Lazy W Marie

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

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Inspired in Stillwater

   Yesterday evening I had the slightly unusual pleasure of going with Handsome to a work event. An actual work-work event, not a social-work event. Although there was a delicious barbecue meal served and we did enjoy a little socializing. But technically it was work for him, a co-op meeting about smart energy sources and asset management in our great state. 
   I always enjoy seeing him in the context of his job, and last night was no exception, He shines. I am so proud. As an added bonus, I was freshly inspired by the speaker to learn more about the energy discussions that are taking place all around us. You may or may not know that in many ways Oklahoma is something of a benchmark for this wide reaching global issue and that our citizens, our professionals, are considered the go-to experts in the oil and gas industry.
   Before I begin to stutter out my pedestrian understanding of these important topics (this might take a few days), allow me to share a few personal notes from last night:
  • I wore a bright red sweater to a semi-political citizen gathering in Stillwater, OK. Raise your hand if you grasp the seriousness of this error. Thank goodness for my favorite threadbare denim jacket which protected most of my vital organs.
  • After ten years of marriage I still get butterflies when I hear my guy introduced by first and last name, and I get double butterflies when I am introduced as his wife.
  • Life lessons can be found anywhere you look, even town hall meetings. That place was oozing with inspiration last night. 
  • I am so proud to be a native Oklahoman. And on that note, today happens to be the anniversary of our statehood!! Happy Birthday to us!
  • If you are willing to spend time identifying problems, please also be willing to spend time seeking solutions. This, of all the meaningful anecdotes shared by the speaker, spoke the thickest volumes to me. I plan to annoy you guys for the rest of the month with expansion on this idea.
   Okay, that’s it for this morning. Hopefully I have properly whetted your appetite for energy information. Hopefully you turn off the lights when you leave the room. Hopefully you say Happy Statehood Day to the nearest Oklahoman. Hopefully you have the sense to wear local colors to local events.
Have a fantastic day everyone!
xoxoxo

5 Senses Tour: Current Reads

   We are between book club titles right now, so my daily reading has been even more customized than normal. For Monica’s Five Senses Tour this week, here are the five books most frequently cracked open around the Lazy W:
   In the early mornings I have been devouring inspirational writing from Norman Vincent Peale, along with excerpts from the Bible. Do you know much about this man? I find his book to be practical and solidly based in scripture, which is important to me personally. His suggestions on positive thinking and daily thought conditioners as an extension of prayer are so straight forward and nourishing. I tend to live in my head a lot, and this book has led me to much brighter, stronger thinking about prayer and how God operates.
   It seems that my thirst for spiritual invigoration is matched only by my appetite for planning and daydreaming about the soon to be tilled Potagerie. This gardening book was given to me by my sweet and vibrant ol’ Grandpa Rex, the world’s classiest, funniest, most talented and most affectionate gardener. I have read it cover to cover at least seven times and, as evidenced by these crinkly pages, have left it out in the rain almost that many. It is informative and energetic, and when the book itself finally gives up its spine, I plan to wallpaper my kitchen with the pages. Another thing nobody should tell Handsome, please and thank you.

   The other gardening book on my table right now is all about herbs, since that is the intended focus of the new garden at the Lazy W. The paper cover makes my mouth water every time I see it, with its olive green, white, and turquoise artwork. And the black and white photo you see here is about as illustrative as the book ever gets, leaving its 634 pages free to over inform me. I am completely enamored now with the magic and science of cultivating herbs, and I cannot help but see parallel after parallel between this and the art of cultivating joy.
   I’ve also been gathering up and taking inventory for my Thanksgiving and gift giving recipes, so Martha Stewart’s classic volume has made regular appearances in the kitchen. And on the couch while I watch movies, notebook and pen in hand.
  

   In the two photos above you can see our little family’s favorite quick-bread recipes, complete with handwritten notes to the cook and dried splatters of their respective batters. For the banana bread, I highly recommend stirring candied walnuts into the mix. Also, butter your pans then dust with both flour and cinnamon before filling them. This is good for both recipes.
   With what time is left for recreational reading, I nibble at a piece of new fiction titled The Memoirs of Little K. It deserves and will receive a full review when I am done,  but in the mean time there are so many thought provokers!
   Here is one for you that got my attention, especially as the daylight wanes and the calendar fills up. “You must remember we had no television, no radio, no cinema. Russia’s winter days are short, and there are many dark hours to fill.” This was written about a late 19th century culture. How differently we live today! Now our days are brimming with technology and entertaining distractions. We rarely complain about the days being too long, but about how they speed past too soon. Maybe the solution is simpler than we want to admit.

