Beginning again

And so it begins again.  I haven't written here since March of this year.  It is now December.  I think I gave up.  I think I wondered what this is for.  But I have decided that if it is for nothing else, it is for me.

Today is the Winter Solstice.  The shortest day of the year.  I am glad.  I am looking forward today.  Waiting for a little more light every day.

I usually hate moving out of summer and into Fall/Winter.  But this past year, I prepared emotionally.  I did well.  I began to look for the good in it.  I reminded myself how very blessed I/we are. I reminded myself that my Mom is still here and she still gets to laugh and enjoy.

My Mom had a stroke at the end of April 2014.  It has been a rocky year since then.  And because of this, I didn't plant a garden last summer.  I bought plant starts.  I set them outside.  I let them fry in the sun.  But I didn't cry about it.  I just moved on. I got a few potatoes who decided to volunteer.  That was fun.

I read up on how to prepare my garden for next year.  I have since covered by garden beds with cardboard to kill the weeds and then with leaves.  I will eventually cover them with wood chips (the kind that come from chipping up tree branches).  I have chicken manure to spread on top of that.  I watched a really cool video on how this helps with water retention.  It is going to be a experiment this spring/summer. It isn't pretty at this time of year, but I have decided that it ok. 

Sometime during this year, we had to put our big dog down.  It was a very sad story and I have decided that I do not want to share it.  I am still in mourning about him.  He was such a neat dog.

Also, one of our sweet bard rock chickens passed away more recently as well.  She went quietly, but it was a big loss for me.  The weird thing is, that the other two have now started laying again.  They took a nice, long break and decided to start laying again in the middle of winter.  Funny.

In the interim, we got a new kitten.  What a little hellion he is!  His name is Yoshi.  His favorite thing to do is chase my 19 pound cat around the house.  With that in mind...I will share more about him some other time.  

I have been reading a lot about people living in tiny homes.  Our home is not really considered "tiny" at 1000 square feet.  I wonder what our house would be called...moderate?  In any case, I have been feeling a little cramped this winter.  We have really worked on clearing out the living room and making it more livable.  That has been a blessing.  I saw something in one of those tiny houses that I thought would work in mine.  I asked for shelves high on the wall in my bedroom for Christmas.  So far we have put two of them up.  It makes it really nice to be able to have some stuff up where it can be seen and not so jumbled up.  I think open side tables really give a feeling of spaciousness too.  I also asked for black-out curtains in my bedroom.  I finally found some that look like they might work.  I am hoping to get them up soon.  I wake up really early every day and for some reason, even early on the weekends!  So I am hoping that getting black out curtains will help.  They are a lovely lavender color that matches my bedspread.  I hope my husband won't mind the girly color very much.

There you have it.  My first post in 9 months.  I have missed writing.  And I have missed you.

Sleep

Sleep...who needs it anyway?  Well, I would LIKE some more.  My husband deals with serious neuropathy in his feet.  He wakes me up all the time.  And in the morning, I just cannot get back to sleep.  He is not diabetic and no one can tell us why he deals with this.  It could be the cement floors that he has been working on for years and years...or a number of other things.  But more than what has caused it, we can't figure out how to get rid of it.  We have tried a number of things.  Let's see...medications, acupuncture, supplementation...and on and on.  This and that.  That and this.  I really feel for him.  Sometimes it doesn't hurt at all and then sometimes it hurts a lot.  Last night was one of the latter.  But enough of that. 

Today I want to talk about animals.  My son has been waking up and commenting on the birds.  We live near a very wild greenbelt and the birds love it there.  One day he said it must be Spring since the birds have all come back.  It is neat to see that my love of nature has rubbed off a little on him.  And as I sit in my office at work, I can hear the frogs singing outside my window.  When I go out to put the chickens to bed, I can hear the songs of the crickets.  And on my drive to work almost every day I look up on the light pole in this one section of road and I see a red-tailed hawk sitting there, just watching the world go by. 

I am going to be going out to take care of my friends' animals this weekend.  They live where we used to live, out in the country.  I am looking forward to hopefully see Blue, the resident Blue Heron.  He mated one year when we lived there.  I have to admit that there is nothing more beautiful than seeing two adults and a baby Blue Heron winging their way across the sky. 

