quote for the week

It's Halloween! It's Halloween!
The moon is full and bright
And we shall see what can't be seen
On any other night.
Skeletons and ghosts and ghouls,
Grinning goblins fighting duels,
Werewolves rising from their tombs,
Witches on their magic brooms.
In masks and gown we haunt the street
And knock on doors for trick or treat.
Tonight we are the king and queen,
For oh tonight it's Halloween! 

- Jack Prelutsky

cemeteries

So, in my effort to get outside more (even though my job keeps me tethered to a desk 10-12 hours at a time) I've started walking on my lunch break again. I did this in the spring for a while, then just stopped. For some reason I haven't been walking in the mornings after the kids get on the bus either. I should. Fresh air is good, for the body and the soul.

Anyway, I've been walking. But instead of walking the neighborhood across from work, I've been walking the cemetery. I was always sort of afraid to walk there alone before, because even though it's bordered by a nice section of the University neighborhood and parts of the University itself it's also very near a very not nice part of the city. But, it was the middle of a sunshiney weekday, and I decided to just go and do it.

I'm so glad I did, it was so healing. The sun was shining, breeze was blowing, leaves were fluttering. I brought my mp3 player, but didn't use it. I just listened. Watched. It was awfully alive for a cemetery. There were a couple other people there; a woman walking her dog, a man jogging, a couple having a picnic. I've walked there before, but never alone, so I was really able to notice things this time.

The cemetery is 160 acres in the city. It was opened in 1859, and I'm so in awe of the monuments and graves from that time. There are some outstanding ones and some very simple ones.

The bigger monumnets leave me wondering who the people were, what they did. I think it's so incredible how much money went into these resting places.

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Then there are the smaller graves, some have headstones and some do not - or maybe they did but don't any longer. Families were buried together often, and I wonder if how you decided which family you were buried with if you were married and how far along might that go - where would the children of the children be buried? Some of the smaller ones with no headstones simply say what they were: Mother, Father, Son. No name, no date of birth, no date of death. That's who they were. Mother, Father, Son. Often the mother is listed as Wife of: (whoever) as if her name didn't matter, just who she was married to. I wonder if that was enough for them, to simply be mother or wife. There many late 1800 and early 1900 ones that have infants and often 2 or 3 people in the same family dying in the same year. It makes me wonder of their fate. Illness? Fire?

Headstones don't tell you enough.



But I love these simple, older headstones. Much more than the fancy older ones though those are intriguing too. It becomes easier to imagine that family, living in the area I live now, only so different. There would have been a farm where I work - in fact I work in a converted barn. The University was just being built.

To me, every person in a cemetery was a good person. I'm sure they weren't, but I like to imagine that they were. I wonder about the families buried there, and how similar they were to families today. Our surroundings have changed - but I like to think that it's not so different. They loved their children, kissed them goodnight. They cooked dinners and had friends and looked up at the same moon I do.

There are a lot of newer stones there too. They're lovely, and it's still a peaceful and beautiful area of the cemetery, but I don't spend much time there. Everything sort of looks the same. It's in neater rows. Shinier stones.

There's another section, that I spent some time in that is so, so sad. It's a childrens area - babies, really. Some of them have headstones, but most of them don't, just metal, rusted markers. Some of the markers are so old they're missing the names. That makes me the saddest, the nameless markers. 

I walked through a newer cemetery down the road yesterday, instead of the bigger one, and I didn't like it. Too pristine. All the headstones were the same (one of 3 colors) they all had similar engravings. One thing that was neat, was what seemed to be a lot of shared same sex plots. It's possible they are siblings, but I'd like to think that this religious cemetery is progressive enough that it wasn't. When I was finishing my walk, and thinking I wouldn't visit this cemetery again, I came upon an older man sitting in a lawn chair in front of a grave. Just sitting there. Maybe talking, maybe thinking - visiting. And suddenly I felt a little strange being there, what right did I have to be walking through these graves, these lives lived, other peoples pain?

I didn't feel like that at the other cemetery. I felt like I was supposed to be there. It was built almost as a park, and people seem to enjoy it as one. I'd like to be buried somewhere like that. Well, I'd like to be cremated, but I would be ok being buried in a cemetary like that. To me, cemeteries and headstones aren't for the people under them - they are for the people left behind, the people who need a place to grieve and to visit and sit in their lawn chairs and watch the leaves fall.

joyful girl

I am not a joyful girl.

