A cool Thursday

  One of the apples on my fruit lawn tree. lol  It has quite a few this year...

  It is a chilly morning. Well--relative chill. About 66 right now at10:30 AM and cloudy. Perfect grass mowing weather, if I could just get out there and do it. But I have all these grand ideas of OTHER stuff I could do...like clean and grocery shop (a local store has chicken breasts -bone in- for .99/lb) and I probably need to go get those.  If I thought I could be sure that the Irishman would mow this evening, I might risk it.  But in his head, he's already on vacation, I'm afraid.

  I have friends possibly coming out tomorrow afternoon. Not sure that I can count on that, because, well...you know how people are. And these 2 are very...um...spontaneous...about plans they make. Like changing them at the last minute. I've known them for a couple of years, out and about, but they've never been to my house before.  We'll see.


   I have lots of weeding that needs done as well. And a friend who is very broke right now and is fishing for some work. I may just take him up on it.  I could pay a little....might not be enough, or he might be grateful for anything. Won't know until I ask, I guess.  I'm always afraid of offering too little...I know I feel MY own time is more valuable than other people think it is.  lol Times are hard these days for everyone, I guess. And we all need to feel like we can share something...at least, that's how I look at it.

My spare change jar (that I just cashed in to give the Irishman a little extra pocket money in WI) contained over 65 dollars this time.  It has a label on it that says:

     This is an abundant Universe.
     I always have more than I need.
     I always have wealth to share.

  A good reminder, there are always things I can share. No matter what.

  Okay. Enough of this dilly-dallying.  I have a massive dog hair eradication project to embark upon. Groceries to shop for.  And decisions to make about the nature of my grass mowing--as in, who's gonna do it?  lol

  I am off for 2 days and will have plenty of leisure to get things done without killing myself over it. That in itself is a relaxing thought. Tomorrow I will spray the veggies...altho this cool snap might just take care of some of the imminent problems for me. (It's really not THAT cool...I just am chilly in here with the fans blowing on me....) sheesh...

  My chickens and cats and dogs love the days I am home because they get extra attention.

  Even the cockatiel Chico seems to know when I'm going to be here to chat with him all day and whistle back and forth like we do. He's been singing me love songs all morning.

  I have more beautiful butter yellow lilies open this morning ut front around the bird bath and the feeder pole.  The flowers are HUGE. So bright and cheerful. No signs of flowers on the Rose of Sharon yet...but the bush itself looks grand.

  I pruned the bejeezus out of it this spring, and was a little concerned since I usually prune it in the fall.  Worked out fine though. Mother Nature, while very exacting sometimes, can be very tolerant as well.  Thank Goodness.


  Have a fine day y'all...rain or no rain, sun or no sun.

 

 Namaste.

Whew....

  The Christmas holiday has passed, the messes are pretty much cleaned up. Sort of, lol. We have had a lot of ice and snow from the big storm that swept through the country...probably 4-5 inches and it made a mess of the roads.  Very beautiful though...and we made it to my sons on Christmas morning without a hitch...the Irishman utilizing his best northern Wisconsin born and bred  driving skills. Had a wonderful and loving morning there , complete with a killer breakfast cooked by my son.

  I did have to park up top of the hill on Christmas night coming home from work because the roads were too bad to be able to make it down and then up into the driveway. There was a truck AND a tractor in the ditch in front of my house.  lol  They did eventually get out, God bless them. I didn't risk it. There's residual stuff out there now...and it melted some yesterday,but then glazed back over into a sheet of glass as the night temps plummeted to 10 degrees.  

  I have to take a cat to the vet for spaying today, and then try to get something wonderful made for my husband's supper. I guess something easy like a chicken and rice casserole, which can be cooking while I'm heading for the vet. I have to go in to work early today, so that will cut down on my home time once again. I long for the old days sometimes, lol, when I didn't have to make any plans to leave the house all day long if I didn't want to.

