Lazy W Marie

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

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read, watch, listen this week & some happy photos

This week has brought me lots of excellent stuff to read, watch, and listen to. Here it all is, plus a handful of random snapshots from my phone!

I’ll Have Another podcast (with Lindsey Hein) Her live interview with Scott Jurek, author of North, was crazy relatable and a solid inspiration. I struggle sometimes with keeping my eyes on my own dreams and goals, with not being distracted by others’ accomplishments, especially during race season. His words of wisdom encouraged me to play around with variety in my running and also to, quite literally, forge a solitary path. North, after all, was all about his journey along the Appalachian Trail, basically backwards. Cannot wait to read it. Give this podcast episode #164 a listen if you have time!

The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. I am making my way slowly through this book and love it to the max. Here’s a quote to tempt you:

Accept, then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.

Ride with Norman Reedus. Have you caught this new series yet? It’s on AMC, just like The Walking Dead. We are hooked. It’s mellow, adventurous, conversational, and filled with great personalities. And to watch a bunch of motorcycle scenes on the brink of springtime just gets us so excited for little road trips.

Sandy the Reluctant Entertainer posted yet another mouthwatering recipe, this time for a very special cookie, and the message she wove into the post is just as wonderful. Check out Simple Almond Cranberry Crunch.

Heal. Our friend Kelley, the same magical woman who together with her husband Chuck taught us that paint pouring technique, recommended this Netflix special. I have watched it once alone and once with Handsome, and it bears lots of discussion. The bulk of the message is mind-over-matter encouragement for chronic illness, but it’s illustrated by as much science as anecdote. If you watch it, I would really like to hear your thoughts. Keywords: Tonic versus toxic thoughts and words, Quantum Entanglement, and our Inner Pharmacy. Thanks Kelley!!

Okay, a handful of photos and only very brief stories for each:

One day this week we had warm, mild weather! I ran in a tank top, no hat and gloves!! And I wore two watches, ha. Handsome had left his at home (my old black one) so to be funny I wore it for an easy 6 miles. His watch gave a close pace to mine but said I burned lots and lots more calories, ha!

We have a new outdoor flight pen for Pacino!! He has needed this for a while, and we are pretty excited. As the weather improves he will spend more hours out here, and we will keep him company. We might even find some feathery companions for the blue boy. Since this photo was taken, we have added artwork and more obstacles for enrichment. He really seems to like it all.

For Valentine’s Day this year, we geared up for a fancy dinner at home then changed into pajamas and ate our meal blissfully in the cozy living room. I surprised my guy with an espresso machine for his office, and he gave me a weed eater for my gardens and beehives, haha!! Also, a long love letter form the world’s most romantic man and a perfectly cooked heart-shaped ribeye, a well established tradition. I love this exact recipe for being fluent in each other’s love languages.

Klaus loves playing fetch even more than I love perfect coffee. He also loves to collect his objects of fetch in little piles all over the farm. When I stumble on a new cache, sometimes he acts nervous. This one is in the far southwest corner of the back field, where we visit at least three times per day on patrol walks. Apparently he has been accumulating things secretly.

My brother’s firstborn, Greg, and my baby, Jess. These cousins are spending some quality time together this weekend, and my heart is swelling with joy.

I saved the photo for last that will go down in our family’s history as the biggest headline for this week. Dante, my sister Angela’s firstborn, finished Air Force Basic Training and actually graduated with honors. He is so deeply loved, and everyone is so proud and excited for his accomplishments and his coming opportunities, words fail me. We did not make it to San Antonio for the festivities, so I have been poring over the photo stream every hour, often crying with joy. So many hugs, so much intimacy and strength. Just amazing.

Okay sweet friends, thanks for checking in!! Life is good. Weather here is all over the place, but our hibernation days are numbered. I see streaks of emerald green in the middle field, but mostly from a distance. Up close, it’s still quite brown.

And God has been answering prayers big and small like it’s going out of style. Although obviously that will never happen. I cannot stress enough, TRUST HIM. He’s got this.

