Lazy W Marie

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

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squash bugs, plantar fasciitis, & other forms of domestic terrorism

Our fresh new work week had started off happy, humid, and healthy. The gardens are still rolling out gorgeous vegetables. The hens are still laying colorful eggs (despite Rick Astlee’s occasional violence). And we remain so thankful to have both a pool and air conditioning for afternoon siestas. Beneath the surface pleasures, we feel that river of peace rushing strong and sure. Watering everything deeply. God is moving on all the trauma. He is binding everyone up and together in brand new ways. How amazing that every day He refreshes my hope and carves out a new level of trust.

I visited my orthopedic doctor today to get my ankles and feet checked out. Although the pain has now diminished to almost zero, I kept the appointment in order to display all of my Instagram physiology knowledge. This is definitely not annoying to a health care professional, right? Seriously though, this is a recurring soft tissue problem, and I need it sorted out. I also wanted to rule out bone and joint problems. A few X-rays and ankle twirls confirmed healthy everything, just mild calcification on my left heel. My doctor is wonderfully conversational about natural running stride, the importance of core strength and hip alignment, arch support, shoe debates, you name it. He even recommended a book to me that just happens to already be on my book shelf! Running friends should be prepared for my extremely annoying unsolicited advice, coming soon.

Ok. Halee and her men are soon moving to Spain, but I need her to reconsider everything so she and I can pursue our synchronized swimming career. No photo of that available to share, but trust me, our maiden attempt was spectacular. Instead, here are her boys trying to lure Little Lady Marigold with a bucket of sweet grain. This petite sheep really does come closer every day.

Greg, almost 10, and Connor, 4 1/2 xoxoxo

Ok. A few days ago I asked you guys for advice on eating only watermelon and cashews for a while, and nobody objected. Not one person cautioned me for any reason whatsoever, so I am gonna go for it. It’s fine.

While most of my squash and zuchinni vines are looking great, I have discovered a few plants in the two long, narrow raised beds (the two connected by an arched trellis) that have suffered a squash bug attack. Rather than try to rehabilitate those, I decided to rip them out, give the neighboring tomatoes and marigolds some really good TLC, then fill the blank spaces with zinnia seeds. I had been feeling a vague sadness for the conspicuous absence of explosive zinnias so far this summer, and this new effort could bring me all the way through to Halloween. Maybe some Russian kale, too.

That middle stripe will be clean & replanted by tomorrow afternoon.

Today is His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 85th birthday! He has become special to us since we read The Book of Joy. If you have four minutes, click over and enjoy his video message to the people of Tibet.

Have you read The Book of Joy yet?

How has your work week started? What are you reading this week? Is there any way we can be praying for you and your people? Please continue to send love and all kinds of healing for our girls. That is forefront in my heart, and all of it is making such a difference.

Please help me remember to talk to you about being a verb instead of a noun, and about embracing constant evolution. I love you, thank you for checking in!

“People take different roads
seeking fulfillment and happiness.
Just because they’re not on your road
doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.”
~Dalai Lama XIV
XOXOXOXO

thunderstorms as hints that miracles are coming

Happy Fourth of July! Today is our 112th day of Covid Quarantine. Are you celebrating today and tonight? We opted for avoiding crowds, possibly driving later tonight to watch a small town fireworks display from a distance. Then tomorrow evening, part of my family will join us at the farm for swimming, sparklers, and a good outdoor meal. I am pretty excited for that. We are all good at making the most of bizarre circumstances.

Our sky last night, just before sunset, was everything we needed. I had just spoken with Jess for almost an hour, trying to absorb her grief and fresh anger and help her navigate an exponentially difficult season (is there anything easy about 2020 for my girls?). Her heartbreak is absolutely heartbreaking to me. I have not spoken with Jocelyn recently, but she too is on my mind and in my prayers constantly. As always. I know she is hurting in deep and inexpressible ways.

