Kitchen / Garden / Sanctuary - Urban Homesteading to Nourish Body + Spirit

Month: February 2013

Winter has returned!

The season has reasserted itself, and we got about a foot of snow on Sunday! It’s a fortunate thing, too, because winter was slipping through our fingers without much at all in the way of precipitation. I was getting ready to drag out the hoses and sprinklers but now thankfully I can put that off for a while yet.

Sunday was a lovely day of resting, reading, soup-eating, snow-ice-cream-making, enjoying the blizzard from inside our cozy warm house, and venturing out now and then to re-shovel the walkways.

And in typical Colorado fashion, yesterday, Monday, was a glorious sunny day. Not one single cloud anywhere. So I shoveled a tunnel to the clothesline and dried two loads of laundry outside. My grandma used to do that; she dried all the clothes of her household of nine (!) out on the line, even through the winter. She shoveled a walkway to the clothesline through the snow, for 46 Colorado winters, and didn’t get a dryer until she was in her 80s… but by then she was very sick, and never did get to use that new dryer. It’s just as well; my mom says she reckons my grandma loved every minute of the time spent outside hanging clothes, no matter the weather. I agree; there’s just something about hanging out the wash.

Then later in the afternoon when I was needing some birdsong in my ears, wind on my face, and sunshine in my eyes, I sat out on the sidewalk with some tea in my New Chair. I bought this fabulous chair, seemingly never used, at the thrift store for $4.99. I looked it up this weekend and it’s a $75 chair! (It’s a Howda seat.) It was one of those things I didn’t know I needed — as my mom says, “I’ll need it when I see it” — but it’s just perfect for one of the things I like doing most, which is to “sit awhile” in little random outdoor spots.

Today is another wintry, cloudy day with a little bit more snowfall. I love these days. But the shrinking band of winter sun through the south windows, and the increasing evening daylight means that Spring really isn’t very far off at all…

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Visualization, by Lindsey

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Think of a time when you felt so free, so strong within yourself, where you were having the time of your life, completely in your element.

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Close your eyes. Go there to that exact moment. Breathe it in and re-incorporate it into your being.

Breathe the YOU in that moment…into yourself here in this moment.

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Let that effervescent experience be your medicine in this moment.

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Gratitudes * February 12, 2013

~ I’m once again joining Taryn over at Wooly Moss Roots in her Gratitude Sunday tradition. ~

Gratitude Sunday is a time to slow down and remember those thankful moments that graced our week. One reason I love keeping a daily gratitude journal is because it helps keep things in perspective for me. Each Sunday, I open my journal and share some of those moments with you here. If you’d like to join in, just leave a comment!

Gratitude is powerful energy. I love hearing others’ gratitudes!

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– A tidy home! (Excepting my studio, which is a disaster at the moment…) It feels wonderful to have things be neat and tidy. It’s calming!

– The contrast of beautiful pink and red Valentine decorations against the bleak, gray February sky. Love it!!! (I love the grayness… in this wonderful sun-soaked climate, a gray day now and then is a treat.)

– My sweet F, for quietly taking charge of the laundry when I was feeling really worn out. He always does all the dishes and I do all the laundry (and it works out very well since each of us feels that we’re getting the better end of the deal!). Thank you Honey ♥

– Watching my cat’s eyes absolutely light up when she caught a whiff of cantaloupe as I cut it in half. My mom bought a cantaloupe as a gift for her Grandkitty (!!) and Liz was so excited. It’s been a while since she’s had cantaloupe and she loves it especially when it’s good and sweet, as this one is. She devours it.

– Reading “Heaven on Earth” by Sharifa Oppenheimer. I love this book. I’m grateful, too, for our good library system that was able to get it to me within days of my putting it on hold! I love our library…

– Finding a $20 bill on the ground! F and I were riding our bikes to the store for some groceries when I found it, and since I spent only $8 at the store, I actually returned home from that shopping trip richer than when I left! heehee. What a nice little gift from “beyond.”

– My acupuncture treatments providing unexpected pain relief for my broken hand.

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Are there any special gratitudes from your week that you’d like to share? Do!

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Beautiful Things Today

The aspen branches I brought in a couple weeks ago are flowering…

It rained last night, instead of snowing — a most unusual occurrence — and this morning was so fresh smelling, and frosty…

This book I’m reading is a thing of beauty, too. It’s called Heaven On Earth, by Sharifa Oppenheimer. It’s about the Waldorf approach to early childhood — but if you let it, this book could be a life-changer even if you don’t have children. The environment created at home for the young child would in fact benefit anyone. The other thing of beauty in this photo is the page holder!! What a great invention…

Spring is coming! I thought the single-digit temperatures in January had killed my lettuce crowns. Not so!

From a longtime friend… a most wonderful, old fashioned, hand written letter full of love and soul arrived in the mailbox this afternoon, and contained these handmade hearts for our window!!!

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