   How I wish the girls could be under his wing for this chapter of their lives!  He has so much to teach and offer, so many lessons and resources, so much talent to share.  Maybe in the future.
One of favorite things at car shows has always been watching 
what keeps the attention of little children too young to be attached 
to commonplace labels or commercial popularity.
I wonder if we have a couple of collectors here.
I just love their faces!
   So to anyone still dreaming of your ultimate car, keep the flame alive.  In the back of your heart, in the margins of your thoughts, remember that dreams come true, even those dreams on wheels.
   

The Chicken Bowl & Conservation

   Anyone who visits the farm knows that we keep at least one “Chicken Bowl” going in the kitchen at all times.  This is not a bowl OF chicken but rather a bowl FOR the chickens.  
   We have a flock of about twenty-three hens and roosters, plus one turkey, six guinea fowl, and five geese who delight in leftovers of every variety.  They are hungry, baby.  Voracious.  Short and skinny but hollow legs, these birds.  We feed them proper poultry scratch and protein pellets, of course, but in their minds nothing seems to compare to the sweet and savory slop that emerges from the kitchen up to twice a day.  
   This purposeful use of leftover food bits and scraps means that we never have organic matter rotting in the trash can or crowding the fridge.  (Handsome is not a big fan of encore meal appearances, anyway.)  It also means that our yard birds are extremely well fed and also extra responsive to human approach.  The Pavlovian theory is in full effect here, folks.  Just try carrying a bowl anywhere near that little feathery corner of the farm and see how quickly you are surrounded by running, fluttering, screaming birds.  It’s a lot of fun!
   The chickens thank us for the constant feasting by keeping us fully supplied with eggs.  We always have more than we can eat or use and plenty still to share.  They are big, heavy, colorful, densely nutritious eggs.  Sometimes a double-yolker appears, too, which is always cause for a little dance.  I collect up to eleven huevos per day and rarely less than four.  
   Our Chicken Bowl practice is just an example of what lots of people do to maximize the abundance of life.  We are so richly blessed, so steeped in resources, that most of us have more than enough to share something with others and still live very comfortably.  
   This also has me thinking of conservation.  Energy conservation is a big topic in our household because of Handsome’s work with utility companies.  This summer we participated in a sort of experimental program whereby we paid different rates per kilowatt hour based on time of day, grid demand, etc.  We knew ahead of time what the costs would be each day and learned how to tailor our household activities to save energy.
   I haven’t done laundry or used the oven in three months.  It’s my little contribution to the cause.  I’m a giver.
   Anyway, the results have been amazing.  With minor adjustments in our routines and nearly unnoticeable sacrifices in creature comforts, we saved a few hundred dollars in electricity costs!  And this is in one of the hottest summers in Oklahoma history.  The idea has been to use less of the premium energy.  Simple as that.
  • Don’t let anything go to waste; there is a wonderful purpose for everything.
  • Share your blessings with others.
  • Use less of what is not in abundance and enjoy the benefits.

   I am letting all of this serve as my springboard to the coming season of blessings inventory and giving.  
Wishing you abundance where you need it,
discipline where it counts,
and more fresh eggs than there are recipes for quiche.
xoxoxo





Gently Exiting the Roller Coaster

   I have had a bit of a roller coaster relationship with “church” in my lifetime and am at present in a valley.  A dark, dangerous valley that is possibly coated in slippery green goose poop.  And filled with dead ends and infuriating detours.  
   If I wanted to, I could easily write for days about why this has been my spiritual station for so long, and maybe sometime in the future that will feel profitable; but for now one simple, uncluttered truth is ringing clearly in my heart:  

Church is not the same as faith.  
My religion is not the same 
as my relationship with God.
   My goal is absolutely not to debase any worldly religion or to proclaim a separation from any church; in fact, quite the opposite is true.  Rather than leave church altogether (which is exactly the brink on which I have been teetering for months), I am banking on the notion that feeding myself throughout the week will prepare the soil of my heart for Sunday morning so that those services are nourishing to me again and so that maybe I can be helpful to someone else eventually.  
   Let’s just say it’s been a while since I had anything to offer at church or much of anything good to say about it.  That disconnect bleeds into every other area of life, too, and that is just not how I want things to continue.
   Ever a fan of gardening metaphors, I can’t help but recount that a dry, hardened plot of earth will receive neither water nor seed, no matter how much it wants to.  No matter how much it needs the life giving stuff.  So I have some tilling to do in my heart, some weeding, some fertilizing, and some soil amending.  Better a late harvest than none at all, I hope.
   One addition to the farm routine, then, has been weekday morning Bible studies.  A handful of women in my life have accepted the invitation to study and pray along with me (thank you!!), and for starters we’re going to follow along with Courtney, specifically the Good Morning Girls.  Yes, of course we can all study and pray independently and should do so on a regular basis, but remember how I like gimmicks?  This is a a nice, simple boost.  And I am gladly accepting it.
   The last of this morning’s scriptures could not have been more encouraging:
“And these things write I unto you, 
that your joy may be full.”
-I John 1:4

   Our spiritual journeys should not to be cookie cutter experiences.  God does not intend for us to be miserable with Him.  I am relieved to be reminded of the joy that can be found in Truth, that it is not all judgment and bad news and endurance (although that is all very real).  
    How refreshing, as early autumn breezes send the curtains billowing into the living room, to finally begin a calmer leg of my journey, a less panicky attempt this time at rekindling my relationship with my Creator.
   

