Good Morning From the Garden...

Good Morning from the garden...





It's off to work and then strawberry picking with my friend, Ellen...It's a tradition. We try to go every year.

Last year was the first in my convertible...so when I drove us through the sprinklers and only put up the top when we stopped, the man running the place came out and said, "Hey, ain't that a little like closing the barn door after the cows are out?"

I get out, trying to act casual. "Oh, no- I meant to do that," I say.

Not this year! It's right nippy out...too nippy for sprinklers.

What's Really Important...

It is so easy to get caught up in the little velcro hairballs of life and forget what is truly important.

The past few days I have been all balled up in finishing the taxes so the Eldest Unnamed One could do his financial aid applications for college, hiring and firing handymen so I can get the house on the market while simultaneously preparing for, undergoing and recovering from my first rite of old age passage...my first colonoscopy...that I forgot about what was real in the world.

And then the Eldest Unnamed One came home in the middle of me trying to reinvent the financial details of the last year. I was so busy I just tossed off "Unless someone's dying, I can't talk to you."

He said, "Mom, Trae's dead."

Trae, his buddy since second grade. Trae who played soccer with my boy since forever. Trae the boy who's Mama was the toughest loving woman around, the woman voted most determined to see her son make something wonderful out of himself. Trae, the boy who had the Eldest Unnamed One and me hiding underneath my dashboard,laughing our asses off and waiting on his late arrival at the home where their dates had gathered for the pre-Prom pictures. Trae who gets hyper on sugar. Trae who chases my boy around his car after school, Trae the wingman, Trae the perpetually happy kid who defines himself as "Living life to the fullest times 10" on his myspace page. Trae who feels life is worth nothing if he can't make others laugh and feel good, too.

Trae is gone and his wingmen are in shock, walking around in disbelief, their faces frozen in the smiles left over from the second before they heard the news. And here we are, all of us mothers, crying for the boy and the mother left behind to grieve.

I can't remember...Did Dad meet Trae? I think he did. Dad died 5 months ago today. I wonder if he's been up there long enough to be on the Welcoming Committee yet? I think Dad would be a good guy to hook up with if you were young and full of life and energy- then suddenly it all ended. Dad would be good with easing the transition.

I wish he were here to help the left behinds accept the loss.

P.S On the Amish in, or out, of Caswell County

I got a sweet email from a lady named Martha today. She said:


Hi Nancy,

The Amish have left Caswell Co. for other parts.

Martha


Sigh. Well, at least my journey was not for naught. I loved Caswell County. The way the hills rise up then ebb away into beautiful glens and valleys; the tobacco barns; the old buildings in little towns that seem to ache to tell their story, or to be inhabited once again.

It just fuels my "Live by the Lake" intention...Maybe Lake Hyco or Mayo...somewhere close to those red barns and misty hills. Somewhere where I can fuse two or three tobacco barns together into a sweet cottage with a fieldstone fireplace and old rose bushes that volunteer their pink blooms a time or two a summer.

The city is just wasted on me.

7 Days of Becoming the Woman I Am - Not the Bitch I've Become

Day One:


I have fallen off the Intention Engine, allowed myself to slip into the Morass of Misery and totally gotten off the course to a happier new year!

And the thing about it is, it was sooo easy!

All I had to do was take my eye off the prize. Instead of focusing on what I "intend" for my life, I started looking at the pebbles lying in the road that stretches between me and my goals.

Pretty soon, all I could see were the boulders. I focused on the negative energy around me and before long, I'd attracted a whole lot more. After all, doesn't misery love company?

Sometimes I forget the primary Law of Attraction- Energy attracts more energy. If I put out negative energy, that's what comes back. If I seek out the positive, more positive energy is attracted into my life.

If I don't believe in myself and my goals, then I will stumble over pebbles. But if I truly believe in what I seek to attain for myself, it will come. I know, this concept has been around for thousands of years...take Doubting Thomas, for example. When he stopped placing his faith in the right direction, the boy fell down into the water...but when he trusted in his vision, he didn't even get his little pinkie toe wet! It's not rocket science.

Take Woo-dah, the doggie who started chemotherapy today for her melanoma. She's home and feeling fine. Why? The vet said dogs don't react to chemo like humans do. He said, "They don't expect to feel bad, so their symptoms aren't as severe."

(And I haven't even talked about envisioning Woo-dah as cancer free last week and then her going for her cancer staging and us learning she was cancer free. How's that for positive energy?! The chemo's only a precaution now.)

So, for Day One of my Becoming Week- I will let go of the negativity around me and refocus my vision on life as I intend it...

My home is a blissful, comfortable haven where cooperation harmonizes into an atmosphere of encouragement and gratitude. Laughter flows. Tension eases. And it is a joy to anticipate homecomings. I love my family and they love me. My soulmate stands at my side. We appreciate each others strengths and revel in our complimentary personality traits. How empty our lives would be without such diversity. How grateful I am for my wonderful life.


Today is about letting the resentment, hurt feelings and anger go. They are only pebbles. There is no sense in wasting energy on a few pebbles now, is there?