Lazy W Marie

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

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Dirt Manicure

   I woke up this morning with a list of necessary chores to do outside, a tailgate full of autumn blooms to sink into the earth, and ideal weather and schedule conditions for both.  So after zipping through a few inside jobs and enjoying some time on the phone with my little sister, I found my boots and headed outside for what I refer to as a Dirt Manicure.
   Dirt Manicures are really good for you.  They generally happen outdoors, under the sun, in the fresh air, with your back bent in satisfying labor.  Dirt Manicures don’t get your head all filled and sick with chemical fumes like at a nail salon; they are more likely to perfume your body with that sharp, sweet fragrance of tomato leaves or the grassiness of horse manure.  Dirt Manicures are evidence that you’ve done something constructive and maybe even creative.  The act of getting one helps you reconnect with nature.  And that is one of life’s best beauty treatments.
My Grandpa Stubbs taught me that if you find a Y-shaped branch in your tomato vine
that has sprouted a center stem, just pinch that center stem off with your thumbnail.  
This helps the tomato plant conserve energy and grow stronger branches and better fruits.
Check out this little green baby.  
His collar is HUGE, hopefully signalling a nice, big fruit.
He is in the very good company of dozens of bright yellow tomato flowers 
as well as dozens of other green ‘maters.  
The Second Chance Garden is still going strong!
   I kept feeling guilty while I “worked” outside, because it didn’t feel like work at all.  It was playtime, even if I was the only one on the playground.  And although I’ve been W-2 challenged for almost eleven years now, I still have strong bouts of guilt over staying home and living this luxurious lifestyle.  The least I can do is take a few blurry photos of it all.
   
This is a stone urn we keep at at our front door, 
pictured here with leftovers from the brutal summertime.
Think of this as a container garden bone yard.  
Admittedly a neglected spot on the farm.
The only things here that are still viable are daffodil bulbs, 
and they’re not due to bloom for many months.
Much ripping and composting was called for.
Same urn, about ten minutes and eight bucks later.  
I removed the dead dwarf evergreen and replaced it with a $5 something or other.
I added one small golden mum and three tiny white-with-purple pansies.
Following the tall/fat/trailing recipe for container gardens, 
I needed something to fall over the urn’s edge
but had not bought anything like that at Home Depot.
So I searched the east flower bed and found some vinca vine that had gone a little crazy.  Bingo.
Oh, and I found some feathers blowing around and stuck those in too.
Here we have goose, turkey, and macaw feathers, just for fun.
   One of my favorite things about an unhurried morning in the garden is the rediscovery of plants that have been quietly plodding along, unfurling themselves and growing slowly, gradually, blooming and bursting with life while I was busy elsewhere.
The cannas really like the warm soil and cool air we’ve been enjoying lately.
With just a little extra water now and then, they are generouos with color and texture.

And once the scarlet gossamer blooms fall to the ground,
we get to see these fuzzy, stained-red seed pods and their tissue paper casings.
I cannot decide which one I like better.

   Designing a garden on paper is fun, but reacting to a garden’s ongoing expression is where you can find  real pleasure.  Identifying vacant spots, experimenting with color combinations, rotating plants to find the prettiest “face,” just sifting that cold, silky dirt with your bare hands…I love the crunch of my spade when it slices into a patch of crabgrass.  I love the textures of sand and loam, mixed together like brackish water.  I love to shakeout my ponytail at the end of the day and see dirt and possibly ladybugs fly out.  
  
I am kind of hoping that mums have bug-repelling properties like marigolds do.
   My morning in the garden was an investment.  Not only do we have some color to enjoy again; I also spent that time calming my thoughts, soothing some anger over recent family events, and reminding myself that life is beautiful.  We all grow best when not rushed, just nourished and surrounded with beauty and health.  I hope you have time for a Dirt Manicure soon.
xoxoxo
   

Breathing Deeply

   Eight days ago the lives of some of my most beloved people changed forever.  Our family was thrust into grief and shock, worse than any I have ever before witnessed firsthand.  All week long we have responded to each other the way I hope all families everywhere can manage to do.  I feel as profoundly grateful for my parents, my siblings, and my husband as I feel sad for the incredible loss being suffered.
   Having just now opened my laptop for the first time since the terrible news, the first thing I notice is that life goes on.  Whether we think we like it or not, the world is still turning.  Other people are still maintaining routines, relationships, and the pursuit of beauty in daily life.  Still oceans of happiness and possibility remain unexplored, and this is good.
   I’ll now be gradually stepping back into reading and writing, trying to revive my study of Proverbs 31 and also sharing some of the things we learned this week.  Prayers are still needed and appreciated for my sister, her children  our parents, everybody.

   Rather than leave you on a sad note, I want to assure you of the power of love and hope.  The potential for old hurts to be soothed, for flaring tempers to be cooled.  Love is not just soft and romantic or even sexy; it is truly powerful.  Love motivates; it emboldens; it focuses and multiplies our energy.  Love is miraculous, and it causes me to KNOW that all things are possible.

   Late last night we witnessed the marriage of Handsome’s nephew and his young bride, and I could feel in my lungs and my bones that Love is alive.  I breathed it in deeply, let it saturate my body, and savored the realization that what lies ahead of us is better than what lies behind us.