I am watching Spring come in.  I know I need to do something in the yard/garden.  But I have been so very busy at work these past few weeks that I have just not had the time or energy to do anything.  Maybe today I will just throw some seeds in and see what happens.  :-) 

Thank you for having tea with me this morning.  Have a good week. 

Signs of Spring

Good morning!  I cannot believe that it is Saturday already.  What a whirlwind week!  I have been chasing deadlines all week, between running here and there on outside appointments for work. 

I have to admit though that yesterday I was thrilled to be on the road!  What a beautiful day!  The sun was shining and the drive was just gorgeous. Then I got to visit a small farm.  18 horses, a lot of dogs and PUPPIES!  I was invited in to sit at their kitchen table as we talked.  I could live in that home.  Puppy barking and dog dishes.  The lady was embarrassed because the house wasn't perfect, but I felt right at home.  Of course I had two dogs run up right away to visit. Such fun.  I will attach a picture of the puppies as soon as I get it uploaded. 

And the people...they were so warm and welcoming.  It was such a good reminder. I could tell they work hard.  But they love what they are doing.  It was very evident. 

And so, that lovely drive and then visit, and the fact that I am finally over my cold that lasted for five weeks, really made me start looking for signs of Spring.  I found that our little daffodils that are in a pot on our front porch have started to bloom.  Next to our porch is a little patch of herbs and the chives are showing their heads.  There are BIRDS!  There are lots of birds around here.  We have a crazy, wild green belt behind our house and the birds congregate there at this time of year.  So lovely to hear their song first thing in the morning. 

I think it is time to start looking at the garden and getting a few things planted.  

Who needs sleep?

Good Saturday morning!  Thank you for being here with me.  It is early.  A variety of things woke me up...one right after the other....  But one of them you might think is funny...or maybe even two of them.  The dogs must have been being extra good before my husband went to bed, because he decided to give them each a treat. We get these big bags of weird pieces of cow that have been dried and the dogs love them!  They are not a quick treat though. And I have found that they don't eat them when we are not around.  I don't think my husband knows that though.  Here is why I think that. 

It is very early in the morning and I wake up to the dogs barking very loudly. There has been a bit of a turf war at my house these days between the Cats and the Dogs.  So I hear the Dogs barking and think, "Oh no, not another turf war!"  I jump out of bed and find my big dog Sampson slinking out of the living room. I look over into the kitchen and I find my littler dog Belle is sitting in the middle of the kitchen with two very large treats (one of them being part of a cow hoof). She is not eating them.  She is not licking them.  She is not smelling them.  She is protecting them.  She has taken Sampson's portion and decided she would protect her booty.  I didn't think too much about it until my big dog gets all the way into the kitchen from the living room and growling and barking ensues.  By this time, I am awake enough to figure out why I have been woken up.  I put the treats away, let them know that they can have them back later when everyone is up and they can chew them to their hearts' content and crawl back under the covers.

Just as I am falling asleep...barking.  Ok, who needs sleep anyway?  I get out of bed and go to the door.  Both my dogs are sitting in the hallway as sweet as can be...staring at me.  Both of their tails are wagging and they are just staring at me.  When I start asking them what is up, my Belle starts talking to me in something between a growl and a bark.  She talked to me for quite a while.  I am not sure what she said, but she was very determined to let me know her mind.  This is VERY unusual.  Belle is not that interactive.  She is more of a 'hey, you are here, I am going to curl up right here next to your chair' kind of dog.  I am guessing that she was giving me a piece of mind about putting a kibosh on her fun with the treats.  Ok, this time I let them out to have a runabout.  Can I sleep now? 

I crawl back in bed. What could happen next?  My stealthy black cat sneaks up on me...ok, what she really did was walk the length of my body.  I asked her politely to get off, so she decides to jump on my sleeping husband.  Now this cat is usually a foot sleeper.  She is very polite about it.  She is very quiet.  It it a full moon?  This happens again and again.  She walks up and then I push her down, she walks up and then I push her down.  And then finally I don't push her down and she decides to lay down as close to my face as she can, but right on top of me.  Needless to say, I am blessed to be loved by animals, but today I really would have loved a little extra sleep.  :-) 

On the flip side though, I am awake.  It is Saturday.  And life is good!  I hope you have a beautiful weekend.  May God bless and keep you.  And if you have any little furry ones in your life, give them a little extra love for me.  And if possible, could you whisper quietly to them to spread the word that even Mamas like to sleep in once in a while? 

