all creatures great and small

since the chicks have been consuming most of our "oohs" and "aahs" lately, i'm sure harvey is a bit jealous. or just thinks the fuzzy buggers would be tasty snacks. either way, he quivers whenever he watches the egg-producing machines chicks. 

looking quite stoned.

hopefully he is not licking his chops in
anticipation of eating one of the chicks!

we are hoping to finish the chicken coop this weekend and i will share pictures of the process and the coop when it is finished up. the girls won't go out there until the middle or end of may, so they continue to cause a ruckus in their half a cardboard refrigerator box in the basement. 

i got my garden starts planted last weekend and the first things to sprout are my basil and thai basil plants. i take this as sure sign of a great summer, as nothing says "summer" to me quite like basil! and homegrown tomatoes.

i plan to have a gargantuan garden this year with heaps of tomato, zucchini, cucumber, and pea plants. oh, and oodles of kale, lettuce, spinach, garlic, and onions. going from our postage stamp garden to our new backyard makes this gardening girl incredibly happy! 

stifle when necessary

i have come to realize that my compulsive drive to control things - work, people, harvey, brandon, the dishwasher, EVERYTHING - is counter-productive to pursuing peace. i read this quote today and it settled so true with me:

Don’t sign on for more problems than you must. Resist the temptation to involve yourself in other people’s zones of expertise and responsibility. Monitor troublesome situations if you need to, but don’t insert yourself unless you’re running out of time and a solution is nowhere in sight. In short, stifle your inner control freak. -- Twyla Tharp 

let it go. let it go that brandon puts the plates in the spot in the dishwasher obviously designed for bowls. let it go that people at work aren't getting along so well. let it go that the patient at the hospital doesn't want me to call his family. let it go that harvey tracked dirt in the house.

i have taken on an insane idea that i know how to fix, fix, fix. and yet, the world keeps on going whether i meddle or not, and sometimes it goes far more smoothly without my input. so i have determined that part of my path to peace involves stifling my inner control freak, loud and obnoxious as she may be.

we got chicks about a week and a half ago. they started out so cute and fluffy--we would spend evenings just watching their crazy antics. their little legs seemed to have a mind of their own and would go shooting out behind them without notice, often kicking one of their nest-mates. it was adorable how they learned to roost up on their food bin and get in fights at the water dish.

all the photos of the chicks are red-tinged due to the heat lamp.

it was a somewhat impulsive decision for brandon and i (who are otherwise quite cautious folk). yes, we were actively building a coop and planning to get chicks eventually, just not that night when we went to the feed store. i thought we were "just looking" (as one of my brother's is known for regularly uttering) but it was impossible to leave these little peepers behind. it felt good to do something on a whim and we were both so excited!

now, we have had them for a while and my inner control freak is showing more. i get so annoyed that i have to change their water no less than 5 times per day because they constantly fill the reservoir with wood chips and poo. and roosting on their feeder has turned into a nuisance, as i have to throw away much of their food because it is contaminated also. not to mention harvey, who has gone from obnoxious to total nut-ball with them in the house. he sits outside the door of the room they are in whining incessantly and then follows me around the house, trying to herd me towards the "chicken room" so i will let him drool over the little nuggets.

i keep thinking "i can't wait until they are bigger and we can move them outside." when i thought this today as i trudged to the basement to refill their food dish, i realized what an awful perspective i was holding. i was ill to think that i would just wish away time and wondered if this attitude would continue when i become a parent. i vowed to stop focusing on how this time could go faster and focus instead on how i get to have these little awkward buggers in the house, listening to their cute peeps, and can start and end my day by watching their crazy antics. the chicks are really working on helping me tame that inner control freak!

intention

after reading the happiness project, i was inspired to set an intention for each month. i haven't been superb about it, but it has been in the back of my mind and bubbled up in a few ways.

for january, i focused a lot of my energy on banishing guilt, as i tend to feel guilty about EVERYTHING. i was constantly talking about guilt, trying to identify the times i felt it when it was not necessary or appropriate. trying to "name it" each time i felt it creep in. i'm pretty sure brandon got tired of hearing the word, but i don't feel guilty about focusing on it. :)

in february i picked a much more practical focus: zipping my purse. it may sound insanely trivial, but i've been a pretty angry soul lately and my anger tends to manifest itself when i have to deal with problems that i could have avoided (had i not been lazy). not having to deal with the contents of my purse spilling out all over the backseat of the car when i grab my bag in a hurry, has been good for my mood. and symbolic of life.