Last night after that phone call, Handsome and I walked around outside, looking for an Amazon delivery that was delayed, giving thanks for a million different amazing blessings. We saw bright, dense storm clouds far on the horizon. These do appear pretty often but dissipate without coming to fruition. We asked aloud for rain, saying both to each other and to God how wonderful an overnight thunderstorm would be. Then we walked some more. Then we closed up the farm, made coffee for morning, and went to bed.

I’m telling you this because God answered overnight. It was just a thunderstorm in the wee hours of the new day, a musical surprise heavy with rain and absent hail, but it was exactly what we wished for.

Sometimes I feel like small, specific answers like this are encouragements that the big ones are coming. And friends, we have some big requests right now. I imagine you do, too.

This morning I cracked open an old book I first read in my late 20’s. Not quite a devotional, it’s a daily entry style book geared toward women: Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach.

One of the passages I explored was about being purposeful in the pursuit of happiness. She writes about the differences between dreams and expectations and explains some mechanics of releasing to the God the exact results of our hard work. “Living your life as a dreamer and not as an expector is a personal declaration of independence. You’re able to pursue happiness more directly when you don’t get caught up in the delivery details.” I love that.

My workout today was split between the very very very crowded lake (so crowded I ended up leaving) and the treadmill. I felt great! Seven easy miles with a low heart rate, comfy feet and legs. You might like to know that on my drive to the lake I came upon a herd of cows blocking the road. There were at least 15 calves in the group, all teeter-tottering and scampering. As oblivious to pandemic as yesterday’s wild meadows.

The cows were easily herded into this abandoned, fenced yard.

“Drop by drop fills the tub.”
~French proverb
XOXOXOXO

our easy day off & freedom is a gift we choose to accept

Friday, July 3, 2020. Quarantine Day #111.

State offices are closed today, but our bodies don’t know that, so we woke naturally up at 5:13 a.m. Handsome, Shepp, and I spent the next two hours taking in the day slowly. We drank our coffee, watched cartoons, explored the gardens, and watered and fed the animals. Little Lady Marigold, our new sheep, made another good attempt to meet me at her breakfast bowl. She always backs off at the last second, but every day the distance shrinks. I love her slotted pupils, stick-straight legs, and puffy, matted fleece.

Temperatures were still mild in the early hours, mid seventies, and the skies were painterly blue and white. Our first harvest of the day was five eggs, 2 bright yellow squash, seven heavy tomatoes, and a few cups of ripe blackberries. There is always a second harvest in the afternoon.

Mid-morning I grabbed a 5 mile progression run on the treadmill (felt great, zero pain!) and half an hour in the gym. Meanwhile Handsome played around with the art of motorcycle maintenance. I cannot vouch for his Zen, though, because apparently my little green Honda had been sitting too long and now has a fuel line gummed up. Did I ever tell you that I got my motorcycle license? It is one of the biggest shocks of life, truly. Sometimes when I think about it I start sweating and trembling spontaneously.

We decided to break some monotony and take a short drive to Wellston, Oklahoma, just under an hour away. There is a locally famous barbecue stand there, an outdoor restaurant, really, that serves food from an old school bus.

We enjoyed the steamy drive in a topless car but declined to stop and eat because the parking lot was at capacity, swarming with people. We are distancing pretty strictly still, so that was a hard pass. Instead, we drove and drove, loving the sunshine and the undulating country roads flanked by corn fields, hay meadows neatly adorned with giant round bales, and tiny, almost delicate cemeteries. We accidentally joined up with Memorial road where it suddenly becomes heavy gravel, so we slowed way down. The careful pace allowed me to see the roadside meadows better: Vitex and Indian tobacco growing wild. Pecan and Red Bud saplings wilting in the heat. Thick ornamental grasses, tickseed, and Virginia Creeper, all tangled up and blissfully unaware of pandemic. I soaked up the rural house gardens when they appeared. Mostly orange day lilies and pink crepe myrtle bushes. I imagine they are generational perennials.

Back home again, we ate regular food from our well stocked kitchen and were perfectly happy, ha! The heat and humidity returned and our work was caught up, so we spent part of our afternoon in the pool and on the deck.

