Days of Light

Had the day off and now that the snow is receding I went to scope out the visual on the garden expansion!  I walked outside and heard a few birds, there was an invigorating crisp in the air and the sun was coming through in patches.  I'll be starting seeds soon and wanted to...needed to....was dying to....see where their new home would be!  According to the Almanac we are gaining a few precious minutes of daylight every morning now...

In an area that is quite wooded this patch of dirt seems un-obscured by the towering trees.  It gets the most light!  The beds are going to be quickie built raised beds - untreated 6x8's are waiting nice and dry in the shed :)  I'm thinking the area should afford me 3 4x4 beds and an L shaped 2' wide run.  We are doing this on the cheap so it will be T-posts and chicken wire.  I've decided beans - runners and climbers will buffer the road.  There will be a large deep pot of sorts for the carrots, The blessed hand crafted potato towers, ( The nursery in town boasts MID MARCH POTATO STARTS ARRIVE-I AM SO THERE!)  And facing the driveway (the darker blacktop) will be gourds and the like.   Under the split rail I want to try more herbs - I'll get that dehydrator or make one this year come hell or high water!

If I had my way, there wouldn't even be a lawn...I vow to have my way one day in a little patch of heaven all my own (difficult in the townhouse where I currently reside!)  for now it's borrowed dirt...but Ahh the promise and hope of the future is bright on the horizon with every seed I sow in the dirt and my soul!  Forward we go...LAND HOE!

Green me up Scottie - GREEN ME UP!

Channeling Cheryl - 6 AM STOCK

Rip the carcass apart and boil with your freezer 'crap bags' of food scraps...Cheryl doesn't mince words when it comes to frugal cooking.  

My thought until a few years ago had always been, why endure the labor of making a stock when the shelves at the food store are laden with it?  I have since found out exactly why you want to make your own...

Yesterday I cooked a turkey that had been frozen for a while. 17 lbs and about 6.5 hours later I had enough meat for; a few proper Turkey dinners, Turkey Salad, Turkey Pot Pies, and the mother of all that is holy...Turkey Rice Soup.  After my family was fed and in there semi conscious rests, I set about for the makings of a proper stock and soup.  The white pot in the pic is one of two that were set to boil and toil.  One will be made into soup today with various veggies and a long grain aromatic rice.  The other will be bagged and frozen plain - and pulled out at a future date.

Last evening the house had a somewhat formal game goodness scent going on, mingled with potatoes, 3 lbs of chopped carrot, huge onions and heated bread. If compost maketh black gold for the garden a carcass and scrap maketh rich gold for the belly.  Since beginning to make my own stock there is far less waste of food and a far more economical stretch of real meals.  I know why soup strengthens the ill - just one look and you know it is infused with strength that came from the ground.  It is humbly beautiful.

It is warming up a bit in our parts but we are still bracing a chilling rain and overall wet of sorts...the mud is an earthy ice rimmed slush.  I look upon the dirt at this time as a rest of fortitude, a hibernation, a gathering slumber.  Until we work the ground and plant again to see us through yet another winter that will surely come - there is stock in the freezer and warm bread to be had. And many more recipes from frugal friends to find.

Ahhh Sunday!

Night

Maybe it was the warmth of the house...or perhaps the coming full moon that drew me out into the night air.  I had spent most of the day cooking real food for most of the week, save a trip to the library with the boys.  When 9:30 rolled around everyone had bedded down somewhere in the house but I found myself restless with a need to move.

I get this way sometimes.  Always when change is coming.  And I have learned with a certainty to give in to it...to let it be...to let it take me.  I needed to walk and the cloak of darkness provided an anonymity that was far too enticing to pass up.  I grabbed a hooded sweatshirt and ventured out.  

Maybe it's because we are animals inside but night has always offered me a certain heightened self awareness.  My breathing is different, my eyes scan everything, and my mind is allowed to play and explore it's deepest recesses.  

