Arghhh...I am having trouble with the comment moderation on this blog. 2 comments that I wanted to publish have disappeared, one from Tabitha and one from Cabo. The last time I got some weird error message...either way, they are both gone ...Pfffftttt!
I am very tired, mostly from not enough sleep last night. I didn't do much today, read, went out and checked on my chickens. Went down to the end of the driveway and got the mail. That was enough to wear me out. Did a little computing, a little reading and fielded several phonew calls. My phone signal was iffy today too, and several times got voice mail alerts when my phone never rang.
The cold is still with us, and the weather alerts are for the actual cold itself, telling us that in winds like these, you can get frostbite in less than 20 minutes. The chickens are hanging in there, of course we have a heat lamp in there on a thrmostat and a heated water bowl as well.It is snowing again, and has snowed off and on all day.
I am reading the last quarter of the book The Lacuna. It's quite good, and the main character is now living in Asheville, North Carolina...near where I lived the last 10 years before moving back here. The descriptive passgaes of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the town of Asheville itself (Tunnel Road, Pack Square) are making me homesick for the place. Just the names of the French Broad River, the Swannanoa River, etc evoke great memories...
I have been especially blessed to have lived in some really beautiful places in my lifetime....
I'm off to bed. Blessings and sweet dreams to all...
Namaste.
The aftermath of last nights snow...it took out the computer satellite signal and I couldn't post...it's quite beautiful out there. Even more so, since I don't have to drive anywhere! lol My birthday was grand...thanks everyone for the wonderful comments and wishes. My baby sister took me to lunch at Dead Lobster(sic) and then we hung out a bit. It was nice. I came home and made peanut butter chicken with jasmine rice for supper and had a very laid back evening.Husbandman got a speeding ticket on the way home from work, at a well known speed trap in the little town of Wilsonville. He says it was because he was flying home to be with the woman he loves on her birthday, lol, truth be known, he rarely drives the speed limit through these little towns. Maybe he'll be more careful from now on... Do you know that on planet Starbucks they think a PINT of coffee ice cream will feed FOUR people ???? HAhahahahahahahahahahahahahah...I ate a whole pint myself last night while I was reading The Lacuna. And I have to tell you, that blend of espresso and coffee and sweet ice cream is enough to send you into paroxysmal ecstacy. At least it did me... My internet connection is a bit sketchy yet this morning, and rather slow. Hopefully I can get this posted before it goes away. We are supposed to have 30 mph wind gusts this afternoon. Right now it is gorgeous out there and dazzlingly, painfully white. Looks like we only got about 4 inches after all, and hubby made it out to work with no problem. The power hasn't gone out (knock wood) and everything is fine as can be. I am thinking about what will be for supper. Probably leftover meatloaf. I could make a brown onion gravy and some mashed potatoes and have hot meatloaf sandwiches. Oooo, that sounds good... The dogs are clamoring to come back in. My life in a nutshell: let dogs in, let dogs out. Let cats in, let cats out. Vacuum, vacuum, vacuum... My life is full and happy today. I can see past the irritations and fear most of the time, and it makes for a smooth sail. I am so grateful for all the gifts of friends and family and love and sobriety. Blessings to all!! I leave you with this lovely quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us."Namaste.
My favorite part of winter is not the crystalline beauty of the snow and ice. Not even the incredible birds that show up here. No, my favorite part is that January is the month that they start sending me seed catalogs for the upcoming gardening season. My favorite one is the one in the picture above, from H.R. Shumway seeds, out of Randolph, Wisconsin. I love it especially because (as you can see from the cover) the pictures inside of the veggies and fruits are all hand drawn. It is absolutely a work of art. It's an oversized newsprint papered bounty of the most wonderful things your heart could imagine. Every year I start checking the mailbox the first week of January, and I always can count on them to have it in my box at or before my birthday. It's one of those" little gifts from the Universe to me" kind of things. lol Well it came and it's beautiful and I plan to wear it out by the time spring arrives.
I get another one I really like from a company in ...Connecticut or Vermont. It's called Kitchen Seeds. And it's a hip and slick publication full of things you rarely find elsewhere. I like it a lot, but it's no Shumway....lol
I'm one of those gardeners that plan. I have a garden journal where I draw diagrams showing where I've planted what in any particular year, so I can identify them, when they start coming up and also so I know how to rotate when necessary. I keep detailed notes on germination times and yields, and this helps me to organize my garden for the next year. Also helps me to remember what not to plant again. (Like the baby Japanese Eggplant....) I am a companion planter, so this helps me to learn what does well next to what, and it really does make a difference. I keep some sketchy weather notes in there as well, like the date of the last frost
and about how much rainfall we have.
I have high hopes for the 2010 gardens, especially now that we have water.
