1: day off
14: chickens that run to meet me
12: Blue Spruce’s to plant in honor of Earth Day
50: pages read in a book
35: minutes spent napping
15: dollars spent on barbecue take-out
4: laps taken around a pasture on a bicycle
5: big spoonfuls of Blue Bell’s Great Divide Ice Cream
7: houseplants watered
1: set of sheets laundered and fresh on the bed waiting
13: pictures finally hung on the walls
2: days until Easter
Eternity: to spend with a Savior who died for me.
The evening is breezy and mild. I’m sitting in my front yard in one of those vintage iron chairs as I type this. The birds are perched in the tree and on the high wires singing me a melody. The cows are grazing in the next pasture. The horses are munching alfalfa, and chickens are pecking in their pen. Occasionally the hawk soars overhead, keeping me on my toes. Dang that chicken hawk. The dogs lay at my feet. Occasionally they tussle. When Drew Miller’s adrenaline rises, I catch a hint of skunk smell waft my direction. I guess he did get sprayed after all. The sky is clouding up, teasing us with rain. Makes me feel like a teenage boy sitting next to a girl in a low-cut blouse. Life is good. The only thing missing is a creaky wooden screen door banging closed and a wide porch. Maybe even a glass of sweet tea.
I’ve taken to wearing an aunt Jemima scarf on my head out here. Or as the cool kids would say, a do-rag. The wind does blow and whips my hair about.
I sit here and contemplate my garden. Today I took full advantage of 2nd grade science curriculum and had my second graders help me start my indoor seeds. It might be considered child labor. I call it learning the life cycle and parts of plants. We planted tomatoes, peppers, green beans, okra, squash, and radishes. I don’t even like radishes that much, but they’re easy to grow. I got some seeds planted and children had a good time learning. Can’t beat it. I want my garden in my front yard. J-Dub says, “who puts a garden in the front yard?” I do, that’s who. I’m going to attempt a companion garden with vegetables and flowers. I’m going to walk up my path and pop a cherry tomato in my mouth as I pick a bouquet on the way to the front door. My no dig garden didn’t get finished. I started with such gusto, only to find the cardboard blown up against the fences in a couple of days. Oh the toil I wasted.
I long for care-free summer days, fresh garden veggies, and tan legs.
I glance up to see dust billowing on the road. The dogs’ ears perk up at the bellowing diesel of my husband’s truck. They run to the gate to meet him. Dogs are such great friends. Always glad to see you.
Nothing’s ready for supper. Do you think he’ll be mad?
First thing I notice when he steps out of his truck are his boots are red. Initially, I think he’s gotten new boots, but no. It’s his old boots, they are covered with red dirt from Oklahoma where he was working today.
I’ve got a hard-working husband, a little home, a lot of love, and wonderful people in my life.
And yet sometimes, I allow myself to cater to self-pity. What a shame I should ever feel mistreated.
I’m blessed.
Well, the sun has moved and I’m in the shade now. The breeze is cool and I must warm some leftovers for supper.
Until tomorrow, friends.
May God Bless you richly.
A few years ago, I went to a training by a lady named Ruby Payne. She is reportedly an expert in studying the poor class and gives insight to understanding poverty. When I first took this class I was a fairly new teacher and I remember being fascinated by what I learned. I wanted to share it, so I excitedly told my dad I had been to this great training, and had learned this fabulous stuff from an expert in poverty. His response was, “You’re pretty much an expert in poverty too, ain’t ya?” He’d lived it himself, and really didn’t care what she had to say.
In Ruby Payne’s book, she has a short test to take. You check things off that you can do, for example, open a checking account, order from a French menu, bail someone out of jail. Then you tally up your checkmarks, and you discover which social class you could survive in: poverty, middle class, or wealthy.
Among the items I checked that I was able to do was “move in half a day.”
I must confess, I could no longer check that one. Back when I took the test, I practically owned nothing. I was a single gal, living in a one bedroom house and had to hang my clothes on a line to dry. It would’ve been easy with a few friends and a couple truckloads to get all my possessions out of one house and into another in a very short amount of time.
Not now.
We started the moving process five weeks ago. A matter of fact, I was in the throes of packing my kitchen cabinets the day I received the phone call telling me my dad had died. Boxes of plates and dishes sat abandoned for a week while we dealt with the stuff one must deal with to bury a loved one. When we returned from Oklahoma, I resumed life and work, and the following week we began moving. There are still boxes to unpack at my new house, boxes to load at my old house, and dumpsters to fill down my alley.