The pavement was wet and chilled with a soft mist and intermittent sprinkle of a suspended like drizzle.  The streetlights cast somewhat ghastly shadows along the path I chose.  When you leave my street and walk down toward the quarry, you follow the underground route of the water and in tandem seek the lowest point.  As you collect your thoughts, the water collects underground (some say 100 feet in these parts) and both empty into a pool of contemplation.  There is an unabashed collective spirited dance you succumb to with the water, and with yourself.

I thought of the past.  I thought of today.  I thought of how I want my life to be.  And I walked on.  One foot in front of the other into the darkness, with it's breaks of unnatural light - proving the weather.  I shed a tear.  I felt my heart beat.  I felt hope and let it devour me. I was content as well as restless.  We humans are meant to move, meant to think, to believe, and to dream.

For a long moment everything was alright.  My family was fed, they were warm, they were safe, and I was out drunk with the darkness of night weighing my future and unloading the past.  I paused at the entrance to the quarry, a natural jutting of lime stone on either side of the road.  The rocks are laced with a type of metal that has long since rusted from its exposure.  In the morning when the sun hits them the shadows will heal back into themselves and take my thoughts with them.  We are so finite and yet so eternal.  We are such recycled energy - and can choose to be a force for good, for hope.

When I rounded the bend and saw my door I left the rainy night to it's own, with the faith that it would be there again waiting for me. I entered my dwelling a bit better than when I had left, and was ready for a sleep of dreams.

"Let the night teach us what we are,

and the day what we should be."

-Thomas Tryon, 1691

-To the mist, until we meet again

It's out there

I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled

Above the green elms that a cottage was near

And if there was peace to be found in this world

A heart that was humble might hope for it here

-Thomas Moore

Almost There

It was in the depth of Winter 

When I finally learned 

That within me

There was

An invincible Summer

Sick Day

Saturday I went to work at a different hospital within the same group.  Around noon time I knew something was terribly amiss.  The pressure behind my eyes was more than I could bear.  I found myself pressing on my eye sockets to relieve the pain.  My head felt like it was in the sea.  We were somewhat busy and against my better judgement I stayed the 12 hours.

By the time I arrived home I was very dizzy and with headache.  I had called the doctor (2nd job) that I work for and begged for something to be called into the pharmacy for me.  You see a couple of weeks ago I was cleaning wooden cabinets and put a huge splinter spike through the pad of my finger.  I had to pry it out the one side and remove the rest later in the day with a sterile needle and 3 different tweezers.  I flushed it cleaned it had it xray'd (negative-no foreign body found) and assumed that was it.  I have a sneaking suspicion I have fallen with infection from that wound.  Today is my 3rd day on the antibiotic.

I never take medicine if I can help it.  I'm one of those people that resorts to drinking more water, having tea (maybe with whiskey), sleeping more, getting fresh air, and cleaning up what I am eating.  Because I am a person that rarely goes the pharmo path when I DO have to take anything it usually works like a steam train going through my body.  Day three and I'm still with a headache that won't let me go but the weakness has subsided a bit to where I can climb the stairs without being winded and today I'm itching for a fresh-air walk.

So I sat quietly the last 2 days pretty much in one room.  The kitchen.  

I drank brewed hot and cold tea, I nibbled on toast and cheese.  I heated broth.  I had my laptop set up and watched Netflix and Amazon Prime.  Downton Abbey (ode to my mother who would've loved this show!) and River Cottage - watch the first episode you will be addicted.

When my children were small my parents had given them the animated Beatrix Potter movie; The Tailor of Gloucester.  There was a tailor who was so poor he could only rent a corner of a kitchen.  So there I was in a soccer mom portable chair, a plastic foot stool, a robe thrown over me blanket style and a stove that was so cozy I didn't want to stray far.  I had the lights shut off with only daylight coming in the windows.  I'm sure to the old chap with the cane that walks his dog like clockwork who stole a glance in the window (he always does) I appeared somewhat of a mental case.  I've long given up worrying what anyone thinks.

I was holed up...healing.