I finished reading Cold Mountain, the Civil War novel that many people remember as the movie with Nicole Kidman and Jude Law. The book is beautifully written, a weirdly motivating read if you like manual labor and general human suffering, or the perseverance through suffering. And it is so humbling. The circumstances people can survive, it just amazes and inspires me.

“That’s just pain, she said. It goes eventually. And when it’s gone, there’s no lasting memory. Not the worst of it, anyway. It fades. Our minds aren’t made to hold on to the particulars of pain the way we do bliss. It’s a gift God gives us, a sign of His care for us.” ~Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

“Waste not thy liberty.” One of my all time favorite, short and sweet mantras. Tomorrow is Independence Day. I have been thinking a lot about freedom lately, about being free, about being set free from all kinds of earthly bondage.

As a thought experiment lately, every time I catch myself saying or thinking that I have to do something, my goal is to replace it with I get to do something. It’s a small but powerful word swap. I have been liberated and set free from so many things, so many hardships and limitations, so much silencing, so many real fears. Not only am I free in the political or social sense; but more importantly I am free spiritually, psychologically, and emotionally, so long as I continue to choose that state of living. My thoughts and habits can either cultivate or surrender this gift every day.

Liberty is not the wild absence of discipline; in fact being free invites a more authentic version of self rule. Being free from outside controls requires and encourages us to set our own controls, some that make sense and are harmonious with our values and circumstances. At least that’s how I see it.

Okay I hope you are well, thank you for reading! I also hope we have popcorn for dinner soon and watch a movie.

One more thing, what do you think would happen to a person’s body if she were to only eat watermelon and cashews? I mean, mostly those two things?

“I am full of freedom.”
~Kellie Sperry
(I owe you this story soon, friends!)
XOXOXOXO

i love you etcetera

July 2, 2020. Quarantine Day 110

Brain food! Alex and Jess recently recommended a podcast called The Anthropocene Reviewed. The episode about our temporal range was fascinating. Author John Greene explores mankind’s obsession with predicting the end of the world and does a good job of reframing it a little. Great timing, by the way, with current events. And the short podcast was a nice compliment to the research book I have been reading called Fear Itself, which delves into all kinds of societal fears and conspiracy theories. What I found refreshing was that Greene neither fully demonized nor glorified our species, as so many voices tend to do. He didn’t pass too much judgement; he just raised interesting questions and made great observations. To return the excellent recommendation favor, I told Alex about the Netflix special Thirteen, about the 13th amendment. Have you seen it yet?

Yesterday Halee and the nephews visited! They will soon be joining my brother in Spain for a three year stint, so these silly and free farm days with them are a treasure to us. Even if the heat and humidity are bone melting, ha! We swam, retreated to the cool house, baked chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, reapplied sunblock, swam again, went on a nature walk and took tractor rides, harvested berries and squash, swam one more time, and had pizza. (Big thanks to Handsome for picking it up!)

Connor picked a green tomato and did not believe it was real. He carefully put it back next to the vine.
I call this “happy chaos!”
Greg, my little cookie making machine!

During our very casual paper plate dinner, we all chatted about how much we love each other, specifically our moms. Greg (age 9.87 years old) remarked that he has to love Halee because she created him, etcetera. Wrist flip, eye roll, pass the pizza please. Oh man. We seized the opportunity to shame him for not loving his Mom for all of her wonderful qualities (fun, smart, kind, generous, patient, loving, awesome!!) and for all the things she has done for him his entire life (cleaning up vomit, taking him to fun places, providing him his favorite foods and toys and books, you name it). His self defense was quick and surgical: “You guys didn’t HEAR me. I said ETCETERA!!” Then an even more dramatic wrist flip-eye roll combination, flourished with some chin wagging. I mean he really stuck the landing this time. The room erupted in laughter. I doubt whether any lessons were learned, but a new family catchphrase was born.