Today I had a garage sale. I have too much stuff. Don’t we all? Aren’t we just a bunch of spoiled rotten Americans?
Here’s a little trivia to gnaw on.
The average size American home in 1950 was 983 square feet compared to 2,349 square feet in 2006. Interesting? Yes, I think so.
My garage sale turned out pretty good for me, but I had some tough decisions to make while preparing for it. Should it stay or should it go? After all, we have moved to a smaller home with practically no storage at all. So I had to say good-bye to some old “friends”.
It seems that I get sentimentally attached to my stuff. I had a little pink tea set that my oldest brother bought me probably 12 years ago. I’ve held onto it because it’s one of the few things I’ve received from him. But as I was sorting through my crap and dealing with the mental banter of keep it, sell it, keep it, sell it, keep it, sell it; these thoughts occurred to me: 1) My brother doesn’t remember giving this to me. 2) He didn’t even purchase it himself 3) He gave my sister or my mom 20 bucks in an airport once and said “Buy Angel something.” 4) It was probably the only thing in the airport gift shop under 20 bucks 5) Look how dusty it is, it’s just something else to clean.
Those thoughts made my decision much easier. I put it in the garage sale, but I didn’t sell it. Actually I gave it away to my realtor aunt who dropped by to put a for sale sign in the yard. She said when she got home she would put my name on the bottom of it so I could have it back someday!!
AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!
I hope she at least dusts it first.
We have a pet chicken.
We call her Freedom. She wants out of the box in the worst way imaginable.
She’s the only one who discovered how to fly to the edge of the box. Since then we taped up the sides. She appears to be a Barred Plymouth Rock with a long stripe down her head. She is only one of 3 that we can differentiate between. They all look the same.
Freedom dreams of wide open spaces. When she lays her little chicken head down and closes her little chicken eyes she dreams of eating grubs in the garden not hanging out in a cardboard box. The brown cardboard walls are closing in and driving her chicken crazy.
She is not content in this box with these other peeps. There’s a whole world out there waiting to be discovered and she knows it deep down in her little chicken heart. She’s destined for greater things.
When you lay your hand palm up in the box, all the other chicks scatter, but not Freedom. She hops in ready for a ride out of that place.
She’s curious, friendly and bold.
But manners? She has none. How does she expect to get far in life with antics like this?
She has so much to learn.
Stress. We all have it. It attacks us at different times and for different reasons.
I’ve been feeling a tad bit overwhelmed lately. When I stop to think about my life, I realize that in the last 3 weeks I have buried my dad and have (am presently) moving to a new house, while not selling my other one. Two semi-large stressors added to my life. Then, if you add in the new baby chickens, that’s like additional family members right there, ain’t it? I’d say they rank right up there with birthing a new baby, wouldn’t you? I mean they have their own nursery for crying out loud. I check on them constantly, make sure they’re breathing, and listen to their peeps through the baby monitor.
Kidding, kidding.
About the last part anyway.
Instead of packing, cleaning, unpacking my belongings, organizing for a garage sale, and doing things to help RELIEVE my stressors, instead I google stress just to see if I’m really stressed. You know sometimes I need to confirm my thinking. If I think I’m stressed, well by golly, I need to prove it to everyone else.
There’s a little test you can take online. It’s a simple inventory where you check off a few things that have happened in the past 24 months. So I clicked away, and discovered that actually I’m not as stressed as I think I am. So I must tell myself to Get. Over. It. and Get. On. With. It.
In my google searching, I found a little article however that talked of the small things that actually stress us out more than we realize, and sometimes more than the big stuff. Things like co-workers and facebook. Can you believe facebook can be stressful? Why yes, yes I can. It is the absolute zapper of time, leaving us feeling more stressed because we don’t have time to do what we should’ve been doing while we were busy stalking and poking others. This article also says it can play a big part on your emotions, leaving you feeling inadequate when you read that someone just met Their Mr. Perfect, while you’re still waiting by the phone.
So what do I do when I’m feeling overwhelmed, overcome, and overextended?
I hit the road walking. I unplug myself from the busy world via technology and head out. Now that we’ve moved outside the city limits, I have nothing but wide open spaces and a long country road to walk. No cars and no dogs. Just the singing of the birds and the blowing of an occasional train whistle falls on my ears.
I walk and I pray. Out loud. I thank God for everything. I start counting blessings. Being out in nature just makes me feel so blessed and thankful. Lately I’ve been feeling so close to God the Creator. I’m in awe of Him.
Look at this picture of brown dirt road, meeting green hay field, meeting blue sky.
