Daybook: July 5, 2009

Outside my window...
It is barely dark.  Still twilight at 9PM.  I love this time of year.

I have been thinking about...
A metaphor about pulling weeds being like getting mentally healthy.  Last year, during the big upheaval of lives and living situations around here, the garden got very out of control.  Given that it was only barely in control to start with, when I finally got my wits back about me and stopped to assess the situation, it was totally overwhelming.  Weeds.  So many.  All over the place.  It was incredibly daunting to contemplate how much work it was going to take to get this yard to look less like an abandoned home and more like a place I wanted to live in.  (Getting the metaphor yet?)  I gave myself permission to only tackle part of it this year, and so I've been focusing on the back - not what most people see, but the part I most inhabit.  I learned to ask for help - both my mother and Kirsten have logged hours pulling weeds and cutting things back, and my neighbor has helped me to haul some of the heavier stuff from front to back. My mom's boyfriend came over and mowed down the tallest of the weeds a couple of times.  I made a plan to build raised beds for vegetables and fill and plant them, I broke it down into pieces, I did them one at a time.  I pulled weeds in 15, 30 and 10 minute increments.  Whenever I was in the yard, I pulled a few.  I thought about sheet mulching, but wasn't sure how to do it.  While I contemplated it, I pulled more weeds. I decided sheet mulching was too big a task for this year, and pulled a few more weeds. This weekend I surveyed the scene and realized that almost all the weeds are gone in the back yard - a little bit at a time, I have acomplished a task I couldn't even imagine completing a few months ago.  I'm sure some of them will come back when the rains come, but there will be less of them, and they will be easier to pull because there will be fewer and I will have more attention on them.  And likewise, in my heart and my head, I have been uprooting the stray voices and thoughts that had taken root when I wasn't paying attention.  Slowly, slowly, I have been healing.  And now I look around and discover I'm pretty happy.  The negative thoughts come back occasionally, in response to stress and in proximity to certain people but there are fewer of them and I have more attention to deal with their uprooting. I feel like I'm home again. And I like it here.

I'm still thinking about food and the making of it.  Wondering what it is I'm avoiding in my studio, as I have barely been in there in these three days off, even with the intention of spending time painting.  Instead, my house is very clean, I have pulled another waste bin full of weeds out of my garden, and cooked and visited with friends gone to see a movie and just generally done everything but paint. 

I am grateful for...
The company of the fantastic women who have been in my life this year, whose friendships have cradled me into just being myself again, and learning that that is not just good enough but wonderful. Especially to Kirsten, who has been a nearly constant companion and such a very good friend.

From the kitchen...

Last week I made my first-ever batch of strawberry jam - the real, hot bath, sealed jar variety, using the recipe in the pectin box. It was not nearly as hard as I thought it would be, although I totally don't have the right equipment.  My mom offered to loan me her canning stuff, but she's travelling right now and the strawberries were not going to wait.  But my stock pot and a pair of silicon tongs worked out OK for a small batch.  Today I planned my menu for the week and did some prep cooking: chicken breast plain put away for a salad and also served with a chipotle-tomato sauce for dinner tonight, kale chips (these are SO good), a big pot of summer squash soup (originally zucchini soup, but I had some other kind of squash, so there), a small batch of pluot savory refrigerator jam (made with the plums that came in my CSA box last week), and a batch of hard-boiled eggs.  If I can just manage to keep my schedule intact so that I can stick to the menu, I'm going to eat very well this week.  And healthily, too.

In the garden...
I applied hay mulch to the raised beds this afternoon, over the soaker hoses that I put in last week, so the veggie beds are now done, or as done as anything that needs constant maintainance can be.  Everything is getting bigger.  There are the few first golden globes on the cherry tomato plants. The kale is getting eaten big time by some green larvae.  I picked off a bunch of the little guys today, but I think I'm going to need bigger guns, which will require some organic farming research. I pulled, as I said, a boatload of weeds, and the back yard is starting to look quite good.  I replanted the lemon verbena from the pot where it has been stunted into the ground under the apple tree.  I'm worried that a gopher will find it there, but I treated the area with some castor oil gopher repellant, so we'll see how well it works. I have pulled all my containers out of formation for cleaning and replanting, which I really should have done in like, April, but hey, I was weeding.

