Feel like I’ve been running a race the past 5 days. Today I am firmly ensconced at home. I have been out to the garden, picking peppers and green beans and okra and tomatoes. It was a beautiful meditative time for me, listening to the sounds of the world around me and smelling the transitory smells that come this time of year. The gardens are breaking down and the earth is in dire need of a drink. The chickens are clucking and snuffling in the dirt as the neighbors’ dogs barking echoes across the pond. I am sure that it is going to be a time of rest today, once I get some bread made and some turkey soup going. I vacuumed yesterday and probably need to again today, but will maybe just get the broom out and sweep up a little. I don’t want to hear the sound of the machine today.
The Festival of Faiths and Cultures was a fantastic experience last Saturday. Our 3-4 hour visit there turned into 8, and we had a great time. It made my heart sing to see the tables of people sitting next to each other and sharing a day of beauty. There were Catholics and Muslims and Buddhists and Baha’i Faith. There were orthodox peoples from Poland and Greece and Russia. There were people from the Philippines, from Ecuador, from Germany. There were Iranians and Arabs and Afghans. There were Native Americans and Africans and Jews and Unitarians. The outdoor stage presentations were breathtaking….dancers and drummers and storytellers. Singers and bakers and pray-ers, oh my! I ate food from about 6 different countries. LOL It was a grand event, and I’m glad I didn’t miss it. I will surely be there next year!
Sunday was another full day at an Area Assembly. It was good with a catered lunch that was marvelous. (They aren’t…always) lol It was good to see people that I haven’t seen in a few months, there doing the same thing I was doing…a little service, a little insurance. Keeping me tethered to my sobriety.
I am getting ready to make some soup and some bread to take to the neighbors. I probably should be outside mowing, as it looks like the rain isn’t coming after all. The backyard is getting high and the front still looks like a trainwreck. The water company people are waiting for some rain, I think, to help the dirt settle in around the water pipes they buried. It’s okay…I can deal. I just mow around their giant gopher trail….lol
Life is good, when I stay in the present. When I trust that the Universe is abundant. When I can try to live an authentic life.
Last night we started the Deep Ecology course. It looks to be a lively discussion group and extremely interesting subject matter. It’s about making the shift…from our heads to our hearts…and living the talk. There are some things that are a bit threatening to some of us, like ignoring the many convenient things in our lives when they are not good for the environment. Things we selfishly don’t want to give up. But all in all, I think it will be a good experience.
Blessings and love…
A lazy wonderful morning of reading and chatting on the phone with several people from the program. Just off the phone with a delightful young gay man that just makes my heart sing. We’re making plans for a double date to the movies. He’s very new to sobriety and is trying to make connections and do things that are out of his ken… Life is good.
I have to pick up my daughter-in-law in a few hours and should be getting myself cleaned up and dressed. It’s been a good morning for gratitude and service. One hot line call, one call from the grandma of little Jaylee who is feeling much better…but her platelet count is not coming up like it should, so there is lots of tension and worry in the family. Everyone taking small steps and doing what’s right in front of them- that’s the situation right now. All we can do, is all we can do…and praying and staying positive will work more miracles than all the fear and worry in the world.
It’s warming up nicely out there today, supposed to be in the high 80s. The tomatoes will like that. If the skies don’t show us some water soon, we’ll be forced to haul water up from the pond to water the gardens.
I have to stop by the water company on my way to the airport and drop off a check for the Good Faith money…whatever that is. lol They want a hundred dollars. Sigh… I think it gets applied to the water bill eventually, so…. It’s not like a total giveaway. Just…well. Never mind. 🙂
Kittens have been outside playing and are all in now, katnapping here, there and everywhere. Fred the dog is still here. Husband called the pound, but the neighbor told him that they only keep the dogs for 3 days before they put them down. That made him stop…he had left a message with his phone number on it. Nothing else. So they won’t just be making a surprise visit out here. My dogs are all shotted up and all, but none of them have their tags on. I need to have them all inside if we do wind up calling the pound, which I’m beginning to suspect is NOT going to happen. He’s playing with the other dogs, getting a little better about the cats, and can’t understand why he can’t come in the house with everyone else. Sigh….I’m SURE it’s just a matter of time….(We are BOTH such pushovers….)
I’m off to get some cukes from the garden for my breakfast/lunch. The morning has whipped by and I’m shocked that it’s almost 1 o’clock already. Oh, well…time does fly when you’re having fun…. (and I did already clean out the fridge, take the garbage out for the truck to pick up, cleaned all the errant containers that went into the garbage, cleaned and filled all the critter dishes, and stripped my bed. Had hoped to get to the laundromat this morning…but as you’ve guessed-that didn’t happen. lol
Oh, well…tomorrow IS another day.
Namaste.
Tuesday morning…finally up to about 47 degrees. Brrr…fall is in the air. Apples are on the table. Guess we all know what that means.