This view speaks to me.
It says, “Hello, I’m God.” And I speak back and simply say, “Thanks.”
While walking and talking with Him, He grants me peace and lets me know it’s okay. Everything is okay. It’s as if He says, “Angel, look around you. Look at all this. I did it. Nothing is too big for me. See the size of this Texas sky?”
Let me give you a link to this beautiful song.
It’s saying what I’m trying to.
I received a phone call this morning at 6:40 from the United States Postal Service informing me that I had a package to pick up as soon as possible.
I jumped in the shower, threw on my clothes, and rushed off without a bit of make-up.
Yes, my friends, the day has finally arrived. The day I have longed for, anxiously crossing off calendar dates, to arrive.
Let’s open the box together!
I wish you could’ve heard the dozens of sweet little peeps that were escaping during the transport to my house.
There they are. Sweet little baby chicks. And one with chicken dookie on his back.
Unlike human babies, these little darlings came with instructions!
They shouldn’t be handled for the first 24 hours.
They need a box with water and a heat lamp. The temperature needs to be about 98 degrees.
You must take each bird and dip its beak in the water so they can begin drinking. Also, make sure the water is 98 degrees.
It does them some good to have a little sugar in their water, and to chop up a couple of boiled eggs to give them a strong start. Boy, did they like those boiled eggs!
You just need to sprinkle their feed in the box, so they can practice pecking for the first day, later they’ll learn to eat from the trough.
They’ve already grown so much today, I know they’ve gained at least 2 ounces each!
Also included in the instructions, way down at the bottom, was the stuff everyone forgets to mention about chicks, like: how to wipe pasty poop that gets stuck on their butt, and what to do when they pull their feathers out and start bleeding, how to prevent the chicks from pecking one another, and as a last resort for pecking how to cut part of their beaks off!! I will not be doing that. These chicks will surely behave.
So dear reader, this is my first chicken post. I say that because I’m sure it will not be my last.
Happy pecking!
This morning I stumbled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen, poured myself a cup of ambition, yawned and stretched and tried to come alive.
Not really. It’s Saturday. I slept later than usual, I awoke refreshed and feeling great, and meandered to the bathroom.
Then I peeked out the window to see if my husband’s truck was outside which meant he hadn’t left for work yet. I didn’t see it, and I couldn’t hear any rustling around the house, so I assumed he wasn’t home.
Until I saw his hat on the kitchen table. Then I knew he was here somewhere.
His dirty, black hat, equipped with a toothpick, only goes where he goes.
It’s pretty crusty, wouldn’t you agree? Some people think he needs a new one. But why? This one is nearing the point of perfection.
He catches some grief from others about this dirty hat. Not long ago, a friend asked him when he was going to clean it. Never, that’s when. It takes a long time, years in fact, to get a hat to fit right and feel right, and cleaning it might mess with the dirt, sweat, and grime that has made it the hat it is today.
My mom has finally resigned the issue. She gave up the cause for a new hat. For years on his birthday or Christmas, she would give him gift cards to a western store in hopes that he would buy a new hat. He bought jeans and socks instead.
She hasn’t complained about this hat, but his last hat she hated. She even let him know she hated his hat.
This is his old hat. It’s pretty bad. To the untrained eye, it might look identical to his present hat, but look closely.
There are no toothpicks , the buckle is badly bent, and the dirt is thicker. Much, much, thicker.
On Christmas morning, we opened the door to find a present, wrapped and sitting on our porch. We assumed it was from my brother and his wife Janene, because that’s their style. Just leave it on the porch. But upon opening it, we discovered a brand new black felt hat. It was from J-Dub’s friend Ol’ Earl, who pitied him for his dirty, black hat.
Of course J-Dub has a going-to-town hat too. That’s what he calls his dress hat.
It’s stocked with toothpicks as well. He wears it with his going-to-town watch and his going-to-town belt.
This is my husband’s hat. It has character, it fits right, and it stays on his head. Except for the day I had to chase it across the prairie in -34 degree wind chill. But the only reason it blew off that day was because he had a scarf on his head.
Not an old lady scarf, but a cowboy scarf, otherwise known as a wild rag. I love this picture. He hates it. He looks like an old lady to me. A babushka, an old Russian grandmother. Generally he doesn’t leave the house looking like this, but the bitterness of the cold that day was unbearable. He needed to protect his ears, and the silkiness of the wild rag caused his hat to blow away. Which didn’t make the day any more enjoyable.
