It's not that exciting

I should probably be making dinner right now, but I decided I'd do something else first.  This, specifically.  I seem to be coming out of the dregs.  Slowly, but surely.  And it feels pretty good. Things are sometimes still a little scary or sad, but on the whole, I feel much more like me.  Like I'm getting my rhythm back.  So in that vein, I thought I'd post about what I'd been doing around the old homestead like I used to do back in the day when I started this silly thing.

Garden update:  As I mentioned before, most  of my veg beds had pretty much died of neglect.  I was bemoaning their fate and the cost in time and money of having to rebuild before I could do any gardening to a good friend and she suggested just tearing them all out and going old school and just digging the whole damn thing up.  I thought that a grand idea and drafted my husband.  We got the beds smashed up, which was pretty fun, and then cut up (not so fun) and then all transported to the dumpster (not fun at all).  All that is pretty amazing, considering we usually start a project and ....yeah, it just ends right about there.  So, then the digging began.  By the hubs, of course, because he's awesome like that.  It's about a third dug, and I've started planting on the outskirts of the tilled areas.  I've got onions and peas in back there.  Around the east side of the house, I've got 3 potato bins set up and planted with red potatoes and then snap peas on top.  And I've got a bunch of volunteer lettuce growing in the "path" areas that I'm just gonna let grow.  I have 2 new peach trees, courtesy of some very good friends.  They are part of the fruit tree family that was planted last year.  A cherry, a plum and a pomegranate.  And some grape vines. And blackberries and raspberries.  That's what survived my neglect last year, and I'm pretty shocked anything did.

That's about all I have to report right now.  I am thinking that I would like to try a CSA again this year.  I haven't recruited anyone yet.  I've been so behind on everything, I thought I'd just offer it up as I had surplus.

Hoping this blog can keep me honest and accountable.  Homesteading, pioneering, off the grid-ing...whatever you call it, it's what I want to do more than pretty much anything else.  Practicing my old school home arts makes me just about as happy as a girl could be.  I can't let life steal my joy again.
 

D

Here I am, stuck in the middle with you

I wanted to write a really poignant post about how stressful and horrible this last year was, and explain how great my friends, neighbors and family are, but the words don't seem to be flowing very well.  Instead, my fingers keep wanting to type that I actually wanted to play in the dirt today.  And I can't remember the last time that I wanted to do that.  So maybe I'm not in survival mode anymore.  Maybe life is returning to that happy medium everyone talks about wanting, but no one appreciates. (I REALLY appreciate it now) Maybe playing in the dirt is my canary in a coal mine.  I don't know.  All I know is that it was really nice being out in the sun and listening to the birds and the leaves, even though my yard looks like a nuclear test site right about now and it's too late to get a fall garden in and most of my raised beds self destructed under neglect and will need to be rebuilt before next spring.

So I guess that's it.  Really crappy year. Really really great friends and family. Playing in the dirt. 

That's all I got.

Peace

When I grow up

In my last post, I said that I was pondering my goals.  It took me FOREVER to do it.  I just couldn't put anything on paper that looked or felt right.  It was things like "have a successful Etsy shop", "teach classes" or "quilt for a living".  All things that sound like they should be my goals.  But they're not.  Not at all.  I became frustrated with the process and set it aside.  One day,  on my day off, I was happily vacuuming and cleaning my home (yes, I truly enjoy puttering and cleaning my little house) and that lightbulb that so often stays dark came on.  I found my goal.  And I was shocked.  What is it?  I want to stay home. Is want to be a farm wife. I want to wake up in the morning and take care of my home and my family and animals.  I want to make curtains and paint walls and create a warm place for the people in my life to come and feel safe.  I want to provide amazing healthful food.  I want to tend to my garden and when there's extra, provide it to my friends.  I want to make rain barrels.  And chicken coops. and ......well, you get the picture.  And I want to do ALL of that without feeling guilty. And if, by some chance, I can do all of that, and it creates income, all the better.  I looked at all the numbers, and they were scary.  A lot of stuff needs to be accomplished in order for me to be able to achieve my goal, so I created an "action wall".  I have charts for bills that need to be paid off, and ways to do it, charts for the amount of hours that I've worked, charts for quilt jobs, charts everywhere.  And a DAILY breakdown of what I need to do every single day of the week to accomplish what I need.  And to be able to mark a box off  the chart.  There is nothing I love more than checking off boxes on charts.  I can see what I've done and make adjustments and feel good about things.  And it just may be working.  And a really good thing happened.  Through a random series of bizarre events and conversations, I have an old un-used farm, close to home (like 5 miles) that I can use.  Seriously.  I know that I'll never own my very own farm, and so this is the next best thing.

For the next 6 months, I will be working about 80 hours a week.  Which sounds really awful.  And it could be, if I didn't have those charts.  When I look at them, I remember why I'm doing what I'm doing and I feel like I'm really working towards something instead of just working.  And that feels good. 