Then gratitude found me as it always does.  Ok so I am sick...so what?  There are far more far sicker.  People I work with and pray for...but it got me thinking-  This time a short year ago I was in a job I loved - but without health insurance.  I was making alot of money at my per-diem 2nd job - without health insurance and without any paid sick time - so an I don't work I don't eat mentality took hold.  I can't tell you how many times I pushed myself sick, trying to do my job at half throttle to get better in 2 weeks rather than 4 days.  The rest  and down time I was able to have in the last couple of days was further aided by the security of knowing my time bank at my current job would complete my paycheck for a bit until I got better.  I don't make a ton of money, I went to where the insurance was affordable and the pay somewhat doable and the hours workable, not for me but for my children.  

Sometimes when you go along thinking you do so many things incorrect...well the correctness comes up and smacks you in the face.  We must give ourselves credit...this is something I still struggle with.  I am grateful that many times when I sit with my head in my hands wondering if I am making the right moves, the moves are somehow made for me.  I am somehow led in the correct direction.  That is maybe 25% me 75% divine.  Whatever the ratio - I need to trust more.  We all do.  Part of this of illness was due, I believe, to a weakened state from stress.  What good is all the money in the world if you don't have a warm stove to sit by and at least one room that you truly own and a cup of tea?  I'm down but I will be up and running in a couple of days and I am sticking to my plan...and looking up.

Trust yourself and move in the direction of your dreams or where your gut tells you - that is the divine, that is the correct way.

Godspeed

Veronica

I wasn't quite right Sunday morning when I woke up.  A friend happened to text me and ask if I was ok - I replied 'No.'  I explained some things that had been going on and that there was a growing sense of urgency within me.  A bit of panic seemed to have taken hold of me...she cut through the chase and told me, in no uncertain terms, to meet up with her at the diner down the road in approx 20 mins.  I was dazedly nodding into the phone as I grabbed my boots...

See every so often we all have things that seem inexplicable and our otherwise rational minds are overcome by a storm of stress, worry, and emotions.  She had sensed this and threw the life line, pulling me into the winter fresh air and action. Moving forward has always been my thing - but in that moment with deadly dark waters swirling about my mind, I needed to be spurned into action by a friend...

V is a friend I met quite a few years ago when I was selling real estate in town.  She ran the marketing end of things in the office.  I was going through major life changes and we sort of had a spiritual connection and awakening.  We have stayed in touch ever since the original group disbanded, checking in on one another from time to time.  We have shared cosmic messages at apparently all the right times.  I believe she has been a friend long before this lifetime and shall remain so long after we are gone.

I walked into the diner with scattered energy and from a back table V waved to me.  I slid into the booth as tears slid down my cheeks.  They were tears of frustration and also tears of peace because I knew I was in a safe sacred space with V.  "Just breath Christine, just breath honey"  She has a voice that makes you think of a canoe gently rocking in a protected tropical cove...

Slowly it all came out.  Some tears, some laughter.  You see V is on her way to being a professional Life Coach - she runs a Book Study currently doing an Eckhart Tolle work.  She is a teacher, but she doesn't always believe that.  There is a divinity that surrounds her and the words she speaks always seem to be the right ones.  Every now and then she would interject 'Christine you are in the past - get out of the past' or 'Christine, that's not about you, that's about someone else' or 'Christine, look at that you need to look at that - what does saying that do to you?  Where is your energy? Explore that - it's yes or no'  And on and on it went until she excavated all the boulders of stress from my psyche til they lay like pebbles at my feet.  My breathing steadied and I got my footing back.  I once again became light and positive.  Proactive has always been my thing.  Reactive is a sort of bad dream I slip into sometimes when I'm overwhelmed, overtired, and over the edge.

Talking with her got me some new perspectives on the way I was thinking about certain things.  Some things are business and deserve no emotion.  Being the head of the house, being both the mom and the dad make it business...a sole proprietorship.  Some things need planning and not an emotional flick of the wrist.  But I get caught up - because I want everything to be solved NOW.  And yet, when I look back, so many of my triumphs and successes were born of ideas that came like lightening, but implementation that took time...intentional actions that were slow, steady, and consistent.