While others look at this hat and see a dirty, black hat in desperate need of the trash can, I see a hard-working husband. I see the sweat from his brow on a summer day, the mud from the pens where he’s sorting cattle, the dust and dirt caking his face. I see him rolling out hay in frigid temperatures, breaking ice on frozen water tanks, doctoring sick calves. I see him branding cattle, building fence, shipping yearlings. I see the his love for the occupation, the land, the lifestyle, and his love for me.
I admire this dirty, black hat.
But much more, I admire the man who wears it.
Yesterday I wrote about an avocado green canister that is banged up, rusted, and just plain ugly, but beautiful despite it’s imperfections. Rather than the reactions I was expecting to receive, several folks said they loved that canister.
I’m wondering if this green canister falls under the term Wabi Sabi. That word in itself is just fabulous to say. Wabi Sabi. Try it. It rolls off the tongue like Obi Wan Kenobi, not that I have any idea who that is. I’m much too young.
Or Ping Pong. Ying Yang.
Cheech and Chong.
Wabi Sabi is a Japanese philosophy of appreciating things that are imperfect, primitive, and incomplete. I understand it as a “less is more” mind-set. A place where non-essentials are weeded out and only essential items are left regardless of their imprefections.
Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent.~~architect Tadao Ando
Robyn Giggs Lawrence has written a book called Simply Imperfect: Revisiting the Wabi Sabi House. I read an article she wrote recently that helped me realize this is what I’m aiming for. This is the direction I’m heading. I want Wabi Sabi!!
The two words wabi and sabi have different meanings and have not always been used together.
Wabi means humble and simple. Someone who is perfectly herself and never craves to be anything else would be described as wabi. A common phrase used in conjunction with wabi is “the joy of the little monk in his wind-torn robe.” A wabi person epitomizes Zen, which is to say, he or she is content with very little; free from greed, indolence, and anger; and understands the wisdom of rocks and grasshoppers.
Can’t you just see that little monk’s weathered, aged, grinning face?
Sabi means rusty and weathered. It’s the understanding that beauty is fleeting. Sabi things carry the burden of their years with dignity and grace.
In home decor, wabi-sabi inspires a minimalism that celebrates the human rather than the machine. Possessions are pared down, and pared down again, until only those that are necessary for their utility or beauty (and ideally both) are left. What makes the cut? Items that you both admire and love to use, like those hand-crank eggbeaters that still work just fine. Things that resonate with the spirit of their makers’ hands and hearts: the chair your grandfather made, your six-year-old’s lumpy pottery, an afghan you knitted yourself (out of handspun sheep’s wool, perhaps). Pieces of your own history: sepia-toned ancestral photos, baby shoes, the Nancy Drew mysteries you read over and over again as a kid.
So yes, I’d say this green tin is very wabi sabi.
And I’m keeping it.
Words to describe a wabi sabi philosophy.
I cling to my imperfection, as the very essence of my being.
Anatole France (1844 – 1924)
I recently purchased this magazine.
I say recently, but it was way back in 2010.
I have no idea why I would purchase a magazine called Do it yourself, since I don’t do anything myself. There must have been something that caught my eye on the cover, but now…..who knows? This is one of those mags that if you have nothing to do all day except create adorableness from egg shells and paper, this is your heaven.
It does have some extremely cute crafts in it.
See, I even dog-eared this page on crafting with felt. Felt makes me happy. Not that there’s even a remote chance I’ll be frolicking with felt in the future.
This is an old railroad tie used as a mantle. I love it. We have a similar piece of rustic roughness found in an old building that we are going to use as a mantle in our little trailer house on the prairie. Maybe in 23 more years or so.
But the point of this whole post is this:
These canisters.
My old grannie had an ugly-as-sin, avocado green tin canister just exactly like the one in the back of this picture.
It sat on her countertop next to the stove, and she sometimes stored goodies such as homemade peanut butter cookies in it.
I remember stealthily trying to lift the lid off to sneak a cookie or treat. The “swoosh” of the lid coming off the canister echos in my head. I would try not to make a sound, and inevitably always would pling, plang, and gong one against the other, giving myself away. Like sneezing during a game of hide-and-seek.
Sometime during my childhood, we got a new step cousin in the family. He wasn’t one of us, and I remember treating him as an outsider. When memories like these flood back, I always try to blame my sister. But truthfully, I don’t know who was the instigator of being harsh with him. It could’ve been my idea, or my cousin’s (his step-brother) or my sister’s, regardless I remember the four of us being outside huddled under a tree, being ugly to our new family member and telling him that “WE (the privileged real grandchildren) knew our grannie’s secret hiding place for goodies and that he had better be nice or we wouldn’t let him know.”