In the front yard, I have effectively killed the lawn, and now have a dirt lot, which makes a lovely first impression, let me tell you.  I was thinking I was going to lay weed cloth and shovel on the shredded bark that is still filling my driveway into that area this weekend, but the task was too daunting.  I need to sneak up on that one.  The front yard gophers are still disappearing my zinnias, one plant a day, like clockwork, from along the front of the porch.  I put in one of those noise-making stakes on Saturday and the little bastard took down the plant right next to it this morning.  That was an effective deterent strategy.  I have a bunch of flowers that need planting in the front bed, but I'm worried about the gophers eating them all.  Slow death in their small pots, or potential death as dinner later?  Why oh why have all the gophers in the neighborhood taken up residence in my yard?

I am paying attention to...
Addiing more exercise into my life.  Gardening is good exercise, yes, but I need more consistent cardio.  I have started going to a Pilates class with my sister on Monday evenings (ouch, but good), and have been really trying to work through an interval training program to train myself to run, and let me just say it is HARD.  I have never been a runner.  This is not a skill I had and lost.  I've never had it.  I was a dancer when I was younger, but I have never been able to run more than a very short distance.  Very short.  But I'm trying, and giving myself credit for that.  I have thought often of a conversation I had with April on a plane about her experience starting a running routine.  She said it would be a very long time before it would be fun, but to stick to it, because it would eventually be fun.  April, I'm really hoping you weren't lying to me about this.  Not fun yet.  Today I had bad tightness in my shins and had to give up the interval runs half-way through the time.  I would have stopped walking, too, except I was a half-mile from home and didn't have my phone with me to call anyone to beg for a ride.  I think I'm running too much on my toes and not drinking enough water.  So I'm going to pay attention to those two things this week.  Drink water.  Roll through my heels.

I am making...
Well, I made the studio cleaner, does that count for anything?  I also started a new journal late last week.  I love my full fat journals, lined up on the shelf.

I am reading...
I finished the German short stories and also started and finished Drowning Ruth, which was the last library book in the pile.  Oh, heartbreaking and beautiful that one was.  I also finished I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosby.  I have been studying that style of writing - personal essays, short form memoir, whatever you want to call it - and reading a lot of books in that format over the last year or so.  It is the format that most calls me for my own writing.  Not that I've had time nor energy for much writing recently.  Today I started a Deborah Madison book, What We Eat When We Eat Alone.  I do eat alone a lot, and it looks like it has interesting recipes in it and charming illustrations, to boot.

The best thing...
The feeling I had last night, when my internal body clock was telling me the weekend was over, and then I remembered I had another whole day!

A few plans for the rest of the week...

Yummy healthy food.  Pilates class tomorrow night. More water.  Rolling through my heels.  Working from home on Wednesday (perhaps lunchtime yoga?) and book group on Wednesday night. I want to make time to draw in my journal, and to knit, and to read stretched out on my bed with the sliding glass door open to the garden. I have a pedicure appointment to look forward to next Saturday afternoon.

A picture to share...

Comments

[eb]

what a great blog!
loving those - sweet pea blossoms?

xox - eb.

[Kirsten Liske]

sniff sniff, pad pad pad,,,,,, sniff snuff SNIFSNIFFSNIFFSNIFF... sniff pad pad pad dig dig DIGdigDigDigIDig sniff ........

[Charmaine]

i am missing reading your words- like your new style - waiting for the fresh August post.....

[Kirsten Liske]

Like a dog with its habitual path around the yard, I come sniffing around this, your corner of cyberspace, hoping for new stories.

[DJ]

So glad you're posting more regularly... with both inner peace and determination to enjoy life abundantly...definitely an inspiring read for the rest of us.
Well done.

[jo marks]

omg, i'm too shocked to comment - thought i'd have to wait MONTHS for another beautiful post. am off to get a cuppa and will come back and re-read! xx

[hashi]

Thank you for all the sharing. I've been hearing about these kale chips from a few sources. I have a lot of Swiss chard in the garden ... I'm going to try it with that!

[Mary Beth Shaw]

Hey you! I've been trying to run also (twin) and it is damn hard. My shins are the first to go every time I try this. My step daughter (she's an adult, also an athlete, which I am *not*) suggested I lift my knees higher and that does seem to help. I've also noticed my shins only bother me on the downhill parts. I am basically doing a walk/run. Would love to get it up to a full run though.
And yep, I totally get the metaphor. I think you are on such a healthy track and I am happy for you.
Hugs sweetie :-)