So I left with a renewed sense of purpose and a crystal clear head.  Thank God for friends such as these.  It is a spiritual give and take - to have a friend like this you must be a friend like this - and I strive to do that everyday.

As for V?  Well I see a very successful future in the Cosmic Life Coaching World...where there are no coincidences, only revelations.   There are so many groups she has yet to lead, so many lifelines she will toss into an ocean of need for so many treading water... waiting to find solid ground.  

Thank you God for sending us Veronica.

Namaste

4 Degree Soup

Temps in our neck of the woods hit a balmy 4 degrees today - with the windchill your face hurt!  But fear not!  5lb bag of potatoes on sale for $1.49, some frozen cheddar, staple of sour cream, a few strips of bacon and some chopped up chives...add a good crusty bread from the Farmer's Market and you have the makings of a stick to your ribs cold weather cozy meal.

Making  'soup meals' always gives me an appreciation of the simple things...same goes when I make Bean Soup.  There is something rhythmic and timeless and zen about peeling and chopping potatoes, onions, anything.  I would love to know the count (into the hundreds of thousands I'm sure) my grandmother Agnes, from Scotland, hit with spuds.  A common meal for them was a 'wee' bit o chopmeat (browned up and tiny like bread crumbs) sprinkled over the humble potato.

For a long time spuds were considered The Devils domain, they grew underground in the dirt that surely led to hell and the leaves were poisonous.  During the time of the great climate change a savvy king, Louis XIV tried to promote the filling tuber because it grew protected underground, but the masses wouldn't have it...preferring to starve to death...many of them did.

This year I will be growing them and in a way I find that equally timeless.  I cannot wait for the mystery of an entire meal falling from the confines of the potato towers I am planning!  Until spring  though I've no choice but to shop the sales and @ $1.49/bag well that will be more than enough to  feed my hungry home :)

"What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow."A. A. Milne (1882-1956),
popular children's author

Sad Contemplation yet a Brilliant Morning...

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
The agony returns;
And til my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me;
To him my tale I teach


Samuel Taylor Coleridge - My hero

Guard Dog

So this is what you do huh?

It's official - when I come back I'm coming back as a dog

Keep Going

Blurry pic I know - I opened a fortune cookie about an hour after my last post!  Yes folks a sign in the form of a cookie, maybe a red flag for the eating disorder...maybe a bigger message @ work here!  I will err on the side of undying faith Thank you!

All the riches

Today I am tired.  We hit a money crunch last month which resulted in a few 'late fees' that put us behind a bit.  So I did what any respectable workaholic would do...I signed up for more time at work.

The Late fees put me a bit behind money-wise, but the extra work seems to have put me a bit behind sanity wise.  I remain utterly grateful that there is work to be had, I've the health to do it,  and that God gifted me with a safety button to grab it when I need it.  I work with good people and we do our best to carve out a place of healing (although you know my stance on fluorescent lighting in hospitals).

The real mind kicker was that this month I made the last payment on a credit card that plagued me for years, like those green biting bugs at the shore in August. Just a bloody bite.  So I climbed out of another debt to end up worried about this months bills.  Sometimes. it. is. laughable.  and you laugh so you don't cry.

But such is life and in the end the race is only with yourself.  Next month will be better - it always is, My personal Dow Jones fluctuates.  So I started to think - you can make yourself crazy with money.  I know because I've been there - waking up at 3AM doing spreadsheets in your head which always seem to be handwritten in blood - and bad dreams of debtors prisons where the shithouse rats have more $ than you do. Getting your paycheck and winding up with exactly $1.35 to yourself after a 70 hour work week, not even enough for any coffee you'd wanna drink on your most desperate morning.  And yet for the last few years it's all been going in the right direction somehow.  Sometimes slow (minimum payment only) sometimes quicker (overtime handed over to the bill collector) but always in the right direction.  And progress, however small, is...well...progress right?