Well, it's officially midnight here and I am officially 57 years old. Time for me to go to bed, my sister is talking me to lunch tomorrow and I am really tired tonight. So, I bid you adieu and sweet dreams of gardens and all things green. (And that's a really nice wish, especially around here this week, whee the temps have been as polar opposite from spring temps as is possible.)
Namaste.
Brilliant clear cold skies can only mean one thing around here...the eagles are back! From late December until May, the bald eagles come back this way to nest and raise young 'uns all along the Mississippi River. If you have never seen an eagles nest, it's a sight to behold. About the size of a Volkswagen, made with branches and limbs of trees. I could stand up in one and you'd barely see the top of my head. They average about 7 ft across too...it's a trip, I'm telling you. All day long you can watch them soaring and diving, hunting and just making beautiful choreographed poetry across the skies here. I could sit for hours and watch them.
Had a chiropractor appointment this morning. I don't know...I am really a fan of the trade, but I don't know if this is helping me or making me worse. I woke up feeling off kilter to begin with, and by the time he was finished, my head hurt and I was disoriented a little. Maybe disoriented is too strong a word...but I wasn't right. I thought it would pass, but it never did. I called my sponsor and canceled our lunch date, and went straight home and to bed with a heating pad, and I slept for about 3 hours. I have had a headache all day. Picked up the husbandman and we drove to my friends house to pick up their little car that they are so graciously giving me to use while they're gone. I won't have to get up at 5 am anymore to keep the car, at least not for the next few months. How blessed am I to have such friends?? Such generous spirits...it boggles the mind...
Chatted with both my sisters today. The local one wanting to take me to lunch for my birthday on Wednesday, the other recruiting me to help convince the entire family up here to go down south next October for a wedding, saying everyone could stay at her two houses (yes, that's what I said...2 houses) there and wouldn't it be nice for all of us to be there together? And it would mean so much to the bride to be to have all the family there...and of course I'm thinking 2 things: 1) That's a year from now and does anybody really make plans that far in advance? Anything could be happening by then...and 2) If it was meaning so much to her to have all the family there, she would be having it up here where all the family IS, instead of on an Island in Floridas waters...her parents are here, for crying out loud...and none of us are rich. But...I didn't say any of that. I just uh-huh 'd and hmmmm'd.
I am totally digging the Barbara Kingsolver book I bought myself as a reward for finishing Nano...Called The Lacuna. I'm about halfway through it now. I still need a copy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It's one I haven't read yet. Also a nonfiction she wrote called Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983. I have read a lot of the essays she has written that have been in the sustainability books we've used for classes too. Love love love her.
Okay...even with the 3 hour nap, I'm thinking of going to bed soon. Time to wrap this up and leave you with a sweet thought by Somerset Maugham:
"It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it."
Namaste.
Cold as a well diggers A*# out there!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is now a balmy 5 degrees with a Weather Advisory warning out. Wind chill temps will be from 15 to 25 BELOW zero tonight and tomorrow morning. And I have to get up and take himself to work so I can go to the chiro. I've just let the dogs out for their last hurrah of the evening. They'll not be long...it's brutal out there. Although the young pup, Caylee is quite the outdoors dog and refuses to come in most of the daylight hours unless it's real bad...even she won't stay out for long at night.
I dream of the beaches of Waikiki...of snorkeling at Haunemea Bay, of climbing Diamond Head. Of palm trees waving in the breeze and the splash of waves against the accepting sands. I visited there in 1992 and have yet to make it back. I loved every single minute of the 8 days I got to stay there. I got a little island fever-ish at the end, but I would go again in a heartbeat. Especially in January, when the projected wind chill is bringing temps to 20 below....
I dream of living somewhere warm again, although I am fully aware that it will probably never happen. My youth is gone...the days when I could pull up stakes and go anywhere I damn well pleased. I am settling into middle age [finally] at nearly 57 years old. Attached to a place via the family and friends and things that have taken up residence in my heart. Moving proves entirely too much to consider when there are so many dogs and cats and birds and chickens involved. I do love the spring time and a good portion of the summer as well...before the heat gets so unbearable. But more than that, I am in love with this place I call home...my gardens and my lilies and my fruit trees. The modest little home and its flaws, the place at the pond where the turtles come up every year to lay their eggs. The way the honeysuckle and lilacs scent the air right up to my front door. The blackberry brambles that create a security fence around the sides and back of my yard. The way the tall tulip poplar blooms on branches so high that you cannot make out the flowers...only the splash of creamy yellow against the sky.
Even in the coldest part of winter, my trees and yard are brimming with wild birds. Cardinals, ruby red against the snow. Chickadees and Nuthatches and woodpeckers-Downey and Pileated and Hairy and Red Bellied and Red Heads. And don't forget the brilliant blues of the huge Jays as they swoop from tree to tree, flashes of cerulean startling all the other birds for a moment in their majesty.
Sigh...okay. Why would I ever want to leave here? Am I so fickle that a few weeks of this frostbitten insanity would be enough to make me up and leave all the rest? Of course not.
