Favorite Memories & Finding a Better Way

May 9th, 2011

Greetings Friends!

I hope all you mothers had a great day yesterday, and I hope all you children spent time with your mothers.

Here are some of my favorite moments in mother history.

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This is my mom and I on Easter 1980, one day before my first birthday~

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Michael 2yrs 10 months and Eddie 6 months

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Michael 5 and Eddie 3

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Alan, Michael, and Eddie

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And being that I am eight years older than my oldest brother, and thirteen years older than my youngest brother, they were really like my kids too….

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~ J and D ~

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But they’re not so little anymore.  Here is my new favorite pic of us.  This is us at the creek for Mother’s Day for our annual, family picnic.

Me n Bros

There was rum at the picnic. __Snicker*__

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After we got home from the picnic, I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with my hands in the dirt, tilling and planting.  I got my new garden beds dug out and refilled with compost on Saturday, so yesterday was spent just playing in the dirt and planting the first round that was scheduled to go in while the moon is in Cancer.

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Tomorrow is the group call with Guruji!  I’m finding myself really super excited about it.

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Today, I’m building a split-rail fence out of twine and substantial sticks from the woods.  I refuse to spend up to a couple hundred dollars for fencing to go around my garden bed when I have four acres of natural, unsprayed materials that are free and green.  The sole purpose of the fence is to catch and disperse errant dog pee.

The dog isn’t picky on price.

He’s an equal opportunity urinater.

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Mother Earth

April 23rd, 2011

Okay, I lapsed into an inspired moment of corniness and wrote a poem about Mother Earth for Earth Day.

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M ountains towering solid and strong
O
rder apparent throughout
T iniest blades of grass
H airy beasts abound
E very requirement for life, met
R eturned to Her again, all things form

E ver changing, never the same
A live
R enewing and replenishing
T ender yet tough
H onor Her with your Love and Respect

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2011

January 1st, 2011

I felt like there should be one more post in 2010, so here I am!! (… is what I was thinking last night as I wrote this post before I fell asleep and forgot to send it…)

What a fantastic year it’s been.  I’ve made new friends, and moved on from old ones (or have TRIED to at least, if the last one would stop being a voyeur to my life and let me be…).  I’ve changed my thinking a lot and taken on some new perspectives.

I’ve become more organized and made great strides in being a more involved and active wife and mother.

Life has been good!  As if it could be anything but.

I’ve decided that my main focus in 2011 will be “Simplify.”

We have too much.  An abundance to be sure.  It’s time to clear out and cut back and simplify, simplify, simplify.

My first acts of simplification have been to go through a ton of clothes setting aside a few BAGS to be given away, and to put into my home, a wood burning stove.  We’re not heating our entire house this way, but it will reduce energy consumption and HAS to be greener than electric, gas, or fuel oil heat.

I’ve made a list for myself with each item starting with, “I want,” and it currently sports 37 items.  Not items like things, but items like, points of focus.  Energy and habits and things I want to create for myself in the coming year.  Areas of growth.  Who I will be in the new year.

I was going to post it here, but as I’ve really gotten into writing it, I’ve been really honest with myself and in turn, decided that this list is just far too personal to share with cyberland.

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I will share one of the big ones with you though, and that is to be less wasteful.  I’m bad for fixing dinner and not putting away all the ingredients I got out.  OR fixing dinner and forgetting to put all the leftovers in the fridge.  Or making a large amount of food intending specifically to either eat it for another meal, or morph it into something else, but never doing it.

I’ve been, more often than not, making menu plans and mostly following them in an effort to simplify my life since taking on home-cooked lunches for my family, and that has helped us to waste less food.  I still see too much food being thrown away, so I intend to get a grip on that, right now.

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I hope you have your own list for 2011.  Even if there’s only one or two things on it, give yourself some goals and direction in 2011.  It makes one feel so much more focused and accomplished when you know what you’re working towards.

Today, I’m working toward normalcy.  Traditionally, New Years Day is the day we take down all our holiday decorations and pack them away again until next year.  As much as I love having an actual, live tree in my living room, I love the serenity of my clean, normal home.

And cleaning up decorations means the major holidays are OVER!!  Yay!!!

Happy New Year!! ~

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