In fact, I am quite cranky, quite a bit of the time.

Once upon a time, a former boyfriend told he he loved how I was so happy all the time. I thought that was funny, since I was 16 and felt not happy most of the time. Apparently I seemed a joyful girl.

Then came single teenage motherhood. And even through that, I was ok. I'm sure I complained - but there was no choice but to keep on keepin' on.

Somehow as I've gotten older, I've become a cranky pants complainer. I've become a pessimist. I've become a 'the sky is falling' kinda gal. I don't know exactly when it started. My early 20's I think. It started with the worrying.


My mom was always a complainer. She could be standing in a field of daisies on a beautiful spring day, and notice the only pile of dog crap out there. I always hated it. I never understood how someone could be so miserable so much of the time.

Guess what? I've become my mother. Dishes in the sink? Complain. Laundry piling up? Complain. Husband has too many gigs coming up? Complain. Weather doesn't cooperate? Complain. I think there may be a pattern there.

So how does one become an optimist? How does one stop complaining? Or better yet, stop noticing things to complain about?

I mean, I've tried. I look at my household chores as things that bless my family, and that helps - it really does. Most of the time. I looking at my very long days at work as an opportunity to get other things done like reading or knitting (I have a lot of down time on my 12 hour shifts).

I try to slow down and find something good in every day. I try take the time to notice the beauty around me. But, my goodness, sometimes it's too easy to stay wrapped up in a gray cloud.

And you know, I know all the answers too.

You can't control other peoples actions or emotions. So if someone else is upsetting me (like the kids, or The Husband, or co-workers) I can't control them, I can only control how I react towards them.

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I know that 'if you don't like a situation, change it. If you can't change it, change the way you look at it'.

I know that if you look for bad things, you will find them and if you look for the good, you'll find that instead.

What I don't know is how to implement those things. I have tried, really. I've taken Dale Carnegie classes at work. One of my lessons was to pick a statement from the book and implement it in my life. I chose 'Don't criticize, condemn or complain'. This was probably 6 years ago, and I knew I was complaining too much then. The idea was, if you just stopped doing those things, what you wanted would eventually come about. At the time, a huge issue was dishes. There is nothing that gets under my skin more than coming home to a sink full of dirty dishes. But after months of arguing, clearly nothing was changing. So I stopped complaining. And I just came home and did them, as calmly as I could. With out saying a word.

You know what happened? I got angrier. Because nothing changed. I'm not saying nagging is the way to go, but not mentioning what's wrong doesn't fix anything either. The dishes are rarely a problem now, but I don't remember how we solved that one. . .

So there has to be a balance right? A way to not get walked all over, but not whine and complain and nag, right?

How do you bring joy back into your life? How do you stay happy?

 image: Susan Branch

I have a few ideas, ways to begin. I guess it's a daily commitment to live that way. At least fake it till it works.

I know I need to get back into keeping a gratitude journal, it helps.

I need to get outside more. I went walking on lunch yesterday, in the cemetery by work and it really was healing. I need more nature, and I need more exercise. I work a desk job for 10-12 hours a day and it definitely drags down my spirit.

I need to take more me time. I don't know how. Even my hobbies are for my family. But maybe that's ok. I enjoy sewing, I've been wanting to make a quilt for the kids for a while, but "never have the time". I need to make that time, even if the end result is for someone else, the process is for me. I need to take the time to nap, without feeling like I've wasted time. Or soak in a tub without worrying about what else I should be doing.

I need to be more flexible and spontaneous. Sometimes things don't work out just the way I wanted. That needs to be ok. That's life.

I need to make changes. I need to find joy in what I do. I need to go back to school, I need a new job. I've known this for a while, but have been reluctant to make the change. I'm not the kind of person who would go hand in their 2 weeks notice right now, just because I'm not happy, but it's time to take steps in that direction.


How do you keep joy in your life? Are good thoughts automatic for you? Are you a complainer? How do you decide when to draw the line, when it's ok to complain ?

image found here

creating home.

I'm obsessed with houses. Have been for a long time. Most little girls dream of their wedding day but not me. I dreamt of a house. I watched all those house decorating shows long before I lived in my own space. Spent years scouring House-for-Sale magazines and websites and drooling over homes I couldn't afford.

I don't know why. Maybe because growing up my home didn't always feel like home to me. Not in the way a home should. Comfortable, cozy, happy and safe.

I always wanted a big rambling farmhouse on several acres- I've sort of explained my inspiration for this before. Years ago, I wanted the farm house but with out the farm. Now I want the farm too.