I wish I could go back under that tree and change that conversation. I hope he doesn’t remember. I’m ashamed.
Seeing these burnt orange canisters in a magazine stirred something inside me. I asked my mom, who now lives in my grannie’s old house, if she knew where that avocado green canister was. She said it was around there someplace. Then about one week later, I received a call, and lo and behold, the little criminal she has living with her (another story for another time) was cleaning out the garage and it turned up.
Here it is. On my kitchen countertop by my stove.
It’s not in as good of condition as the orange ones in the magazines.
Why I have this in my house, in my blue and yellow kitchen, is something that I must explore deep within my soul. And maybe discuss with my therapist, which happens to be Marie, my school librarian.
Why, when I am desperately trying to simplify and minimalize, did I bring this old junky, unfashionable, semi-unpractical item out from the dust and mire of a dirty garage to sit purposeless on my already cluttered kitchen counter?
Why do I sometimes go to my kitchen for no other reason but to lift the lid just so I can hear the pling from my childhood?
I know why.
It’s so I can see my grannie sitting in her chair with a poodle on her lap.
Or standing at the kitchen counter pressing out the peanut butter cookies. She would let me mash on the cookie dough with a meat tenderizer to create the little indented designs and then sprinkle sugar on top when they came out of the oven, soft and warm.
I’m suddenly having a peanut butter cookie hankering.
And I need a tissue.
Let me tell you about my yesterday.
We had to do some work on the chicken coop, so I needed my new, old truck to help haul some old wood for me. We tore down one side of the chicken coop that was just crappy old particle board hammered together.
We’re replacing it with some rustic looking wide planks that are in a pile of rubble from a torn down structure.
So me and my niece Ash loaded up in the truck to gather the planks and drive them to the coop. This was her first time to see this old heap of metal and as soon as she climbed in, one of the first things she exclaimed was how she loved those kind of windows. You know the kind. The crank handle kind.
It took some work to get the truck running. But once it did, it only died 3 times. But then it got warmed up, and it was ready to go. If only I could get it to go, that is.
Now I’ve driven a stick shift in my time, and once I re-introduce myself to the gears I can normally do just fine. So I put this truck in first, it jerked forward a couple times, and then died. My second attempt in first gear was a repeat of the previous failure. I then attempted to start off in second gear, and it jerked and died. I eased off the clutch more carefully, it still died. I tried and tried and could not for the life of me figure out why I couldn’t get this truck to go without dying. I studied the gear shift again.
I wasn’t really sure what L stood for, I don’t recall ever seeing it on a gear shift before. Ash assured me that it probably stood for Launch, so I slammed it into L, and sure enough that must be what it stands for ’cause away we went.
We gathered the boards up.
Then pulled all the nails out.
Then we took a drive in the truck. We rolled, and I do mean literally rolled, our windows down. We even pushed open that little triangle window that is next to the big window and let the wind blow through out hair as we chugged down the dusty country lane.
My old truck reminds me of a song that my daddy likes. It’s called Power Windows.
Louis drives a beat up ’69 Dart.
Swears it’s the statue of Mary that keeps the car from falling apart.
With Gracie right beside him sittin’ closer than a smile.
She’s got her head on his shoulder.
He loves to drive and hold her.He got no power windows. Got no power brakes.
He ain’t got no power nothin’ but he got what it takes.
He’s got Gracie’s arm around him and a smile on his face.
He’s got the power of love.
That night, as I was saying good night to Ash, she remarked that it was the most awesome day ever. The most awesome day ever? How strange. We didn’t do anything but work. So I asked her what made it so awesome.
Her response made me smile. She said just being out at the place, tearing down the chicken coop, driving the truck, and having family fun.
It made me realize that we didn’t spend any money.
We didn’t see anything fancy.
We didn’t have the newest, high-tech $300 gadget to entertain us.
We got no power windows even.
Just the two of us, hanging out, enjoying the sunshine, laying on an old wagon gazing at the clouds, telling stories, singing songs, and enjoying each other.
Which reminds me of another song. This one my mama used to sing me when I was just a wee one.
Oh, we ain’t got a barrel of money,
Maybe we’re ragged and funny
But we’ll travel along
Singing a song
Side by side.Don’t know what’s comin’ tomorrow
Maybe it’s trouble and sorrow
But we’ll travel the road
Sharing our load
Side by side.
Travel the road in our old blue truck with no power windows,
Side by side.
Angel Wheeler 