  Between the busy-ness of the holidays and the weather and work, I haven't been able to get back here to blog for a few days. Today promises to be another busy one, but I wanted to make sure to stop in and say that once again, we have survived the storm of holiday activity and paced ourselves even better than years past. The Irishman loved the dvd sets...The Vicar of Dibley and Waiting for God.  We are now watching the 20 year old version of CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia...it's a hoot, especially compared with the new whiz-bang productions that are coming out in the theater.  Husband is back at work today....

  Okay. Time to throw together the casserole, get out of the pj's and get dressed and move on into this day.  Here's hoping you all find some peace and tranquility in the post Christmas days, and prepare for a new year that's abundant and prosperous...in all the ways that matter. 

  Namaste.

Labor Day Monday

[This looked like a serious conversation...a melding of minds...] lol


The long weekend is over. Grandson back home and today in school. Sister and husband back on their way to Florida. Husband back to work. Me...breathing a sigh of relief at having my quiet home back. I have a few errands to run today and am thinking i should get them done this morning so I can sit back and enjoy the rest of the day. Patrick had 4 days off in a row....yikes. lol It was all good though.

I tried blogging here last night after I got home from the meeting, but the power went out and I lost the satellite signal. Never mind. I just turned it off and went to bed, where I proceeded to sleep soundly for about 7 and a half hours. And this morning I am refreshed and ready for a new day. I have juice to make and bread to bake, and a tiny bit of straightening to do around my house.

I feel so blessed these days. As my friend Mary said so succinctly, "Abundance is everywhere..." If I can shift my paradigms even the tiniest bit, I can find prosperity in everything I see. If I can move from the errant ideas that wealth is in bank accounts and new things and more, more, more. If I can open my heart to abundance instead of always looking thorough my eyes. When I can do this, I see a world full to the brim. The value of a simply lived life is astronomical for me. The lack of stress, the absence of constant competition, the loss of those feelings of never having enough. Because that's what they are--just feelings. Not facts. The facts are made plain by the removal of lots of extraneous clutter, whether it's in my life reality or in my mind. I am not hungry, like 2/3 of the world. I am not homeless, like so many are. I am not alone. I have an excess of clothing, baubles, books and pets. (lol) I may not have much deniros in the bank, but my needs are met. I have lived a lot of my life wallowing in excess...so I do know this terrain. I have also been blessed to have lived in some times of scarcity, so I know that terrain as well. Today I am somewhere in the middle. Poor by some standards, wealthy by others. Resting here, in the middle.

I am blessed to have been given the chance to live a sober life. Many never get this chance. Some days I wish I didn't get so much of the experience, but mostly I am blessed beyond measure. I witnessed a man about my age last night who got sober the same year as I did, but drank again after 7 years and has been coming in and out of sobriety ever since. Cannot find his way back to stay...just getting little snatches of peace every now and again, only to fall back off the path and be lost...again and again. It shook me. He looked so lost and so miserable. I remember being told in my early days that it wasn't rocket science...I just needed one thing. To want to be sober more than I wanted to be drunk. That it wasn't enough just try--I had to DO. It wasn't hard to stop, they told me--staying stopped was the tricky part. That I had to build a sober life that was better than anything I had ever known drunk. And I started out on that road of discovery, love and service back in the early 90's and haven't had to drink since. I feel relatively secure in sobriety today, even when I watch people with some time drink again. I'm not stupid about it though. I still do almost all the things they told me back then. And mostly, I NEVER forget what it used to be like, what happened and what it's like now. And I dig in, and I put my hand out one more time, no matter how tiresome it gets sometimes. And no matter how many times I watch them stumble back out there, I know that I stayed sober through it, and that's enough. I don't have to analyze, rationalize or justify my life today. I just have to live it. Fully.

For these things, I feel especially blessed.


Namaste.

Sunday Night/Monday Morning...

Where does the time go?? The older I get the faster it goes...and here it is, the last week of July already. Seems like we were just making plans for the gardens and ordering seeds, waiting for them to show up at the mailbox. Already I am watching the waning of some parts of the garden, and we could sure use a little rain right now.