We have been very, very blessed to have been given the opportunity to live in and buy this house. So why am I still mooning over other homes?

I think in part because we never picked this house, really. We love it. But. There are things we wanted that we don't have. A space for The Husbands music. A fourth bedroom. A usable basement. Another acre (or few). Things I wanted that I don't have. A craft room. A house that needed some work. Walking into a ready made house makes it really hard for me to change things.



There are several things in the house that I want to change, or would change, but I won't. Because I have a hard time changing or getting rid of something that is perfectly fine and in good shape.

And so, we're in this home and it feels like home and it does feel like our home, but there's something missing. I don't know. I think because it was so ready (I mean, they even left gorgeous Stickly and Ethan Allen furniture!) we haven't really had to create a home.


Now that we've been here a year, we're learning more about what we need and want. Now what we need to do is learn how to make that work in this home. Because the fact is that I don't live in a big farmhouse. A farmhouse, yes - but a smaller one and a completely remodeled one.

We've added a few things -

like the fort,

garden,

compost

and fire pit.

We still have a lot more to do with the land. Right now, with winter fast approaching - my thoughts are already inside.

Someday, maybe - we'll be in a position to remodel. Not now. Anything that happens now is quick and cosmetic.

You can see from my tumblr what sort of houses and areas I like. I just need to work on creating similar areas in our house, which is hard because of all the wood walls (likely something we will never change).

There are some things that I would like done sooner, rather than later:

Kids rooms. Paint and arrange better. The paint is fine, it's a lovely color - but it's the first time they've had their very own room and I want them to make it theirs.

Finish creating my sewing space. I've taken over a small corner of our room. Now I need to make it an official sewing space, without clashing with the rest of our room.

Paint the living room bookshelves. Our house needs a little lightening up.

Slipcover the pullout loveseat

Replace kitchen lighting

Create art area for the kids (this will be tough to make space for in the room we have allotted) Originally I was going to get rid of this gorgeous and uncomfortable chair, but someone started using it daily.

Things I do love about our house:

It's cozy.

Even though it's not big, it's the biggest place we've ever lived.




This tub.

The cool things in our woods.

And in the end, what I really want is a place that we all love. Not because of the space, or the design, but because we all feel safe and loved here. A place where we not only eat and sleep and live, but become alive and dream and create and grow. A home filled with music and laughter and family and friends.


What does home mean to you? What sorts of things or feelings are most important to you in a home?

"It is not the homes that I love, 

but the lives that are lived there"

                                             ~Unknown                           

things that are good.

autumn and the smell of wood stoves

 books


pumpkins and crisp days

bellies with babies in them

food in jars

progress - finally understanding

family



these boys

wine in general, but especially homemade wine


kitty cats

learning and growing - even when it hurts



Do not waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

quote for the week.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.  

~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

 

 

It has been an especially trying week. I posted about it the other day, but took the post back down soon after. It was too personal, even for me and I am the Queen of Overshare.

 

I have been forced to question and reassess many things in my life. I've been having a sort of early mid life crisis I think. Suddenly I'm not quite sure who I am, where I am going or even where I have been. It is a very unsettling feeling.

 

In the middle of my pseudo-crisis, my sister called me with a real life crisis of her own. She is six months pregnant and her boyfriend of 6 years has decided that he isn't happy. They just moved into a new apartment a month ago, they haven't even finished unpacking. 

 

She's staying with us. I don't know for how long. I don't know how well this will work, but she has very few alternatives. 

 

So, it's been a painful and life changing weekend for both of us. 

 

 Part of my deleted post:

 

Sometimes, life is really hard. Not just the big events and big decisions. It's the everyday ones too. All the little pieces that make up a day, a week, a year - your whole life. 

And when one thing goes wrong, or not as expected - sometimes it's really easy for all the little things surrounding it to get unraveled too. I'm learning to knit. And sometimes, I'll notice a mistake I made in one stitch, and it's just one little stitch, but in a row of perfect stitches it's glaring. Now if I kept going, chances are when I get to the end, I wouldn't even notice that stitch anymore unless I was looking for it. And the only other people who would notice it are the people looking for it. But because it's right there, in front of me, I always feel like I have to fix it. Because if I don't, it's not perfect. But often when I'm working back and pulling stitches, I end up in an even bigger mess. I drop a stitch, or twist them or forget where I was when I made the mistake. And then I have to work back further and further until I can get it right again. All because of one little mistake. One little wayward stitch.

