Gardening Into Winter

Even though we are wrapping up the last of the summer garden I am still gardening in my head! We are thinking, planning and preparing for next spring:

>We have plans to make a little grow house and canning kitchen in the big shed.

>Maybe when we get a little tougher and stop crying over dead chickens we will add a meat chicken chicken coop for those temporary ones. The more I learn about industrial food proccesses I get less icked out about raising our own meat.

>There are still brussell sprouts, kale and onions out in the garden. They like the cold weather.

>There are fall greens that Bri planted about a month ago. Yum!

>Up until a few days ago our tomatoes were still flowering and producing more tomatoes! Crazy weather.

>We are composting everything we can get our hands on to amend the soil for a small orchard where there used to be a gravel driveway.

>Fence designs are being researched

>Flower catalogs are being drooled on

Happy Autumn Everyone!

I have a little somethin' happenin'

This is my basement about a week ago

Keeps Me Moving

This helps me remember that it could never be fixed:

What kills love? Only this: Neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me. Not to think of you in the little things. Not to make the road wide for you, the table spread for you. To choose you out of habit, not desire, to pass the flower seller without a thought. To leave the dishes unwashed, the bed unmade, to ignore you in the mornings, make use of you at night. To crave another while pecking your cheek. To say your name without hearing it, to assume it is mine to call.

-Jeannette Winterson. Written On the Body.

This helps me remember that it's been worth it:

The minute you begin to do what you really want to do, it's really a different kind of life.

-R. Buckminster Fuller

This makes me UNBELIEVABLY happy:

Sissy,

Dad and I are so proud of you.

Love, Mom

-Pam O'Dell (my mom)

And this speaks for itself:

98/100 A :)

-Christine Moore (one of my professors)

This Kid Is Funny

A father writes about the mother of his children

"Her mind holds the tiny bits of every day life that weave the very fabric of our beings. In a world so large and often daunting we have her. And she has us. She gives with all her might but is never afraid to lean back. To collapse and fail and weep and let in the sadness. We see all of her and through that act of bravery we show our selves in return."

Steve Soule

Someone tell me how it can be done

Changed up the bloggies over there to reflect what I'm actually reading right now. ------>

I know it doesn't matter to y'all but I go to my blog to read blogs.

I have some tidbits that I would like you to know but I can't form them into a coherent blog post because the part of my brain that writes has retired for the day. I, very stupidly, wrote a paper an hour before it was due and therefore fried my brain (and produced an absolute crap essay).

* My babies started school on Monday and they are now in 1st and 2nd grade. I horned in on their first day of school even though it was officially a dad day. There was NO WAY IN HELL that I was going to let that day pass me by. I met them at school, took the required first day of school photos and helped them get settled. I cried a bit too but don't tell because I'm supposed to be a veteran at this.

* Very inconveniently I started school last Monday. Not the teaching kind but the student kind. Yep. Full time student right here. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking but I did it. I don't even have a job! But it's working and I love it. If I could just remember that I'm 30, not 18, that would help with the frying of the brain thing.

*Another very inconvenient thing: I realized that I still have that pesky job of mother. Not only to my beautiful little girlies (hard enough) but to the chickens, the garden and the house. (And Stella, the cat and the goldfish) The problem being that I would much rather be the girl/chicken/garden/house mama than be spending all of my time at school. Don't get me wrong. I am all for a college education but I often sit at school and wonder, "How the hell am I going to turn all of this into the ability to do the job I really want to do?" I don't really want to be a teacher. I don't really want to be a lawyer. I just want to be the person that I am already but be able to make a living doing it!

Suggestions? Hello? Tap, tap.

I know that it is a measly two years (been doing this college thing off and on for a while) of the many years that I have ahead of me but I feel like this beautiful time in my children's lives is slipping away too easily. There are days that I want to go get them from school, take them home, make cookies and begin our lives. The real ones. The ones where we can spend our days outside with the chickens and tomatoes and flowers. Where we can learn what we want to learn and do it in a way that enriches our lives everyday. Where we can spend an entire day sitting around reading, snuggling Stella, eating raspberries and still learn as much as we would have spending all day at school.

(Oh gawd. I'm ranting and sound like a damn hippie. Someone get me some sleep!)

The summary of my life today after a horrible dream, a shitty morning at school and really missing my babies. I think I will take a nap and try again. Optimism is on the horizon!

New-ness-ish

**I love adding "-ish" to the end of words. I think it really fits my personality. I'm a grey person. Not a lot of black or white in my life, no siree.

Some examples:

"Hmmm. I'd say that it's pink-ish" or "It's been ten years-ish".

**I love Post Secret and even thought I've read thousands of secrets over the last couple years, many sad, thought provoking, deep dark secrets. Many funny secrets. There is one that remains my favorite:

"When people add "-ass" to the end of a word I mentally move the hyphen one word over"

**I added some new blogs over there ------> Check em out! Also check me out on Pinterest.

In Other News

**There are some truly beautiful and inspiring thoughts on motherhood over at Soule Mama.

I am feeling particularly inspired by these words:

With joy comes sorrow, with sorrow comes joy – and the cycle continues. The yin and yang of mothering, if you will. So many of us have lost babies, had a child with medical challenges, social or learning difficulties, or have worried about a child for various reasons. Often, we don't talk about it. Sometimes we don't talk about it because it's too painful, or we fear that, in reaching out, we will find ourselves alone. But we also don't talk about it because, eventually, we heal. Life becomes livable again. We become comfortable with our “new normal.”
As mamas, we are never alone in joy, and we are never alone in sorrow. Behind the scenes, we are all the same. Some of us, at any given time, feel like things will never get better. And then things do get better. We mamas befriend each other and reach out with understanding, and a clear message: it will get better. You will belly laugh again. We get by with a little help, and reassurance, from our fellow mamas.

From Meg at sew liberated

**We have harvested lettuce (3 times). 8 strawberries. And some planted and forgotten radishes! They are beautiful!

**The chickens are doing so well! They are huge and funny. My chicken, Janet, has the cutest grown up chicken sound and she saves it just for me.

**My house is slowly and surely coming together. Planning a few gatherings here and there helps me stay motivated to keep working. There is always a burst of project finishing right before.

**It's summer break around here and so far it has been so lovely and not too hot. I know that it will be scorching hot before we know it so for now we are enjoying being outside. Next up: Hours at grandma and grandpa's pool.