for march, i am focusing on pursuing peace. quite the nebulous goal, i'll admit. but i started the month with an important decision to turn down a decent size raise in favor of quality of life. i recognize that regardless of how much money i make, it won't bring peace (i also recognize the first-worldness of this statement and admit that my scale of reference is not poverty). i feel peace about the decision to turn down the job i was offered and know that, for me, choosing to work at a job where i can ride my bike to work, see brandon at lunch, and have time to vacation trumps any number on a paycheck.

the other way i am focusing on peace this month is to reduce or avoid judgment. i found this quote:

Let’s trade in all our judging for appreciating. Let’s lay down our righteousness and just be together.-Ram Dass

for me, this is one of my paths to peace. hopefully my monthly intentions stick with me and last longer than their four week focus.

satisfied, not settling

things are about to settle down in my work shuffle. finally. i can't wait to hash out the details and share them with the world (i.e., this blog). let's just say, i went to test if the grass is greener on the other side and found out that the grass over there is actually quite bitter and unpleasant.

so, three cheers for 1) getting clear about what you want, 2) asking for it, and 3) getting what you worked hard for.

and just because at least three people (which is probably 75% of the people that read this blog), will get a kick out of this silly image, i am sharing it.

ruminate

i'm just gonna own it: rumination is a real problem for me. i can't let go of criticism and i constantly fret that what i said, or how i said it, hurt someone or was misconstrued. i wish my rumination would be like turning a rock over in my hand until i smoothed away all the rough patches; instead, i let myself get all scratched up.

call it the winter doldrums, but i am exhausted with what life has been serving up lately. february started nicely {with a visit from mom and dad o.} but has since left me feeling beat up and exhausted. everyone i know is facing big stuff, bad stuff. an anne lamott quote keeps coming to mind:

there was so much bad news this winter that many of us were left feeling kind of pummeled and disturbed. parents and relatives died, kids got into much more serious trouble, and way too many friends got a bad diagnosis. 

yeah, pummeled, that's the feeling.

- - -

in other news, brandon bought me this book:

i'm planning to spend the next 30 minutes drinking a glass of wine and planning for chickens and coneflowers and summer. reminding myself that seasons change makes this all seem survivable.

peace in the little things

i am coming off of a long, hard week and the hospital. i have been full-to-the-brim with chaos this week and have ended up working 10-11 hours days every day. this morning my alarm didn't go off at all and i woke up an hour later than planned. that little alarm signal was there, but apparently i pushed something wrong before i went to bed and set off a painful chain of events.

i can't think straight. i freak out about the most absurd things (that in hindsight are usually due to my oversight or error). it is time for me to sit down with a book and a few cups of tea. i need to recharge my introvert and savor my quiet side. brandon is heading out of town, my dearest laramie friends are all off galavanting about the globe, and i couldn't be more eager for the silence of this weekend.

i hate to admit how much the disorder of our house (following our mid-level renovation this past weekend) is getting to me. too much chaos in my work and in my head makes me crave a peaceful, calm, clean home. instead i have my kitchen haphazardly and temporarily rearranged, my dresser halfway blocking the closet, and piles of randomness spilling out all over the place. aiy!

my goal for the weekend is to find peace in shoring up some little things. like getting our taxes in order. rehanging things in the office we painted (and maybe blogging about that decorating update). and eliminating a few of these piles that are taking on a life of their own.

nagging tasks

we spent all day yesterday working on house projects and i am officially exhausted. 

brandon finished building our compost bin (all with salvaged/re-purposed materials!) which is a big step in my recently established zealous goal of reducing our waste output. i have been inspired by the zero waste family to minimize the packaging we bring into our house and maximize our composting and recycling. we are far from perfect, but i am trying to think about my actions a bit more. so the compost bin is one major piece in reducing our garbage. and making supplemental material for my summer garden. (just thinking about summer gardening makes me so excited!)

i decided to tackle a task that has been nagging me for a bit: removing [nasty] paint from the hardware in our house. this sounds minor and easy. in fact, it was a whole day process and i still have three door hinge/handle sets to work on. the skin along my nail beds is torn up and cracking. my back aches and i am pretty sure my hands are going to be stuck in their current claw like form from all the required scrubbing. but the results are pretty cool (thank goodness!). i used a cheap-o crockpot to get the paint off and followed this tutorial. 

the latches in their purple-ish glory. be gone you nasty paint!

the hinges with a few of the screws removed. 