 . . .

I've stopped doing things just for me. And honestly, I don't even know how to anymore. Everything I am and everything I believe has been stitched into the fibers of my family. I don't know who I am without them.

 

. . .

I know that we'll keep moving forward and eventually this will just be one of those stitches that only the people who know about it notice. I mean, what else is there to do?

So there's sort of the reason I chose this weeks quote. I get stuck on the questions. I feel unsettled without the answers. Live the questions now. Perhaps someday the answers will come. 

Though my sister and I are hurting in different ways, I think the healing is the same. Keep moving, keep living. Don't wait for the answers. Maybe they'll come and maybe they won't. 

 

Maybe you'll find the answers have changed or perhaps you'll have forgotten the question.

well, I know what kind of blog this isn't

I still haven't figured out what sort of blog this is. Other than a rambling sometimes cohesive outpouring of my thoughts with the occasional food or craft thrown in.

But I think it's pretty clear by now that this just isn't a daily blog. I'd like it to be. But, well, sometimes I'm just really, really busy. Playing frontierville on facebook.

No, really though - I just haven't been able to get the motivation. First, I really was busy - with the van that apparently isn't ours (there might be more to come on that - let's see how motivated I am this week!) and canning a TON of peppers. Ok, like maybe 20 or 30 lbs? But it seemed like a ton! Oh, and apples, still. Disappointment in my job and perceived opportunities. A lot of reflection on my life and my future. And then there's my cat, the killer. And a friends birthday. And then I was sick, like thought I had some sort of horrible deadly flu sick, but turns out it only lasted a day and I'm actually fine.

It's easy to get out of the swing of things, isn't it? I don't know how in the world daily bloggers do it. I mean, my life just isn't that interesting all the time either. Today, for example: woke up, very slowly. Squabbled with The Husband. Drank coffee. Cleaned. Got the stuffed peppers ready and in the fridge for The Husband to cook tonight. Showered. Left a note for the kids. Came to work. Worked. Still working. When I'm done working I'll go home and plop on the couch and watch the biggest loser (and probably eat something sinful while I do it - I can't help it!) and then I'll go to bed.

See how exciting my life is sometimes?! But you know, that's part of why I started blogging - it made me stop and notice the small things, the good things that often get lost in the every day shuffle. I know I whine here fairly often. But that's life too and whining isn't always bad (unless it's my kids, then it's always bad) because sometimes the whining helps you see things in a new light too, you know?

Anyway, I should be here more. I will be here more. Because what I really, really, really need right now is to start noticing and appreciating everyday moments again.

But first I have some harvesting to do!

quote for the week.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.  ~John Muir

school lunch

 During my week of nothing, my kids bought lunch far more than usual. We usually limit buying to once a week, and for the past two weeks they've bought probably 3 times a week.

When I was little, we got hot lunch on Friday. It was usually Pizza Hut or something equally healthy. If you forgot to bring your lunch any other day, you got a PB&J and milk. The kids school offers hot lunch everyday. It's your typical school lunch menu - with attempts at being healthier (salads, fruit etc . . .) but I'm pretty sure it's not the fruit that's enticing the kids to buy. A favorite is the popcorn chicken which I am fairly certain is not popcorn and likely not chicken.

So, why in the world do I go through the trouble and expense of buying local grassfed meats, of spending an insane amount of time preparing scratch meals . . . and then send my kids to school with 2 bucks to buy whatever over processed food-like product is being served on the lunch line that day?

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Well, because it's easy. It's made even easier by the fact that I don't have to send them with real, actual dollars. I can go online and add money from my bank account to their lunch account. Yup - they have pin numbers and can buy lunch without ever holding the money.

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Which means, that my 7 year old has been buying breakfast every morning at school. After having breakfast at home. We always joked he was like a hobbit - having more than one breakfast is not unusual for him, he often has first breakfast and second breakfast. Sometimes there is a third breakfast.

Anyway, having money on a card, instead of in your hand - means that my 7 year old has no concept of buying lunch. Or breakfast. So when I checked his account the other day, wondering where in the world 20 bucks went to already - I found that it went a dollar a day to breakfast, 1.75 to lunch on more days than normal and 65 cents to ice cream. Even on the days I take the time and care to pack a balanced healthy lunch - guess what else he's eating? Ice cream. Awesome.