Today is the Great Apple Butter Production Show. Sigh. I wish that I had enough sense to keep better journals around my food preserving. The last time I made apple butter was 4 years ago, and it was the best yet. The only thing I remember is that I used Jonagold apples and almost NO sugar. I can’t remember, for instance, (mainly) if I peeled them or not. I suspect not, since I am the laziest cook in America. So I am looking all through my cookbooks, all over the internet, everywhere I can think, to find a recipe that tells me what I want to hear. What I want to hear is : Of course you don’t have to peel 52 pounds of apples! What I tell myself is: The peels are nutritious! It’s where the fiber and vitamins are! Of course you like your apple butter a little on the chunky side!
(You can see where this is going. Like any good newcomer to AA, I will talk to however many people I need to to find someone to tell me what I want to hear. To show me the easier, softer way.) lol
SO any minute now, I am going to be in the kitchen up to my elbows in apples. Coring, chopping, cooking and filling my home with all those lovely apple-cinnamon-clove-nutmeg smells that make me swoon. That smell better than the most expensive potpourri. That leaves me with jar after jar of dark, buttery sauce to put on pancakes and toast. That friends and family beg for. lol
I have to call a local guy here and see if he can replace the fan in my CPU. I don’t have any idea about the cost, but how much could it be? The darn thing is bogging down and straining when I first turn it on, then it seems okay after a while. But I don’t trust it.
I had a conversation with someone yesterday that reminded me just how tenuous and important our relationships with other human beings are. This person sold something, with a small downpayment, to a friend she had known for 15 years. The person broke it, then didn’t want it anymore, and wanted the downpayment back. It is a lesson in that old adage about not doing business with friends or family. Everybody involved is hurt and angry. The other person agreed to let them keep the downpayment (which is not enough to cover the repairs) but now there are hurt feelings all ’round. The bottom line is always this (and it’s what I said): You have to decide how important this person is to you. Are you willing to throw away 15 years of friendship over money? If the answer is yes, then stay mad and hurt. If the answer is NO, then you need to find a way to put this behind you, and learn an important lesson. And IMHO, people are always worth more than money. You can always get more money, but if you lose someone you love, they are gone forever. End of story.
Well, I have lots of love-work to do today. I may even bake my beloved an apple pie, while all that gooey apple butter is simmering away for hours and my kitchen is still an apple-mess. He loves pie. And I love him.
Will probably have some pork chops for supper, since I can make up some quickie applesauce as well and serve it with them. I have chops in the freezer. Or maybe my all time favorite…thick slices of apple sauteed in real butter with just a whiff of cinnamon on them, as a side dish. Apples cooked like that are always a comfort food for me, mny grandma used to fix them when I would stay with her. She was poor, but there were at least 3 apple trees in her yard, as well as gooseberries and blackberries and peaches and cherries,so we always had fruit. And she would cook fruit like a goddess, making special dishes that she would make up names for for me alone. (And I was only 1 of about 25 grandkids!) lol. Most of my inclinations in this direction–towards whole foods, and preserving and home cooking–all came from her. She was my dad’s mother. Cherokee Indian, poor, and the most loving human being I have ever had the grace to know. She gardened and made all their food from scratch. One of my earliest memories of her is walking in the early morning through her garden, picking vegetables. At each plant, right before she picked anything, she would say “Thank you, grow well” to the plant that was sustaining her and her family. I learned about gratitude way back when, at 8 or 9 years old, in my grandma’s garden. She taught me about the connectedness of life, about walking barefoot so I could integrate with the Earth Mother, about being still and listening to the bees’ songs as they pollinated all the flowers. She taught me that the Creator made the world for everyone to live on, and that there was plenty to go around, if you knew where to look.
I am one lucky duck.
Awoke to a beautiful sunny -crisp- blue ~skied- kind of day (does that suggest that I slept in a little too long?? lol) As soon as I had a couple of sips of coffee in me, I returned a call to my dear son , who was driving around metro St Louis trying to find a job site he’s working on. Had a lively chat with him for about half an hour and hanging up the phone, thought- what a lucky mom I am !
Not sure what today holds in store. Going to try [again] to make a noon meeting…yesterday didn’t happen because hubby got hung up at the Unemployment office too long waiting for the VA guy to see him. Maybe today…though he left out of here to get a haircut about an hour ago and hasn’t come back.
Today, my happiness is not contingent on any external sources. I can be happy sitting out back at the little meditation garden or in a meeting or at the sink washing dishes, or waiting in the doctor’s office. I plan the plan, and leave the outcome to God, as best I am able. And no matter–if I hit too many roadblocks on my journey, I just change where I’m going. There aren’t a lot of big deals today. Some days there are more little glitches on the radar than other days, but mostly life just rambles along. The solutions I have to my problems today may seem rather lackadaisical to some, but for me they are just solutions that circumvent the joy stealers of anxiety and worry and fear. I heard a woman in a meeting once say “I just try to stay where my feet are”. So that’s what I try to do….just BE where my feet are. Right here. Right now. (Jeez…you people teach me SO much!!!)
Awaiting the next big adventure.
Stark Raving Sober 