Hope

I got teary-eyed during our Financial Peace University class yesterday.  Did I mention that my husband and I are teaching this class at our church?  We have about 70 students and then we break out into small groups and have discussions. 

Yesterday we were talking about debt and the hopelessness that people can feel.  Dave Ramsey talked about his sister's goat "Practice" and how his sister was a goat-roper. She used Practice to practice with and Dave talked about how they practiced so often that they wore a bare spot in the field.  Eventually the goat would stop just before the bare spot and then later he would actually lay down.  He lost hope when he saw that bare spot.  Dave Ramsey says that he is the one who got to the other side of the bare spot and he is here to let people know that there is hope that they can too. 

This video presentation has so much meat to it and it is interspersed with funny stuff.  But I always get teary-eyed when he talks about the goat.  For me, this is why I volunteer my time to teach this class.  It is about sowing seeds of HOPE.  Hope for the future and hope for living life a better, more balanced way.  We, and especially I, felt so helpless and hopeless with regards to money when we started working the Dave Ramsey program.  I had read so many books about money...but I had never found one that actually gave me step-by-step instructions.  This program is so black and white.  That is what I love about it.  Just put one foot in front of the other...and soon you'll be walking out the door. 

Ok, I have to admit that it does come with hardships.  It is not all fun and games and sometimes, when Murphy comes calling...it is downright HARD.  But whenever we have to move aside and get off track to deal with some emergency or another, then we have a plan to go back to.  We have HOPE waiting for us. 

Writing

It snowed.  I was so thankful that Carl had his friend over. As soon as the snow started to stick, they dug out their winter clothes and got out in it.  It was pitch black dark and they were out in it.  Love that.  Then they slept and got up early and went out again first thing in the morning.  The neighbor kids were watching out the window for the longest time and then they finally got permission to come out to play as well.  They were all out there until I had to call them in for breakfast.  Of course I had to go out too.  I love the snow.  I love it especially when I don't have to drive in it. 

I was up early today.  I have had a terrible chest cold...whatever for several weeks.  Today I was sitting up gasping for air even before I was awake.  It was scarey.  I feel like I now know what it feels like for someone with asthma.  I am going to see the acupuncturist today and then I will get in touch with my doc too. I have to admit that I was very thankful for my inhaler today.  I haven't had to use it as regularly lately and I guess that is a good sign. 

Yesterday was a tough day.  It was my first day without my best friend from work being there.  I missed her smiling face.  She has a way of knitting the individuals in that office together.  Not to mention our morning chats.  We always solved the problems of the world during those morning chats. 

I am just letting my thoughts stream.  I have missed writing on here.  I kept thinking that I need a direction.  But for now I just want to write about whatever comes into my head.  If you don't mind, I will just keep doing that.  Have a great day!

I NEED to write!!

Hello!  I NEED to write!  I NEED to write!  I am not sure why, but I am drawn to writing.  I have trouble with my hands and arms from overuse at work, so using a pen and paper is tough.  Writing with a keyboard seems so much easier.  But then...what to write. This blog started because I was yearning for community.  Yearning for something that I believed wasn't part of our culture anymore.  It is strange, but after all this time, I just don't believe that anymore.

Community is changing.  Yes, community is changing.  But I am finding that I have so much community.  I am involved in and with so many people, but in different ways than in the traditional sense of community.  Facebook is one of my communities.  Work is another.  My neighborhood is another (both online and in person).  My place of worship is another.  My financial awareness class is yet another.  My animals are another.  I am learning that I can find community wherever I look these days. Why couldn't I see it before?  WHY couldn't I see it before?

Speaking of Facebook.  It is funny how many times I have considered getting off the whole thing.  But I find that it is a quick way to keep in touch with so many people throughout the world.  I care about these people.  I want to be a part of their lives even when I cannot BE there.  Is that wrong?  Is that weird?

I went to a double retirement party this week and then I had to say good-bye to a very good friend of mine today.  She found a new (and wonderful) position, and this meant that she would be leaving my workplace.  I will miss her!