Moving along.

Posted On March 26, 2012

This strange summer-like weather has kept me outside and away from this space. Not like I really update but once a week or so anyhow… but still. Today is the first chilly day in about 2 weeks, and it's still kind of glorious. You know, where it's chilly but step into the sun and it penetrates straight to your bones. I have my kids and niece and nephew today, so I won't spend long here inside. 

My herbs are bouncing back. We've got chives, oregano, parsley, marjoram, sage, and thyme- all happily growing back. Oh yeah, and my mint and yarrow is coming back too. 

Hundreds of seedlings started in soil blocks at work. Hundreds. Thousands. Oh my. I'm feeling good about work. It's feeling a more integrated into my life now. I think it felt like a bit of a stretch last year with my kids being so little. Now that they are a little older I feel better dedicating the time to it all. It's still busy and work, but it now just feels like an extension of everything else that I do. Good food, watching things grow, hanging out with good people. My life is good. I heard recently that the opposite of play is not really work, like some might say. The opposite of play is boredom or depression. While Jeff and I sometimes get stressed or feel the need to relax, we don't feel drudgery in our days. Life is ours, filled with work and play and love, and I could say "thank you" all day long for that fact. 

Seeing a lot of bowl-fulls of good food. A nice mix of stick-to-your-ribs type fare with fresh greens and crisp veggies. 

I'm exercising more, which feels excellent. I'm getting back into the rhythm of it, feeling my heart pound and rarely getting out of breath. Hitting that point, about 8 to 10 minutes in, where I could just keep going… Of course, my little babes wake up from their naps and demand my attention, but I keep reminding myself that it's not something to complain about. I can choose to be grateful for the time I spent on my physical well-being, even if it is only 7 minutes rather than the 40 I wanted. I used to be resentful about the interruptions. But I feel like I'm coming around a corner with that one, because I realized it left me resentful a lot of the time. When I looked at my life and saw all the blessings, I realized the problem was with me and my attitude. Inhale, exhale, on to the next thing.

Plus, being interrupted gives me a great excuse to snuggle up to all that is a fresh-from-a-nap toddler. 

My early starts. Onions, leeks, broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, kale, artichoke. 

Below is a more accurate picture of what really goes on. Little mister and his cousin already mixed up all my labels and pulled out some babies. I am not sure what's there at this point, but I'll just plant them all and do my best to identify them later. Inhaling, exhaling, it's all a gift. 

All of that makes me extra pleased to have this new space for myself. Sewing, plants, and "office" space. I can close it all off. I need to get an extension cord for those lights (yikes) but otherwise it's a really peaceful happy place for me, and the kids can't get to the plants for now. I'm about to transplant everything into bigger soil blocks, though, so we'll see. 

Oh, Pippin. He's been a challenge lately. Lots of dominance issues. He guards his sleeping spots, his food, his toys. It's been hard, but we're sticking with it. Otherwise he's great. I do need there to be an improvement when it comes to the aggression, though. I'm trying to keep in mind that he's still a pup, who's previous owners clearly didn't train him much. There has also been a bunch of improvement in his behavior, and he's sweet as ever when he's well exercised and happy. He likes this spot on the table under the awning.

Good news is that Maya is healing so well from her surgery. The other day she started playing and bounding like a puppy again! I haven't seen her do that in ages. It almost made me cry. I do love my dogs! They need to run around a bit, though, and so do the kids, so out I go!