Even better, while cleaning out my 12 year olds lunch bag, I've noticed he's coming home with cookie wrappers and doritio wrappers. And it's not on his lunch account. Which means he's trading or just getting these treats from other kids. Well, that's just awesome too.

But back to why they even have money on their accounts in the first place. It started with them being able to buy on my early Wednesdays - every other Wednesday I have to leave for work right after they get on the bus. It was easier to not have to deal with packing a lunch (since I'm not home till 9:30 the night before) and it was a treat for them.

But. Then sometimes I'm lazy. I mean, I'm just having a really hard time doing the morning thing. I get home from work at 9:30, I'm usually asleep by 11. Then I drag myself out of bed at 6:30. I need way more sleep I think. I wish I could be a morning person, but I'm just not. Not yet.

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And sure, I could pack the lunches the night before. You know, when I get home from a 10 hour day at 9:30 pm, but remember the part where I said I was lazy. Yeah. I just don't want to pack lunches when I walk in the door. And my husband can do them, and does but remember where I also said I've turned into a control freak? He doesn't pack lunches as good as I do. Clearly my lunches are fantastic, since my kids never want to buy lunch and never trade with their friends and . . . oh wait.


So what's a busy some-what health conscious mom to do?

I've seen the bento boxes and they are awesome and clever  . . .

 well, that's one way to get them to eat!

and so not me. I can barely slap together some peanut butter and some bread!


A typical lunch is:

PB&J or crackers and cheese and pepperoni, or leftover chili or soup in a thermos.
Carrots and ranch or apples and PB or salad and dressing
homemade cookies or chips
mozzarella stick or yogurt
water

I wouldn't want to eat that everyday either, it's freaking boring. I need help! I've looked and looked for lunch ideas, but am still having a hard time. Share with me lunch ideas! I'd love some make ahead/freezer sort of things for the mornings I'm feeling lazy.

We all know how great I am with goals I set, but I'm going to try some new lunch ideas and report back here every week or two. I can't be the only parent with lunch troubles!

Recipes for a woodstacking party.

How to host a wood stacking party.

First, invite friends who will actually show up and actually stack wood. yay!

hehehe

Second - you find some children to help. Stacking wood is so much fun! What a great game!

ok, maybe you pay them a few dollars at the end. Only so they'll want to help you next year!

Beer helps.

Oh, it also helps to stay inside and cook food and drink wine - popping out only once in a while to take pictures. It makes wood stacking day much easier on you.

Forget to take pictures of all the food you made, so you have no proof that you actually did anything. Oops.

Menu

Pulled Pork

4 lb pork shoulder roast

BBQ Spice Rub

Jar of homemade BBQ sauce

The night before, rub pork shoulder with BBQ spice rub cover and put in fridge.

The next morning, put pork shoulder in crock pot with just enough water to cover the bottom. 

Cook on low 8 hours. Shred pork apart using two forks

Add pint jar of homemade bbq sauce. Cook on low for another hour (or longer if need be, just watch to make sure it doesn't dry out).

BBQ Spice Rub

(store remaining rub in container for later use)

from  Grassfed Gourmet

1/2 cup chili powder

3 tbs freshly ground black pepper 

4 tbs sugar

3 tbs coarse salt

2 tbs paprika

Chili

1lb ground beef

1lb ground hot italian sausage

1 jar homemade salsa (recipe fresh salsa from Ball Blue Book)

28oz can crushed tomatoes

2 Tbs chili seasoning

1 tsp cumin

diced onion

diced garlic

oil

Saute onion and garlic in oil. Add sausage and beef and cook till browned. Put in crockpot, add remaining ingredients. Stir, cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. I pulled the lid off for the last hour of cooking. 

Cornbread

Recipe to follow - by tonight!

Coleslaw (courtesy of Barefoot Goddess)

Roasted Fall Veggies

use any in season veggies. We used:

acorn squash

butternut squash

onions

carrots

peppers

coat with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast at 425 for about 30 minutes, or until caramelized.

Hot Buttered Rum

This was very, very good - but very sweet! Next time I'd halve the sugar. And oh yes, there will be a next time! 

It was the perfect sipping drink for the bonfire at the end of the day!

Recipe source

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 pinch salt

2 quarts water

3 cinnamon sticks (I think 2 would be fine)

6 whole cloves

2 cups rum

whipped cream and nutmeg if desired 

Combine the brown sugar, butter, salt and hot water in 5 quart slow cooker. Add cinnamon sticks and cloves. Cover and cook on Low for 5 hours. Stir in rum. 