Peace

Goals

I know that I've posted of goals before.  Or something similar.  Here I go again.  So, I took this job here in town to help see us over the hump of opening a new business.  It's not my dream job, but it's one that pays.  I am astoundingly grateful that I have it right now, all things being equal. But to be honest, I really can't see myself being there in a year.  So, I asked myself this evening, where WOULD I like to be in a year?  (providing of course, that the Maya were just playing a trick on us and the Zombie Apocalypse doesn't happen)  I have a few ideas floating around in my head of where APPROXIMATELY I'd like to be, but I think I need to ponder and put pen to paper to determine EXACTLY where that place is and how to get there.  I will report back to you.

Peace

D

Aha Moment

I learned a lesson today.  A very important lesson.  What I learned today is that whatever bad stuff is going on in my life isn't bad enough for me to dwell on and wallow in and pretend is the center of the Universe.  What I learned is that when I stop worrying about my bad stuff and start caring about other people's bad stuff and what I can do to make it better, my bad stuff gets smaller and smaller until it doesn't affect every second of my day.

Interesting.

D

Dream a little dream

The other night I was awakened by a horrible nightmare. It was so vivid and somewhat plausible (if you think like I do) that I actually started worrying that it wasn't REALLY a dream. In my dream, I was told that my whole entire life was make believe. That I had had a psychotic break 15 years ago. That my life got so bad that I just made up a new one. That I was in a mental institution and that I was living in a dream world. Nothing was real about it. My amazing husband. My amazing and successful kids. My great little house and property. My friends. My skills. All a product of an overactive, malfunctioning, insane mind. I was terrified. I woke my husband and made him tell me he was real. But then, of course that's what I did. And he obliged....but wouldn't my make believe husband reassure me in my darkest hour because that's what the ideal husband would do? So really, it didn't do much to allay my fears. (Trust me, at 2 in the morning anything makes sense). Then he said to me "well, if this really IS a dream, it's a pretty good one" and fell back asleep with his arm around me. I lay in bed afraid to go back to sleep and started to calm down and logically (I use that term loosely) think about the dream and what DH said. I can remember sitting at the dinner table with my family when I was in about 8th grade. I said I wanted 2 kids. A boy first, and then 5 years later a girl. I wanted it that way so that my daughter would have a big brother to look after her like a big brother should. I said I wanted to live in an old house I could fix up. I said I wanted to sell crafts and ladybugs and vegetables. I wanted to be self sufficient or as close to it as modern life allows. I know what you're thinking....big dreams. I hadn't yet really formed any ideas on a career, very similar to now. But the point of this exercise is to say that everything, with the exception of the ladybugs has become a reality in my life. Interesting.

I relayed my dream and thoughts to some friends and they thanked me for including them in my delusion and for giving them such interesting and varied lives, and they also suggested that I manifest some extra cash for everyone involved.

My conclusions: A) Perhaps I am in a mental institution but what a great life I've created or B) maybe we actually have some control in the outcome of our lives. Maybe I had Faith that these things would happen without even knowing it was Faith. I just knew it to be true. Of course, I took many wrong turns but I ended up in the place that I wanted to be. And I'm grateful.

I am working on that cash issue though...


Peace

Spring Cleaning

I was up visiting my parent's this last week. My mom mentioned that I posted that last blog posting and then fell of the face of the planet. So much has gone on and so many things have happened since October that I would think "OOOO! that would make an excellent topic for a blog post" and then I'd come home and be so tired or so busy that I never could make myself sit alone at the computer in it's dark corner to write about it. So I compose in my head and then set it adrift in the atmosphere for y'all to listen for it. I guess that system is not quite as effective as actually writing it down and sending out via the great internet in the cosmos. So I will try to do better starting now. Of course, it helps that a wonderful friend gave me a laptop so now I'm sitting on the sofa w/ my husband watching the History channel and blogging w/ a cat curled up in my lap. Much more attractive than before.

In the last 5 months I have experienced great joy and great sadness, overwhelming peace and anxiety, satisfaction and wanting....and at the end of the day, I'm still glad that I am who I am living the life I'm living and doing it in my own weird way. I guess I can't really go back and tell you everything, but here's the cliff note version. All my kids came home for Christmas which was astoundingly awesome. I started a "temporary job" at a hippie cloth diaper store run by a friend and it's turned into a permanent part time position. I'm not only cleaning bathrooms for a friend but also her whole house and the dwellings for 2 other clients. I have been diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and also a severely prolapsed mitral valve with "significant regurgitation" which is a great excuse to have my husband carry heavy things for me. I learned how to knit in January and love it and now have another obsession which I'm absolutely POSITIVE that I needed. I finally broke down and bought a real solar oven and it's the coolest thing ever. I'm pretty sure those are all the highlights. And they're not the things that would have inspired me to sit down and pour my heart out to y'all. well, maybe the kids at Christmas, but that would have been they left. That sucked.

Spring is here and I'm able to spend more time outside and that's when I get to listen for the sound of life to tell me things. For God and Mother Nature to whisper their truths to me. For me to be able to be still enough to listen for the directions for my life. I love spring. It renews me. Physically, spiritually, emotionally and every other way that it can.

This didn't turn out to be the post that I wanted it to be but I guess it's the one I was supposed to write as my return to the blogging fold. I guess I'm a little rusty, but I'll get oiled up I'm sure.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end.

Peace,

D