Ok it’s almost time for a movie and a bowl of popcorn, then rest day tomorrow! See you soon! Have the best weekend ever!!

“In the Spring I have counted
136 different kinds of weather
inside of 24 hours.”
~Mark Twain
XOXOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm, cold & happy

What a week! Another one! Solid, satisfying hard work, mostly top-loaded onto Monday through Wednesday for me (pretty nonstop for Handsome) and prayers answered left and right. Deep hopes and big requests, both for us and for our nearest people, are being met with generosity and Love. I’m stunned by a lot of it. Thankful, to say the least. And humbled by how so many people are carrying heavy burdens. More than they show.

Okay.

It’s time for a Friday 5 at the Farm post, some snapshots of really happy moments this week:

001 Klaus and I have been redeeming as many hours as possible, moving dirt and compost all over the place, daydreaming the whole time about growing season and all the parties we’ll have soon. This particular corner of the farm especially has captured my imagination. It’s over on the south edge of the lawn area, a curvy little spot with a half-buried rock patio. There’s a miniature fire pit adjacent to it on one side (where my spade is stuck in the photo), plus our hot tub on the other. My first task was removing glorious dirt and ash from that bonfire pit and replacing it to a nearby raised bed.
Then that ocean of dry oak leaves got raked off, though it’s hardly a permanent solution. #wind This morning at 4:43 a.m., I woke up with a jolt, having realized that this will be the Moon Garden, something I have wanted for about 20 years. Stay tuned.

002 Our frigid cold weather has, inexplicably, not dissuaded my appetite for post-run protein smoothies. One day I doused the blender magic with frozen blueberries, to match my blue lips and swollen blue hands. It’s a theme, and a delicious one.

003 Wildflower seeds! A friend of ours recently suggested I browse this company’s stock, and I am so glad she did. Shipping is cheap ($7 flat) and pricing, growing instructions and everything else is straight forward. Now I just need to narrow down my wishes a little bit. The biggest use for wildflowers at the farm will be the front field meadow and the Curves & Edges meadow, there along the driveway to the north. Very exciting!! The sand is all filled in now with prairie grass, just begging for some native color.

004 Speaking of seeds, these are growing!! Broccoli sprouts are getting fluffy and reach for the run all day long. I love rearranging and misting them, and soon they’ll need thinning. Most of the sugar snap peas have germinated, too. Snapdragons and parsley are further behind, but it’s early.

005 Last one. My hens. Ahhh I love them. You might like to know that at present, the Lazy W boasts exactly 9 chickens, including 2 roosters. We have had much larger flocks in the past, free range then too, but what’s special about this group is that all of them were hatched here (and they are kept safe lately, from hawks and owls and random German Shepherds). Even in this bitter cold weather, the girls have been offering us three to fours fresh, heavy eggs every day. I love it! And Mama Goose is still with us, old as she is, though mostly blind now and accompanied at all times by Johnny Cash the faithful gander. He guides her until she finds water, and then she is independent and joyful. We are thankful every time we hear her honking and sqwaking.

Okay, that’s it for today! Thanks so much for checking in at the Digital W. I have loved every note and comment from recent updates, too. We are lucky to be surrounded by so much Love.

Happy Weekend to you and yours!!
XOXOXOXO

friday 5 x 5 at the farm

Farm life has been pretty great this week. All things considered, including some frigid January weather and long days of complex work for Handsome, things are clicking right along. We have landed at another weekend satisfied and happy. And definitely ready for some R & R.

For this Friday, I offer you five lists of five items each: Photos I missed, excellent meals enjoyed, scriptures that have lit my heart right up, links to other articles and podcasts, and some personal wishes I have been feeling. Let’s go.

