A Summer Morning Walk in Denton

Missed posting this morning bright and early because the Garden Party happened. I took a long walk as the weather had broken and other than the fact that my feet hurt, it was a glorious walk.

All the cottages in town looked proud and festive. The dappling of the Summer light through the trees was so enticing. And in the cacophony of cicada and cricket song from the trees to the meadow, I heard the lullaby of lazy days to come.

I owe you a garden and garden party post and now that I have time to do that, I’ll do that.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Gardening Mojo

Since I had Fiona, I have been unable to regain my gardening mojo. The very thing that brought me to buy a house, dirt to plant a garden in, had become a burden I was buried under. Looking every year at my overgrown garden overwhelmed and depressed me.

Last year, I made a charitable donation and received a garden consultation. And this spurred me into enthusiastic gardening action that I hadn’t felt in a while. I head “I could” again.

I worked on a couple beds last Summer. And this year, I’ve picked back up where I left off. I recently ordered some more charitable plants and with the onset of lovely Spring weather, I set about clearing the section under my weeping cherry tree where I plan to plant them all.

I can use anything to make me feel bad about me . My undisciplined kids, my unruly garden, my messy house, or my stuck career. But it only requires a moment to make a plan and schedule a few action steps and suddenly I don’t feel like I’m actually stuck anymore. If instead of spending the time I would ruminating on what a loser I am , I instead take any action, plan any step to better the situation, I feel immediately better.

It seems that all it takes to change is the willingness to do so and one action to prove it’s possible. You are as successful or as stuck as your brain says you are. So today, I am less stuck ad one more step towards having a better garden.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Fear’s Worst Casualty is Hope

Today was a breakthrough day for me. A gorgeous June day with a breeze that lifted your spirit upwards. So I went out to the backyard and I gardened. Not a big deal to anyone else but a huge deal to me. I haven’t allowed myself to garden in a long time. And this decision has just left me feeling hopeless. For years.

The cause has been so many things, but mostly, I gave up. Fear of not doing it well enough or not having the talent, time, money, or whatever other lie fear will tell you and “see ya’ later” soul gratifying thing. I then slipped into a hopelessness cloud for which I have found no escape. That is until today when I walked outside and began again.

By far the cruelest thing our fear brain does to us while it’s trying to keep us safe, is to rob us of hope. Hope is the breeze on which we fly to the future. But our fear brains think that to keep us safe from harm, they must keep us away from anything that may change us or our lives. Change is bad and hope insinuates change. So therefore, hope is out.

To rob a person of their hope is to give them a living walking death sentence. Without hope, you are just a zombie going through the motions. This is the cruelest of sentences to pass on someone especially yourself and yet, many are the years when I have felt the hopelessness spread over months without a reprieve.

And yet, the smallest spark can be made from a word or a comment or a thought that you “could”. And then the dimmest light of hope is lit inside for an outcome that is different. A craving for a change and the way that might impact your life in even the smallest way. A hope for unity and purpose. A hope for quieting the chaos and for connection and calm.

And it all starts with pulling a few weeds and moving a few worms.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Food Porn

I realize that you may or may not know how much I love to cook. I do take pictures sometimes of what I make but I even more seldomly am posting them. I don’t know why. Well maybe it’s because there’s a lot that goes into being a food blogger. Except who doesn’t like oggling the pictures. And we all need some inspiration to be in the mood for food to make. So I’ve decided to give you a food porn picture-athon for today only. Enjoy!

Homegrown garden tomatoes went into gazpacho (recipe here) and homemade tomatoes sauce and got roasted by the cookies sheet full. Roasted sungold and grape tomatoes became my ketchup with my breakfast eggs.

Cooking peppers and onions and freezing the garden poblanos that grew like gangbusters.

Gluten free pizza has the best texture but sadly tastes like nothing.

Two years in a row I’ve celebrated my birthday with crabs. This years bushel did not disappoint. Sweet and fat and too many were left over. Accompanied by Maryland Silver Queen sweet corn and more slices of homegrown tomatoes with mozzarella and basil and our meal is complete.

I was raised on Midwestern breakfasts. Biscuits, sausage, and gravy. And poached eggs not pictured.

I thought for a moment these were my killer crab cakes sizzling in the cast iron pan, the recipe for my Faidley’s crab cakes you can find here on this post. They’re just pork sausages to make the gravy to go with the biscuits for which  the biscuit recipe can be found here. And I’ve taken to using frozen salted butter chopped into the flour mixture in a Cuisinart.

The resulting biscuits are to die for.

And a chicken, Portobello mushroom, and wild rice soup I whipped up recently because it’s become soup season now. Fair-the-well sweet Summer garden food. Hello heavier more caloric winter feasting food. We’ve missed you.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

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Thought Weeds : Where They Stop and You Begin

What is there to not love about a good gardening analogy? Growing your life and weeding out that which doesn’t work is such a universal concept. The analogy can be used for money, community, happiness, and self-love. Tending them daily, rethinking them, weeding them, and watering them as you would a vegetable garden. Staying in touch and mindful of anything guarantees you’ll do a better job at it.

So when my therapist offers that the soul garden I’m living in and the thoughts I’m living by contain some big ugly weeds that I did not plant and I have every right to pull out and plant my rose garden, I said “Huh!”. Although I’m not much for roses, I liked the analogy and never really thought any more about it. Until this morning.

I took myself outside for some weeding therapy in the yard for 45 minutes. My garden and I have fallen on some bad times of recent. As in I just did not have any time to devote to it as I was tending to a demanding two/three-year old this past year.

The neglect is starting to show. It’s a murmur in my mind every time I’m out there weeding when and what I can. What really struck me today however was how when unchecked, the plants drift and devour the space of other plants. With no discipline or choice, the garden does as it pleases. And if you leave a plant to its own devices, it will root deep and sprawl. Much like the unchecked thoughts in your mind that you just haven’t gotten around to wrangling either.

If what my therapists suggests is true, there are thoughts that we regularly entertain that we did not put into our own heads. But rather were given to us by well-meaning adults to plant in our small eager childhood brains to help us grow. Except that they didn’t work for us. In fact, these thoughts have done nothing but soak up our sun and our rain and have kept us from spreading out and flourishing. And if we realize that these gardens/brains won’t die if we make decisions to redesign and weed our garden/life plans, we can turn this whole garden/life thing around.

I was pulling handfuls of ajuga up the next thing I knew. I like it but it has devoured the entire front area of my garden where I think I may like to plant some Spring bulbs and flowers. Suddenly, I am having hopeful thoughts about my garden. Just a little foresight this Fall and I know my Spring garden will make me so much happier.

For me, just a few moments to journal about how the fear of failure/success has kept me from entertaining some big goal dreams like writing a book has opened my eyes up to investing in my life again and I feel hopeful again. Instead of resigning myself to let whatever happens happen. Instead of keeping myself a willing hostage to the ‘what if I fail’s, I’ve decided to intervene in the spreading of the thought weeds and see what beauty may come of it. Mind you some of these Lie weeds are huge and nasty and insist you’ll die if they die. These may require some friends to witness and some heavy-duty gloves to pull their thorny nasty selves out. But once they’ve been removed, the light and space in your brain feels amazing. You’ll understand the need to weed the exterior and the interior landscape is the same and a mindfulness practice will have begun.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

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