(i haven't taken pictures sans-paint yet because we got done last night about 8PM and the lighting was awful.) 

our house was built in 1928 and the doors and kitchen cupboards (along with their hardware) seem to be original. stripping the paint felt like an archaeological journey through the story of "this old house" as i learned the kitchen cabinets have previously been a pinkish Valentine's-Day-Card red, a pale country kitchen yellow, and are currently a purple-hinted grey. we plan to strip them down this summer and either stain or paint them. but we need longer and warmer days to tackle that DIY project.

somehow spending all day sunday (before family arrives this week) peeling paint off of the hardware seemed like a good idea. i am really glad i did it and happy with the outcome, but feel a little sheepish for my choice to do this non-urgent project when a few others should have been the priority. c'est la vie, right? there is a sweet reward in tackling a nagging task (which i learned here).

a decade makes a great start

january 5th is a special day for brandon and i: the day we started dating. ten years ago. ten. whoa! 

how did i get so lucky to find this incredible man, loyal friend, and devoted husband while i was still in high school? we have so many shared memories, and yet, it seems our lives together have just begun. i am grateful that i think of this past decade as just the beginning and that i still feel all googly-eyed about him. 

---

i was thinking about what was going on in the world 10 years ago:

• enrique iglesias' 'hero' was a popular song (that i am pretty sure i sang while thinking about brandon. gag.).
• the enron trials were just beginning.
• women everywhere thought they were rocking in their velour tracksuits. we later discovered that not even j-lo looks attractive in a velour tracksuit.
• everyone we knew was forwarding us the doctored photo of the shark jumping out of the water at the Air Force chopper. and we forwarded it on to ten people for fear of sudden death if we didn't keep the chain mail alive. 
• americans were eagerly chowing down on bacon and blue cheese in hopes of atkinsing themselves into their skinny clothes.

predictability

ugh, i think i am guilty of saying all of these things.

and i have those bangs.

sunday, 4:00
(sorry for the lame bathroom iPhone picture)

sunday, 4:15

happiness and its bad rap

just this morning i finished the happiness project. i stumbled onto this book from brene brown's website, ordinary courage, and initially was quite resistant to the concept. i have never really been thrilled with arguments about how people should pursue happiness; it never seemed noble or honorable to work towards this {spoken like a true first-child with a martyr complex}. 

despite my resistance to the book and the concept, intrigue won. i am glad it did. i find myself referencing this book at least five times a day in conversations with friends or family and i notice myself trying to incorporate little slivers of the author's happiness resolutions. 

each month of the year the author set an intention for her life and established 3-5 measurable resolutions to work towards that intention. it sounds a bit hokey, but for me it wasn't. as i read the book i felt like i was reading my own journal towards personal betterment, the hurdles to the author's happiness are so similar to the hurdles in my personality and life. 

at the end of the book she provides the following questions to inspire your own happiness project:

• what makes you feel good? what activities do you find fun, satisfying, or energizing?
• what makes you feel bad? what are sources of anger, irritation, boredom, frustration, or anxiety in your life?
• is there any way in which you don't feel right about your life? do you wish you could change your job, city, family situation, or other circumstances? are you living up to your expectations for yourself? does your life reflect your values?
• do you have sources of an atmosphere of growth? in what elements of your life do you find progress, learning, challenge, improvement, and increased mastery?

ultimately my view on happiness {and its pursuit} have shifted through reading this book. what i once thought a selfish endeavor, i now see that cultivating happiness in my life is a result of my choices and that my happiness can greatly improve the lives of those around me. as someone who has always internally condemned the airlines' guidance to first put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others, i am learning to see that by being happy i can help bring happiness into the lives of people around me. {and that's how i stealthily resolve my dissonance around personal happiness!}

--------------

on an unrelated note, the author included this excerpt from one of her blog readers and it fits me like a glove {and helps me see why my profession suits me so well}:

the way i bring people together is by connecting them via whatever may be of interest to them. i know i am gifted at connecting the dots and i use that skill in the relationships i build with others. i also have a tendency to collect and store what may seem like mundane information about people in my head. inevitably, i will run into someone who needs something, and because of the information i've collected i will have just the right person to introduce them to to help them achieve whatever they need. ironically, i am not a social butterfly at all, but i always seem to be able to connect people at the right time.