Ladle from the slow cooker into mugs, and top with whipped cream and a dusting of nutmeg. 

** The butter sort of oils on top a little bit - I found that if the cooker was on high, it helped to lessen that. I'm sure whipped cream would cover it too!

Thank you so very much to everyone who came out and helped!

the story of the apples.

The last 6 weeks have been so, so busy. It's always busy for us this time of year - with birthday season and back to school and my overtime. This year we added in Evans 5 day hospital stay and the wedding of some dear friends.

I tried to slow down once it was over. I really felt like I was doing nothing. I mean, I kind of was. You know, somewhere over the last 7 years - I've become a different person. I used to have no problems with being lazy. With letting the dishes wait, or with stopping everything to read a book. Somehow, sometime over the last several years that all changed and I'm always on the go. I'm often uneasy just sitting, or only doing one thing at a time.

So after doing nothing for a few days, I decided it was time to get stuff done, after all there was a lot to be done! Isn't there always so much to be done?!

We had to go apple picking. It had to happen that day, because I needed the next two days to process them (since it was our first weekend with nothing planned!) We went to our favorite orchard from last year, less than a mile from our house

their U-pick was closed this year! The mothers day snow had reduced their crop. Sure, I could buy a bag in the store, but we needed to pick them. That's how this was supposed to go.


Luckily, we live within 5 miles of at least 4 orchards. That's pretty much what our town has going for it. Apples. So we head on up to the big, fancy commerical one up the road. The Husband and I had actually been to that one earlier in the day taste testing at their distillery and winery.

We pull in, see the apples are 20 cents more per pound than our favorite place. Oh well, their trees are loaded with apples. This orchard is so large that the late snow didn't hurt them too badly.

Except, we have an hour and there is a line of about 30 kids that just got off a bus. We'll spend way too much time in line.

So, forget it, I say. We'll just go another day. Hmph. Only as we're driving back down the hill I get angry. And all anxious-y. But! But! We have to go today! I neeeeeed those apples today, because that's what I have planned for this weekend! I'm supposed to be canning apples! .

Apparently whenever it was over the last few years that I stopped being able to be lazy, I also became a little bit of a control freak.

So we stop at one of the orchards on the way back. It's a tiny orchard, on the side of the hill. They have two kinds of apples and most of those apples are not on the trees, I'm slipping on them on the ground. Still. We truck on. And manage to pick two bags of beautiful apples.

And then the next day it was 90 degrees. Ok, it makes no sense to can, since the day after will be in the 60's. But then, I didn't can the next day either. And then I was back at work.

And those apples sat, and sat, and sat for a week. The truth is, after all that, I couldn't stand the thought of canning those darn apples. I was still feeling lazy. Which of course worried me at first too. I can't be lazy forever. How long will I be unmotivated - just doing the minimum - dinner, laundry, work?! My house will fall apart! My apples will rot! My children will be traumatized if they buy lunch one more day!

And still, those apples sat. And they didn't rot. They sat waiting very patiently, for one whole week. They waited until I woke up on a very rainy, cold day. The kind of day that would have been perfect to go back to bed after the kids got on the bus. The kind of  day that would have been perfect to snuggle in bed all day and nap and catch up on last season of Dexter. Which is what I had planned to do, since I was convincing myself to just embrace the lazy.

But then I woke up wide awake, and all I wanted to do was can those apples! It was still a lazy, wonderful day. I canned all morning in my pajamas. Then I showered and got back into my pajamas. We pulled out leftovers for dinner, played board games for most of the evening. It was perfection.

I spent the weekend in a different sort of lazy. Not the unproductive lazy of the previous week, but the sort of slow, easy, enjoyable sort of lazy.

I canned. I cleaned. We hosted a wood-stacking party, and I cooked my butt off. But I didn't feel overwhelmed. I wasn't going crazy with everything that had to be done, or should be done or what wasn't done. I did what I could, and moved on with the day.

Those apples showed me that sometimes it's ok to wait. Clearly, my body and my mind were not done resting. Because those apples could wait - I could too. I could take the time to let go, and recharge. My days can not consist of just cooking and cleaning and family chores - especially if those things are dragging me down. Most of the time I really, honestly do enjoy doing those things- but if I've stopped enjoying them, then maybe it's time to stop for just a little while. Because my house didn't fall apart. My children are doing just fine.

And those apples didn't rot.