The path to success has never proven a straight line for me.  Far to much to see I think.  I'm the one reading the debt book on my free time in front of a snow melt river with poetry on the brain.  I've traded soul time for work time, I've never looked back but I still have fun in some strange way.  I'm still smiling and THAT is a choice we all can make.  Shit if you gotta go through manure to get to the horse and ride off into the sunset - So be it!  Slop it up good, cause you only do this dance called life once.  And that's me.  I'm just trying to do it right...I believe we all are.  

We sailed through Christmas without credit debt greeting us in January...and yet....and yet - if I wasn't so determined this morning would've been the day I would've thrown caution to the wind and taken the boys somewhere warm and unaffordable , somewhere lush, somewhere with oranges and pools and frigen leaves.  But we can't. and I won't. because I'm just not into making the same mistakes twice.  It will come, and it will be paid for when it does.  And the waiting will make spring all the more sweet!  And that trip will be so worth it!!  I finally understand Longfellow - Learn to labor, and to wait.

Today is a day off in a week that will total 67 hours. I made a cup of tea, because when you are Celtic that cures everything.  I set it down and snapped the above pic with my phone.  Because the struggle will be worth it...and it's moments like this, with a book,a blanket and tea, when you realize that even if your bank account is low - you can feel like the richest of  pharaohs :) 

Namaste

Sunday to Work

It was an eerie drive to work this morning.  I quietly packed up my bag for my 12 hour day.  I left the house at around 5:30 AM.  It had snowed and the only stirring in my neighborhood at that time on a Sunday was the crunch of my boots on the fresh powder.

Some people are horrified that when you work in a hospital most of the staff has to work every other weekend.  Me?  Other than missing my kids, I don't mind it so much.  The commute is effortless, almost enjoyable and the day meanders on, even with it's emergencies.  Administration is tucked in at home so it's really mostly the workers running things - and that goes pretty smoothly.

I warmed up my car, which always makes me feel like a grown up.  Most days I'm just winging it - the adult thing.  I go outside 15 minutes before I leave and fire up the Toyota.  Today I cleared the snow from my car and in a gesture of neighborly love I cleared Tricia the neighbors car as well.  I breathed in the winter air.  I never cover my face in the winter - not even as a child when I would ski - I love the feeling of that frosted air filling my lungs.  It feels so...alive.  I've never smoked a day in my life so my lungs are, I believe, in pretty good shape.  I've been trying to train myself to understand that when I have livestock, it will be mornings such as this that I will brace the cold to feed them.

I settled into my car, always grateful for the economical reliable ride.  Quietly I pulled out of my driveway; the snow giving way softly under my tires.  The streets were black and wet, thankfully though, not icy.

I drove through the old town of Franklin, past the strip malls that have replaced farms and raw forest in the last 40 years.  I'm always warmed by the charm of what this town once was.  Maybe I was feeling nostalgic?  I had a very broken sleep last night.  Family stuff.  I'm certain the draining drama of it will pass.  The excitement of it had left me a bit slow on the take, almost dull.  I was happy to be a mere observer to my morning, grateful for it's routine.

The world had a somewhat deserted feel, save a plow here and there in an empty parking lot.  Heaven forbid consumers could not make the shopping today.  It's Sunday - the big sale day.  I was struck by the flood lights in the parking lots, maybe it was the atmosphere...the wet air.  The lights extended into the sky, the misty spires like huge upturned flashlights.  A half moon, made unnoticeable by their garish facade, hung above it all.

Another mining town unfolded after that, the main street of Ogdensburg always appearing like a slapped together movie set.  all the small town businesses are represented in a short straight line; a deli, a school, a gas station, a restaurant etc.  More farmland gone and another shopping nightmare brought me to the highway turnoff.  I was one of perhaps 3 cars on the road toward the city I work in.  The highway - of all places - offered a dark stretch free from strip malls and unnatural light for a while. 

I was able to be tired, alone, and passively wonder, as the winter trees that resembled skeletons stretched toward the inky sky, what life would be like if we only had the moon to answer to...a fire to build...a stew to cook...and babies of hope to hold close.