   So that’s my coffee table these days. My sense of sight is happily overwhelmed by books as well as by the changing landscape. Oklahoma is enjoying one of the most dazzling autumns I can remember, so I am trying to soak it up daily, between chapters.

Happy Sensing!
xoxoxoxo

5 senses tour

Family Meals a Favorite

   Mama Kat certainly has a way of begging bittersweet memories lately. 
This week I am answering about my favorite place to eat as a child. 
This fresh hell, on the heels of so much reflecting on legacy and empty nests.
I cannot help but wonder how my own children will remember our family meals, 
whether any of our tables and traditions over the years 
will ever slip into focus as “favorite,” 
but that’s not the question today.
   Growing up, as I may have already mentioned, Mom & Dad made regular family dinners a priority. We encircled our solid wood dining room table every single night. Dad sat in the same chair for most of my childhood, maybe all of it until he became a Grandpa, a turning point for so many wonderful and hilarious reasons. 
   Before eating, we always prayed as a family. During Advent and Lent we lit candles and took turns reading from devotional books. From time to time Mom would have a new baby for us to call brother or sister, and that baby always sat in the world’s most beautiful carved wooden high chair with an over-your-head table tray. Many a bowl of marinara sauce spaghetti has been painted onto that high chair.
   We ate delicious, healthy meals, often crafted from leftovers, and we drank whole milk, never soda or even tea. To this I feel we all owe our basically admirable eating habits. Basically. More or less.
   This family dinner business was not negotiable, unless we chose to watch a VHS tape or a laser disk movie together, as a complete family. Also, those movie dinners were always on the weekend, never a school night, and they provided me a whole other happy chapter of childhood.
   As adolescence approached I gradually became aware that our family was unique among my friends, that most people ate fast food and drank unlimited quantities of soda and did so in front of televisions. In their own rooms. For a season I was rude about it to my sweet, steady parents. It was several years before I appreciated how much effort this daily ritual required and even longer before I glimpsed the investment Mom and Dad were making into our hearts, night after night and year after year.
***************
   Thankfully our family still gathers at home for dinners now and then, though of course now the crowd is significantly larger. I suppose we could separate into smaller groups throughout the house, but we never do. We just keep adding chairs and squeezing in on Dad’s handmade wooden bench until everyone is wedged in  front of a skinny piece of table real estate and our silverware is overlapping. 
   We are loud and silly, but manners are paramount. More or less. We pass food to and fro. We use cloth napkins and Mom’s colorful collection of plates. We give small, pretty plates to the kids and try to help them eat what they don’t want so nobody gets in trouble.
   With this larger family crowd we all know that whoever chooses to sit in the chair nearest the kitchen will inevitably be asked to go fetch just one more thing, approximately nineteen thousand times per meal, so we all flood the furthest posts first.
   Once again I look around at my adult friends and realize how blessed I am to have this gift in my life, this dinner table, these loving parents who are always eager to feed us. Not many people my age still get to eat in their childhood home, at the same beautiful table, with both of their parents and all of their siblings. 
It was so easy to pick my favorite.
xoxoxoxo

5 Sense Tour, Potageries

   The past few months I have been preparing a little plot of earth near our south facing dining room door to become a Potagerie, a small kitchen garden for growing herbs, edible flowers, and small daily use fruits and veggies. A lot of planning and work will go into it before anything this beautiful happens at the Lazy W, but good things are underway. Here are five of my favorite inspiration photos to get the organic juices flowing.
The connection between dirt and counter top is so vital, 
and I love everything about this photo.
This pretty little corner is just part of one hundred acres of gardening
at a museum in Massachusetts.
Different hardiness zone, I know, but close enough to inspire and teach.
Pinned Image
This curvy, well stocked little garden 
brought to us by This Hopeless Romantic.
Perfect.
Pinned Image
This photo was originally on a site called “Bliss and Kiss” but I cannot find it now. 
I have always loved growing blue morning glory vines over a doorway. 
They impart such a grandness and coziness at the same time. 
Pinned Image
The variety of height and depth makes this garden really interesting, 
and using grapevine obelisks for climbing foods is just beautiful.
   I am linking up a day late with Monica on her Five Sense Tour, collecting all kinds of wonderful eye candy along the way. Have an inspired, imaginative day everyone!
xoxoxo
5 senses tour