Photos I Missed

  • While cleaning out a raised bed and turning over the soil with my spade, I unearthed (quite literally) a tangle of baby snakes. They were average, harmless garden snakes, but it spiked my heart rate anyway. No photo.
  • Every sunrise here is gorgeous, but Thursday’s was exceptional. I was outside early, doing morning chores without my phone and missed documenting moment after moment of the kaleidoscope color show. Everywhere I walked on the farm, the eastern sky, and even the western basin that caught its glow, stopped me in my tracks. Just dazzling! The sky maintained its splendor for so long that eventually I sprinted back to the house to text my husband, “I love you so much, please find an east facing window as soon as possible.” He did, and he quickly replied with a photo he took, daybreak over the Oklahoma Capitol complex. It was a particularly heavy day of Commishing for him, so I was really happy he took that brief moment to enjoy some beauty. When nature shows off like that it’s so easy to see that God is in control of everything.
  • Klaus continues to be the wold’s leader in both jumping hay bales and collecting unwilling black cats, though I have no photos this week to prove it.
  • This might have happened last week, but it would have made a great photo had my phone been in my pocket: I was entering the brick chicken coop and caught sight of something in my vertical peripheral. Barbie Chicken was sitting on the door frame directly above me, inside the building, looking upside down at me with that very specific poultry sneer. We made eye contact and she blinked several times before I could look away. It was awkward. I still think something else was going on at that moment. But we will never know.
  • I had a few really great runs this week, and while a post-run selfie is not out of the question in my life, none have happened in a while. Just know that day after day, I come home from a workout in a much better mood than when I left. And how amazing it is to be able to work up a good sweat in sub-freezing temps! Photographic evidence or not, running is occasionally pretty magical.

Great Meals

  • I ate a phenomenal Gyro salad at an OKC restaurant. I mean SO GOOD. I was stuffed and happy. Delicious.
  • Lunchtime wraps with some kind of deli meat, a pile of spinach, and a little cheese, pan-grilled dry in either a Lavash or St. Joseph’s pita bread.
  • Savory, veggie-heavy, eggy oats for the win. Forever and always.
  • Soup! I keep making myself small batches of protein-heavy, veggie-loaded soups, and my belly has been very happy about that. The more celery and mushrooms the better, and yes to turkey-black bean chili over a big green salad.
  • Protein smoothies with a little “PB Fit” spooned into them at the end, instead of actual nuts. It’s pretty good. I saw this idea on Instagram and was skeptical at first, but it hits that craving without the avalanche of chopped walnuts or sugary trail mix, ha.

Scriptures in Synchronocity

  • II Corinthians 3:17 liberty in the spirit of God
  • Romans 12: 2 transformed by the renewing of our minds
  • John 16:33 be of good cheer, God has overcome the world
  • Psalm 51: 12 joy of salvation and a free spirit
  • Romans 8: 31 spirit of God has set us free

Input!! So nourishing!

  • Oprah’s interview with Larry Dossey, author of The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine. Thanks for this nudge, Brittany!
  • Run4PR podcast, especially the interview with Coach Meghan, who talks about ups and downs and the importance of not just hard work but also passion. Loved it so much. Her advice applies to runners at every skill level.
  • My friend Dee wrote all about her garden dreams. Ahh so lovely!
  • There is a Netflix series called The Paleo Way which is pretty great. The host interviews one special farmer over and over, and if I every write down that farmer’s name I think my whole life might change for the better. Find it! Help me out!
  • Hungry Runner Girl wrote about eating disorders and a healthy body image while raising daughters. Man. Lots of wisdom coming from a young mom.

Personal Wishes

  • To realize some running goals. Even if they are long term.
  • To create and maintain more space in my life, from my body to our home and calendar. And then to put that space to really exceptional use. I keep forgetting to tell you about the paintbrush metaphor!!
  • For the growing season to start!! Springtime countdown will start soon!
  • For renewed closeness with Joc. I miss her a lot and have been dreaming heavily again.
  • For some private breakthroughs in the hearts and circumstances of a few men in my life.

What is a highlight from your week? I would love to hear. And I wish you the most restful, most restorative, happiest weekend possible. Handsome and I get to spend our next few days with a mix between extended family, just each other, and a small group that has become our “church,” sort of. Life is beautiful, and I am so thankful.

“No one is eating anyone else.”
~Dee Nash
XOXOXO