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Fresh from our garden. Luscious!!!
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Kitchen / Garden / Sanctuary - Urban Homesteading to Nourish Body + Spirit
~ 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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– Hanging low, and making excellent use of the front and back porches. I’ve been feeling pretty worn out lately both from drug side effects and pushing my body too far, and it’s a relief to just rest.
– This house and yard of ours!!!
– Cookies baked in the solar oven.
– My mom giving me a ride to a doctor appointment, so that I wouldn’t need to take a bus across town. I appreciated that so, so much, and it was so nice to have her company too. Thanks Mom.
– The promise of autumn. I’m gettin’ pretty sick of this record-breaking summer heat, and it’s a happy thought that autumn’s just around the corner!
– Datura flowers in a vase to scent the night air in the house.
– A moon bath on the back yard grass, under that incredible full moon!
– Making yogurt in the solar oven. Turned out great! (Boiled the milk in it, then brought it back up onto the porch and the jar incubated with the residual heat.)
– A new nighttime bug sound around our place. To me it’s the sound of muggy nights in Los Angeles, so it evokes the feeling of vacation!
– Sweet tenderness and affection from F. How he loves me and always makes sure I know that. ♥
– The gentle rain that’s falling as I write this out on the back porch. We haven’t had rain in so long!
– Sitting outside after dark with F, soaking in the evening.
– Playing the piano at 11pm. #1 because we have a piano (!) and #2 because we don’t have to be quiet since we no longer share walls or floors with anyone!!
– Setting glass bowls and vases of water outside to soak up the light and energy of the full moon. Drinking some of it the next day, and setting the rest around the house.
– A nice bike ride to the store with F yesterday; it righted my mood and it’s always fun going on errands together.
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How about you? What are some of the nice things that have happened to you this week?
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Just wanted to share with you our clothespin holder that I’m really liking. We thought about buying or making a clothespin bag that would ride along the clothesline, but I didn’t want a metal hanger (metal dragging along metal is irritating), and I also didn’t want something deep that I’d have to repeatedly dig my hand into.
This shallow basket attached to the line with a simple length of yarn tied into a bow is just right. It rides quietly and smoothly along the line, and is easy to remove in the event of rain.
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~ 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!
***
♥
– Doing yard work together with F on a perfect summer evening. I’m glad we both got to be outdoors on that evening, and things looked so great when we were done; what a feeling of satisfaction!
– Brushing my cat, outside, while singing to her. These are three of her very favorite things and it was hilarious to watch how she adored it so much she could hardly stand it all!
– And while we’re on the subject, I’m so thankful for discovering raw food for her. Her diet is probably 80 or 90% raw, supplemented by favorite table scraps like grilled chicken, edamame, scraps of bread, corn on the cob, etc. Sometimes some high-quality kibbles to fill in the gaps or get some extra water into her (we mix kibbles with water to make “gravy” that she loves). But the difference in her energy level since switching to raw food a couple years ago has been really significant. She went back to having her kitten energy. She went back to flying through the house like a crazed wild-woman on Sunday mornings. (Why Sundays, we’ll never know, but she’s been doing that since she was just a wee kitten.) She is twelve years old but you’d never guess it and she’s very healthy. I’m just so glad to have found out about raw cat food.
– Getting two moneymaking projects done and off my shoulders! That feels much lighter!
– Taking leisurely solo walks at dusk every night this week; I absolutely love these. Dusk is my favorite time of day, and walking always clears my head.
– Feeling so happy in our new home, in this neighborhood.
– Blue jays calling in the distance. I love that sound. I love this time of the year, when there are hints of autumn in the air, and the weather is warm and perfect.
– Harvesting garden goodies!
– Annie’s mac-n-cheese. Under normal circumstances I’d regard it as a definite compromise food… something I wouldn’t buy or make, really. But when the antibiotic-induced nausea gets really bad and nothing sounds good and nothing will stay down, I cook up 1/4 of a box of Annie’s and it will often actually settle my stomach, and at least fills the hole and quells my hunger.
– Doing all my moneymaking work outside on the back porch. What a great work environment!
– Finding it easier to accept low-energy “convalescent” days because I now have the most wonderful places to hang out and rest. In our apartment (bless its heart, it was a lovely little space, but I did feel quite trapped inside it… apartment living is really not for me, especially if I’m sick!!), I would dip into depression very quickly when I was feeling not-so-hot. Which propelled me to get “out and about” if I could, to help combat that. But getting out and about used up precious energy and I’d often over-do it which probably worked against my body’s healing. I had to stay sane and mentally well (it’s essential, and maybe even more important than feeling physically well!), but it does come at a physical price. I do have trouble with over-doing it, hehe, but at least here at our new home, I can have a hang-low day and it doesn’t negatively affect my mental state! That is really pretty huge… and something I’m ever so thankful for. If you’re sick, my biggest wish for you is love and support from your family, and a healing environment where you don’t get depressed while your body tries to heal itself.
– Perfect temperatures and gorgeous weather lately!
– Garden food. Tomatoes with flavor!! Eating cucumbers two seconds off the vine! Harvesting potatoes which go straight into foil on the grill.
– My solar oven, which makes cooking really fun, saves heating up the kitchen, and saves electricity! F and I just love that thing.
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What’s on your gratitudes list this week?
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