We dug new potatoes for supper last night...a combination of the Ruby Crescents and the Banana fingerlings...OMG...they practically melt in your mouth. I picked the first of the okra, and some onions and and potatoes and tomatoes and blackberries. I need to get out there and pick cucumbers too. I think I'll have some cucmubers for breakfast, as a matter of fact. A little sea salt sprinkled on top...mmmm.

Living off the land is easy to do in the summer, especially in the summer. I picked 3 peaches yesterday that were the size of softballs. This tree is only 4 years old, so I am right proud of it. We didn't have a lot of peaches this year, as a storm took off most of the flowers. But the ones that are here are gorgeous and I can't wait to bite into one.

It's easy to look around me out here and be thankful for the abundance and prosperity I have in my life. What really amazes me is that it comes in many different forms, and not in the ways that I always used to think of abundance. I don't have much money in the bank. In fact we live pretty much paycheck to paycheck...like a lot of people in this country do these days. Wasn't always like this-but it is now. We have about exactly enough to pay the bills, and God help us if there's any extra emergencies. I have a grocery budget that I try really hard to stick to, and when we have more garden stuff, I buy more dry goods, etc. to stock the pantry with. But I have a beautiful little slice of country out here. It's nothing special, and it has its problems, but it's peaceful and it's a roof over our heads and it's ours. I can sit out in the backyard for hours, just listening to no other sounds than birds singing and dogs barking and roosters crowing. It's a symphony in its own right. I have enough love in my life that I am not unhappy or discontent or alone. I have enough clothes for 3 people (probably) -by some standards- and I have several pairs of shoes that I can wear. I have no running water at the moment, but I do have gallons of spring water in the back room and I do have a pond that I can bring water up for flushing toilets. It's a little primitive (What??WAY primitive, you say??) lol but it's not life and death. My loved ones are all relatively healthy and happy and unafraid. I have a program and a fellowship that, if I do my part, insures that I don't have to be a drunk ever again, if I don't want to. I have a car that runs, animals that are fed, and a relationship with my Creator.

All in all, a life of Elegant Blessings.

Namaste.

Twoderful Tuesday

Busy busy today. Tried to get outside and do my digging before it got too hot, but alas...it was already hot when I woke up. I planted 4 beautiful cone flowers around the birdbath in the front yard, 2 pink, 2 white. I moved the birdbath a tad...forgot how heavy that darn thing is. I also planted the pine tree out near the woodpile along the tree line. And I got 6 sweet banana peppers in the ground. By this time it was 11:30 and I was about to pass out, it was only about 92 degrees, but the heat index was 102. Then I moved inside, for the air conditioned part of our program. lol I showered and washed my hair and then took a break before beginning on my "LIST". I accomplished more than I thought I would, because I was feeling pretty wonkey from all that sun. More than once I thought of napping, believe me.

Made a lovely pasta/chicken salad for supper because I couldn't bare to even think of eating anything hot. I grilled the chicken and then cut it up into the farfalle pasta with a bunch of spices and parmesan cheese, as well as red peppers and carrots and snow peas and onions. Mixed it up with some mayonnaise and threw it into the fridge. Then I made a Waldorf salad too. I just ate a small bowl of that...ooohhhh is it good. I've been craving it for a week.

I have overnight guests again, sleeping in the spare room. One of my sponsees and her 13 year old son. They've just retired for the night, and so the house is quiet again.

Had a wonderful conversation with a friend today, reminding me that life is precious and good, and there is so much more to wealth than money. Something we probably all need reminding about, from time to time. I came away from that phone call feeling especially blessed.

BTW--Butterburgers are a trademark of a Wisconsin company called Culver's. They make a mean frozen custard as well as the yummy butterburgers. I'm not sure if the name comes from the buns being buttered and toasted, or if they actually put a slice of butter in the middle if each hand pattied burger. (That may sound a little weird to you, but it's an old tried and true restraunt trick). Try it sometime, you'll be amazed by the rich change in flavor.

Okay, my head is starting to hurt. Must be time to get off the computer.

Namaste.