Handsome is making such progress with the Batmobile project! All the farm improvements from March to June were important and satisfying, but this might be the one physical accomplishment for which we all remember quarantine the most. His aspirations, among other uses, are to use this vehicle for hospital outreach and charity parades. I am so proud and excited! He has really been pouring his heart into this.

After a couple of wonky months, I am enjoying a nice reset with fitness. Yesterday’s workout was 5 steamy miles at the Choctaw park followed by a quick gym session, focused on unilateral moves. I am convinced that muscles imbalances have been the root of my plantar fasciitis and Achilles pain, and all of this gradual strengthening is helping more than rest and time off ever did.

Today I had intended to run at the lake at daybreak but made the mistake of doing chores first (seems like I am physically incapable of leaving the house without certain things finished) then checking the gardens. So, two hours and a sink-ful of produce and eggs later, I decided I should probably do laundry, too, before electricity hit peak price. And maybe sweep floors and water the gardens, ha! Around noon I finally laced up, but we had hit feels-like temps of 110 degrees, so I opted for the treadmill. Eight miles easy effort, no heatstroke. The pleasures of a lake run can wait.

I am giggling here because after a rambunctious day, Greg asked for a cuddle and nearly fell asleep in my lap while I played with his gorgeous red hair. I loved it. Sweet spicy boy.

Thanks for checking in, friends.
I love you, ETCETERA!!
XOXOXOXO

and so we welcome July

Hello, and happy fresh new month! According to my journal, today is our 109th day of quarantine. It has become a flexible lifestyle, one that is evolving through the changing seasons. I feel the need to document more if it all.

Handsome and I have fallen comfortably into a work-from-the-farm summertime routine. Monday through Friday, we wake up and drink coffee together just before daybreak. The animals can be very demanding, even as early as 6 a.m. So if they catch us walking around taking in the technicolor skies, odds are good that chores start early. He eventually tackles his Commish projects and teleconferences from the relative comfort of either of his two car shops. I divide my morning hours between housework and laundry, the animals and gardens, and some form of exercise. Klaus rotates between us, preferring us all three to hang out together, of course, but he does seem finally resigned to this confusing new division of labor. Having a new sheep to gently terrorize has been a nice outlet for his restless energy, ha.

Speaking of routines, starting today I am attempting a blogging streak. My plan is to post daily updates for the entire month of July then reevaluate. My long stretches of not writing have never been for a lack of happenings; it’s really that I can barely keep up! Maybe if I write a little more as we go that will help. Better than nothing, at least. Will you read along? Will you share your thoughts and life events, too? I hope so.

Yesterday we wore our masks to vote in the Oklahoma primaries. Our polling place is a local church, and their spacious auditorium was arranged nicely for good social distancing. How many more voting cycles do you think will happen under these circumstances? Some rumors suggest two more years like this, living cautiously while covid-19 rages. It’s a moment in history for sure.

Our tomatoes, blackberries, herbs, peppers, and various squashes are growing and ripening like crazy. I am seeing tiny watermelons popping up on the green vines, too. Our hens are laying between 7 and 12 eggs per day, despite the heat. We have killed two large snakes in the east coop though, so perhaps they are laying far more than I am collecting, and the snakes are just well fed.

The day lilies, hydrangeas, and hollyhocks are so thrilling this summer. I have in the past been pretty content with just massive sprays of zinnias here and there. But since those are moving slowly this year, I am more than comforted by these lush perennial displays. I am also loving the wildflowers growing with abandon out front, along The Enchanted Path. My friend Lynn suggested this photo below looks like a wildflower bridal bouquet, and I agree.

How are you faring? How is whatever stage of quarantine you are at, affecting you? Are you able to sink into summertime pleasures, or are you feeling the squeeze of confinement too much?

Thank you for all of the loving messages after yesterday’s blog post, about our difficult family news. As it feels right, I will share them with my girls. Many of you already understand what a complicated and difficult situation this already was. Prayers and Love and grace will soothe everything in time.

Please take care of yourself! Be well, physically and emotionally. Know that you are loved and needed in this world. And thank you for checking in here. See you tomorrow!!

XOXOXOXO