Best wishes, be as happy as you can, count your blessings.
xoxoxo

      

Monday Morning

   We woke up this morning to a dark, misty farm.  The clouds that had been pouring out that sweet, much anticipated rain all weekend are still here; they are just resting for a bit.  Hopefully gathering more water for Oklahoma.  Outside it feels like a thick, gray comforter has been pulled up to our chins and the curtains have been drawn tight against the sun.  
   A pickup truck drives past the front gate, ball cap-wearing driver leaning slightly to his left, sleepy, holding in his right had the biggest insulated mug I have ever seen.  Only some of the chickens are geese are awake, and they wearily signal an ambiguous dawn.   The buffalo is in one of his sandy wallows, folded up into himself, big head bowing low, beard and mane flattened out and dripping from the watery air.  The horses are still asleep too, back ankles cocked up in that vulnerable, adorable pose they know.
   Handsome is off to the salt mines.  Off to save the world in his own way.  Making me proud.  
   People we love dearly are grieving hard today, and so we grieve with them, for them.  Their hearts are wrenched and pinned against excruciating pain, and they have little recourse.  I see my parents in a new light, one that makes them shine, but it’s something I never wanted to see, not for this reason.  They are so strong and so loving.  So instinctive and generous of heart.
   I am grateful beyond words for my family.  Wishing comfort and mercy to pour over them just like the rain on this parched land.

Proverbs 31:8-9 Speak Up for the Needy

   The next two verses are rich enough in their own right, but they also are accompanied by a long list of references in the Schofield text.  In my opinion this stuff needs very little expounding, though each of us, depending on our stations and functions in this world, may learn to apply the directives uniquely.  First, the lines from Proverbs:
  “Open thy mouth for the dumb in the course of all 
such as are appointed to destruction.  
Open thy mouth, judge righteously, 
and plead the cause of the poor and needy.”

********************
These references follow:
“I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. 
I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.”
~Job 29:15,16

“And Johnathan spake good of David unto Saul his father, and said unto him, 
Let not the king sin against his servant, against David, because he hath not sinned against thee, and because his works have been to thee-ward very good.”
~I Samuel 19:4
“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment:  thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty:  but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.”
~Leviticus 19:15

“And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.”

~Deuteronomy 1:16

“Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.”
~Job 29:12

“Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”
~Isaiah 1:17

“He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him:  was not this to know me?  saith the Lord.”
~Jeremiah 22:16

********************

   In what ways are you exposed to the poor and needy?  The widowed, the orphaned, the lonely?  How do you personally cross paths with those who cannot speak up for themselves or who are appointed to destruction?  Granted, these lines are perhaps directed in context to an actual ruler, a king, but if the popular scholar’s interpretation of proverbs 31 is to be considered, then the Christian church is accountable for these behaviors too.  These instructions are certainly consistent with Christian teaching.
   Also, how are we doing in the judging righteously department?  Not so awesomely most times, I suspect.  We are all naturally shaped with unique filters, feelings, preferences, grudges, politics, indoctrination, just all kinds of multi-faceted, self-protective words that really mean, “personal opinion.”  And personal opinion has a way of affecting how we treat others. Personal opinion also has a way of being wrong.  Ever been called to jury duty and felt, whether you expressed it or not, a strong bias, despite the evidence?  Ever catch yourself being cold to someone you don’t know based on another person’s opinion of him?  I have.  And worse.
   These events are common and natural human behavior, but if we read these words in the Bible then we hear a call to do better.  To strive for a life past what is natural and easy.  Stretch, not stagnate.
   I am reminded that every story has more than one side, very often more than two.  And I have been wrong a thousand times in my life, siding with the wrong person, standing on a moral I later discovered to be flawed or at least incomplete.  This is scary; it impresses on me the gravity of the job of judges who decide the fates of people daily.
   This brief study tonight has excavated in my heart more guilt and greater challenge than I expected.  I have a lot of work to do, but I believe that it can be turned around.  I believe that love and mercy are powerful, and I am hoping for second chances.  Checkout the above reference in Isaiah; the words learn and seek are loud to my eyes.
   Learn to do well.
   Seek judgment.
   These are active verbs, words that immediately acknowledge a position of lacking and then command work.  Ignorance and error can be overcome, so do it.  (I am bossing myself around, not you guys.)  I am thrilled by this idea, this encouragement.  
   
   That’s all for tonight.  Oklahoma is finally receiving a much needed deluge of cold rain, and a big pot of homemade chicken and dumplings is almost ready on the stove.  Pain is ever present, and so are hope and joy.  Wishing everyone a peaceful end to the weekend. 
xoxoxo
   

My Wednesday Morning Foray into Yoga

   Yoga has held my attention from a safe distance for some time now.  But for some reason I always thought that to do it properly I’d have to trade coffee for green tea, start making my own granola, and possibly buy a Prius.  Or at least a Subaru.  And I like my Camaro you guys, A-N-D my coffee, in case you hadn’t noticed.  Oh, for the record, I blame Liz Gilbert for this and a few other misconceptions.

   Then the universe intervened.

   My ten-four-good-buddy M Half encouraged her readers to explore Yoga for the month of October, and I was thrilled.  Coupled with my October-long study of Proverbs 31, I am now due for total physical-spiritual rejuvenation by November One.  R-A-D.  No, I never exaggerate, why?

I'm writing a series on this

   Anyhoo, I dove in, reading every word M offered the first few days, then finally trying a yoga session myself yesterday.  I’d been meaning to do this for months already, and she provided me just the right boost!  
   
   Theeeennn she invited me to guest post on her blog to describe my experience as a Yoga Firsttimer, so join me right over here.