It's all just a dream on a cold winters night. If I pay attention, I can still smell the remnants of todays bread baking on the air.
And the smell of bread baking is always the smell of HOME. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Namaste.
Can you imagine....fencing in the goddesses like this??? lol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's after midnight and I should be abed. The temperature right now is 5 degrees, with a minus 7 wind chill. I have a feeling that this is going to be a brutal winter around these parts...it's certainly off to a good start. We spent part of the day weatherizing the windows with plastic sheeting and I put up a heavy curtain over the kitchen window as well, on top of the plastic, because you can feel the draft coming in there. It's snug as a bug now. Husbandman finished the cleaning and checking of the kerosene heater, you have to burn the wick down (or something) every year, and check it all out to make sure it's ready to go if we should need it. We have a lot of power outages here, so many trees and lots of wide open spaces. The pantry needs checking and fine tuning, and otherwise, we're as ready as we'll ever be for the long dark winter. lol
Want to shout out a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!" to KristinH over at Jilli Java...hope it was grand, girlie! I love birthdays of all kinds. Got a call from my little niece down south, informing me that her birthday party would be on the 11th and I needed to make sure to come, because she loves me. I have a nephew that shares my birthday next Wednesday, his wife is the 4th, his daughter is the5th and we are the 6th. Then Skyler is the 11th. It's a busy month in my family...lol
We watched the movie Usual Suspects tonight, as we hadn't seen it in a while. Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Pollack, Chaz Palmeintiere(sp)...a magnificent cast and a great story. Had leftovers for dinner, and had made a nice tuna salad for lunch, all trimmed up with hard boiled egg and artichoke hearts and pickled green beans and black olives. It was yummy...and healthy too. Supper was a refreshed spaghetti sauce with meatballs and pasta. Using up leftovers...The only thing left was 3 meatballs that I will feed that man for lunch tomorrow as a sub. Just about got the fridge cleaned out...still have a counter full of cookies though.
I'm feeling very blessed today for a lot of reasons. I like feeling this way. Went to a good meeting last night and got to see my pal who's leaving for the islands on Tuesday. Got to see my sponsor and make a lunch date for Monday with her. We talked about that psychic change...wow. When I look back at what it used to be like, there's no doubt in my mind that I have experienced that shift. I'm so grateful to be sober, that I can't find the words.
Time for me to go off to bed. I'm overtired and feeling a little goofy. Sweet dreams, all y'all...
Namaste.
PS--(((Chris: ACIM is A Course In Miracles!!!!)))
The snow has been falling off and on all day. We have spent a lazy luxurious day just being together and reading and doing various things around the casa. These pictures are not from today, but they still look about the same out there....snow is snow is snow. When I left this place back in 1976 and ran off to California, I swore I would never come back. I had left a couple of times before this particular Exodus, but returned each time. I had run off to Wisconsin for a year (not so far away, and same weather!) and then off to Colorado for about a year and a half. But when I landed in sunny California and the cold temps got down to about 50 and the hot temps up to about 80...I knew I was home. lol I still don't like the snow and I don't like the cold. Now that I'm old and beat up, the cold makes me hurt in places I didn't know I had. On the other hand, because I don't work anymore, I don't have to deal with that side of the bad weather. When it snows, I just stay home. I don't have to drive in it. If I have appointments and the roads are bad, I just reschedule them. Where I live, sometimes the worst part is my hill of a driveway and the road in front of my house. There's about a quarter mile stretch that sees no sun, is on a hill, and is a sheet of ice, regardless. PLUS...we are out in the boonies, so we are the last place the snowplow finally comes. When they come. And that's okay by me...I am content to just stay here and read and sip tea and look at it through the window. Husbandman says the weather here is sucky...never cold enough for long enough to be fun. I think he is deranged. But, he is from Wisconsin...and you know how THOSE people are. lol. I tell people I have my own personal zamboni driver. (About 1/4 of them know what I'm talking about.) There are several people on my mind this evening that I hope are weathering the holidays okay. I don't hear from them anymore, and there's a little hole where they used to be. So, here we are, the first day of the first month. I started reading the Artists Way again today. I also started the workbook lessons in ACIM. This should be enough to keep me on track in some areas of my life and expand my world so that some Light can come in on a regular basis. I hope so. I am especially blessed tonight by friendship and by love and by the miraculous gift of sobriety. I am blessed with wonderful memories and a wonderful family and all manner of things good. I have had a life full of adventure and romance and mystery. When I tally it all up, I find it wanting for nothing...and how great is that? I leave you with this recycled quote (because it's one of my faves): "I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning."~~ J.B. Priestly (1894-1984)Namaste.
Arghhh...I am having trouble with the comment moderation on this blog. 2 comments that I wanted to publish have disappeared, one from Tabitha and one from Cabo. The last time I got some weird error message...either way, they are both gone ...Pfffftttt! 