Self Loathing Not Groovy

   
   What is it about words attributed to Albert Einstein that make me sit up straight and listen?  He is more likely to grab my attention than a bizarre hybrid of E. F. Hutton, Martha Stewart, and Jillian Michaels.
   Maybe it’s the fact that he’s touted as not only an intellectual genius but also a philosopher, humanitarian, lover of women, avid bicyclist, creative thinker, etc.  He was a well rounded (if slightly wacky) human being who seemed to have a knack for cutting to the quick of a body of knowledge and finding the essential truth hidden within.  The reasons why certain facts matter in the universe.  I mean, even people who will never study out Relativity can find a way to thread it into a world view.
   Okay, so apparently I feel the need to justify my affinity for Einstein wisdom.  It’s not like we’re quoting gospel here, or even Chuck Norris, and it’s not like I can personally verify that old Alberto even said any of the stuff I regurgitate.  There is plenty of room here for both debate and criticism, as always.  But still, he was smart, man.  Like, Jeopardy smart.
   Okay.
  Anyway I discovered the poster above on my favorite new eye candy site and had to share it with you.  Maybe you’ve heard the words before, but isn’t the illustration fabulous?  It really drives home  the point that diversity is a GOOD thing and that we are meant to be OURSELVES, not someone else.  Indeed, that striving to be someone else is wasteful, futile, and perhaps even fatal.  Haven’t our parents, guidance counselors, and after-school specials been saying this, like, forever?  
   Maybe so, except that eventually we get all homogenized and template-driven again, and before long we’re playing the toxic games of comparison.  Which lead to either pride or despair, neither of which is healthy.
   I personally, despite all of my bohemian tendencies, fall prey to those wicked games of comparison all too often.  I have spent years hating myself for not being a college graduate, a tennis player, or a person filled with the Holy Ghost.  I have hated myself for things within my control and without, running the gamut of possible topics from higher math skills to family relationships.  
   Recently I started loathing myself for the fact that I will never be a trendy, scrap-booking, home-schooling Mom.  Heck, I’m not likely to even be a car-pooling Mom ever again.  That SUCKS, and it makes me hate myself a lot.
  Over the years I have frequently questioned whether anything was left in me that couldn’t be found in other people, and WAY, WAY BETTER.*  You know something?  All of this dark thinking is startlingly universal.  We can all find reasons to detest the people we were born to be or have become.
   Even in small doses, this kind of mindset is incredibly poisonous.  Aiming our thoughts and the undercurrent of our imaginations toward what others are accomplishing and how we seem to fall short will definitely affect the momentum of life.  We may escape saturated despair, if we’re lucky, but our passion is unavoidably diluted.  Our potential is stunted by having siphoned off energy and creativity and love in favor of feelings of either inadequacy or superiority.  Again, I assert that these two sentiments are equally destructive.  They are opposite symptoms of the same ailment.
   What’s the absolute minimum fallout?  Oceans of missed opportunities.  Untold discoveries and eurekas missed because we are so busy seeking after someone else’s destiny that we neglect our own.  
   Even in efforts to distinguish ourselves, we can fall short.  We look for examples of what to do and how to do it rather than striking out and doing something that is from the wellspring of our own souls.  And yes, granted, our souls or personalities are composites of our accumulated experiences, but no two lives are identical!  Whatever similarities we discover in each other, how ever much common ground we tread, diversity and uniqueness pervade the human condition, it is MEANT to be that way, and I really really really wish we would all stop overlooking that.
   Right now, if Handsome is reading this, he’s thinking, “Then stop reading Pinterest and that one blog about the cowboy’s wife who cooks other people’s recipes that you know drives me insane in the membrane!  Be yourself!”  
    He’s so crazy.  Doesn’t he know by now that I’m a hypocrite?  
   This weekend a good friend of mine said it so perfectly, though in jest:  “I wanna be unique just like everybody else!” Seems like the context then was copycatting teenagers who wear jelly sandals, but really full grown women do it too.  And men.  Copy each other, not wear jellies.  Although they did make a brief comeback two years ago.
   So the next time you start to notice a difference between you and someone you admire and you feel like scraping your inferior forehead against a concrete brick, instead shrug your capable shoulders and say to your heart, “True Dat.”  And smile.  Because you are meant to be different.  You are meant to be you.  So get to being that, because the universe is counting on it.  We’ve been waiting on YOU long enough.
xoxoxo
* This is no way a cry for help or a solicitation for affirming words, just a perspective-rich observation of my own life, offered up for your examination.  Things are pretty groovy these days, and I know that even if I am never again a traditional lunch box-packing, home work-checking Mom, what remains is what is eternal.  What remains, as always, is love.