Random Tuesday Evening Thoughts

   My mind is swimming with thoughts this evening, boiling even, in a very pleasant way. By contrast the Oklahoma skies are dark, damp, and heavy, so these kinetic thoughts are comforting. The silent headlines are so undulating and cryptic, though, that I can barely organize my sentences. I really can’t be sure whether any of this is even connected, but I feel like we’re on the precipice of something big in our little family, so stamping the moment might be a good idea.
  
   Peace in the midst of a storm is a funny thing to me. Although no circumstances have changed for us, in fact only more time has accumulated with difficulty unchanged, I feel inexplicably better and on a cellular level. Far more assured in my heart that not only are things going to be alright; things are exactly as they should be right now, including the pain and questions. These are a vital part of life, after all, and I should not hope to be exempt from the testing. None of our dreams have been abandoned. Of course I have questions and moments of fear, but that steady, glowing peace is real. I trust that God is in control and I know that He is nothing but Love and Mercy.

   The weather here begs a lot of attention, by the way. From meteorological records broken to prophecies  teased at and environmental issues debated, things will be blogged. Soon.

   I have boasted quite a bit about my husband on here but am now privately enjoying a renaissance of love for him and suppose I can share that too. Deep, resounding love. One of the surprises provided by ten years of marriage is the repeating opportunity to see him in a different light. I watch him face challenges and mature and refine himself as a man. I learn things about myself through his eyes. And I renew the most important convictions between us.

These are Handsome’s strong, capable hands comforting a baby guinea. 
Earlier that day these hands had dealt with crisis after crisis at work
and balanced the best interests of many people for whom he cares sincerely.
Later that night these hands were mine.

   Legacy is in the air right now, due in part to the seasonal shift and the winter calendar being heavily laden with family traditions. But I know it’s also a result of so much thinking about and praying for the girls. My sister and her children are still grieving unspeakable loss, too, and words to comfort them escape me. They will certainly struggle with legacy for many decades, but they will also receive Grace when they need it most.  
   My grandparents are with me a lot these days too, further underscoring the theme of legacy. Tonight my  cousin Emily and I shared a brief but powerful exchange about childhood memories of our shared grandmother. I was struck by the simple aspects of Grandma’s daily life that ended up being her legacy.

The top frame contains a pencil and marker drawing by my Grandma. 
She was a beautiful, olive skinned, eclectic woman 
who made the most dramatic vase arrangements from just wildflowers and weeds. 
She would probably laugh that so many of us in the family 
keep these doodles and treat them like relics, 
but to me this crispy, yellowed sheet of paper is a reminder 
to live simply and draw beauty from common things.

   Outside my kitchen window is a section of earth destined to be an herb garden! My very own potagerie, something purposefully different from the larger vegetable garden out back. I have been slowly conditioning the soil there and will soon be contouring the area with hardy Liriope. Then wild garlic, daffodils, boxwood, lavender hedges, rosemary, and poppies. I can hardly contain myself!!! Every kitchen does really need its own private garden, and I really looking forward to sharing the folklore, art, and science behind my plans.

   In a few weeks we will be participating in a chicken coop Christmas decorating contest, so I am collecting amazing ideas from all over the place and deciding which ones are worth the expense of time. We are talking about chickens and geese, after all, and they are messy. They are sweet but terribly challenged in the manners and classiness department.

   This is my favorite song lately. In fact anything this girl ever sings makes me warm and gooey. This live version starts off kinda iffy, so please be patient and give it a chance! Go brush your teeth or something and come back once it’s buffered or whatever.

Wishing you more order in your own thoughts but just as much peace and joy.
xoxoxo