Wordless Wednesday: In my mind today, I'm on vacation someplace WARM

Yesterday and today

Yesterday afternoon, after picking up the mail, I took a trip around my yard and was excited to find friendly, little signs of spring beginning to pop up.

My pretty grape hyacinth are returning:

The daffodils are starting to grow:

And my giant, pink hyacinth is poking its head up:

It has been warmer over the last week, with temperatures in the high 40's during the day, so this is helping all the early bloomers along.

I didn't think to check the weather report last night, though. This morning, I woke to crunchy ice crystals covering everything outside.

I was as tickled at this as I was at the signs of spring yesterday! Everything looks fresh and pretty and it smells so good outside.





Roxy had to take a look at the icy stuff, too:

I'm guess I'm an equal opportunity weather appreciator right now.
Sunshine? Love it. Rainstorm? Sure thing. How about a bit of snow and ice? You betcha!!

Ask me again in June, though, when the other states begin having their summery, sunny days and it's been raining here in Oregon for three straight months. I probably won't be as pleasant. Though, I will probably still be posting pictures about it.

Brought it right to my door, he did...

Just like my new farm friend, goatgirl, posted a few days back, I, too, now have a new book to read. Look what my mailman delivered to me today:

Originally, my plan was to check this book out from the library, but, silly me, when I went to get it, found I was 357th (I kid you not) on the waiting list to check it out. (Such is the power of word of mouth about a good book!) Being a bit of the impatient sort, and due to the many positive comments and recommendations I've read on so many blogs, I just couldn't wait that long. And so, a New Year's treat was delivered straight to my front door.

Picture me smiling. :-)

For Christy: we share similar dreams

My apologies for the lengthier nature of this particular post. I had a lot to say today :-)...

Having been a city girl for so long has, apparently, made me a bit of a skeptic. Being really new to the blogging world, I'm actually surprised daily by all the online (and no-strings-attached) kindness that I encounter. Fellow bloggers are quick to reach out, post helpful and funny comments, present "awards", etc. It's wonderful.

What happens a bit less frequently, however, is finding a blog that touches you personally. Finding a blog where the words used, or a picture posted, strikes a chord within you because it's close to your own heart is startling. This happened to me today. A blogger who reached out to me this morning, Christy, is making a journey very similar to mine. She has been planning her own move to a farm for what feels like forever to her. Her posts describe many of her dreams, struggles, and challenges in frank and honest words. In one of her efforts to manifest this dream of hers, she posted a picture today of a miniature toy farm that she and her family have been setting up. It's as if focusing on these little representations can keep her dream alive when no other movement seems to be happening. Christy's blog touched me because this feels quite familiar to me. I know what it feels like to want to change your life so badly you can taste it, while at the same time fearing that it will never happen.

And although the specific details of our two lives are different, my own internal journey has been very similar to Christy's. Whenever my spirits dipped or my dream felt exceptionally remote, I would find myself reaching for some tangible sign - anything at times - that we could still make this move happen. The things I chose to be my "tangible representations" appeared in many different forms.

Many may find this silly or have a hard time understanding, but I've found that when you want something desperately, often it is the small things and private thoughts that allow you to feel like you're moving forward, even if all other evidence indicates your dreams have stalled. Even if that small thing is a toy or a magazine clipping or a silver charm found on the pavement in the shape of a cowboy boot. I'm a true believer in thinking things into reality. It is that desire and positive energy that makes incredible things happen.

After reading Christy's post today and being so affected by that one simple picture, I went through my photo files and found some of the small things I have relied upon during low times over the years to help me feel like my farm dreams weren't disappearing:

I started keeping a ceramic rooster named "Mike" in the rabbit hutch in our urban backyard over three years ago. He makes me smile:

I began collecting reading material (and decorative objects) on a subject I had been obsessing over:

I started saving old advertisements on farm trucks and farm life:

I requested all my friends and neighbors to stop recycling their empty egg cartons and start saving them for my future eggs:

I began photographing farm tools and accessories that I wanted to have once we had a piece of land:



I played with toys...
Wooden animals from East Germany stood on the sill over my sink:
And Playmobil farm critters were arranged just so:

And my son and I began volunteering at a farm sanctuary, the Lighthouse Farm Animal Sanctuary, where we have learned much about gently raising healthy farm animals and living the rural life:


Of course, like for Christy, there have been many low moments for me along the way. There have been times when I was 100% certain that I would never have the opportunity to really become a "farm girl". Along the way, my dream has refined and reshaped itself many times. And now that our move to the country is really about to happen, I find myself still trying to figure out what the HECK I am really going to do once I'm there. Yet the desire to move to the land has never once waned or changed. The yearning to have a place where I can live with many animals just keeps growing.

Please check out Christy's blog, Farm Dreams, if you get a chance. Her goals for 2008 have her doing an incredible number of cool things that I will be interested in reading about and, if I'm brave, possibly attempting myself. Among these things are...learning to dehydrate food, making soap, experimenting with herbal remedies, learning to can, and hatching eggs with an incubator.

Good luck, Christy! I truly know what you're going through. May 2008 be the year your ultimate dream comes true. :-)

You can't wrap breakables in online news...

And so, the countdown begins. The final details of our move were locked down yesterday. Closing dates on both houses have been set, the mover has been scheduled. We've got two weeks. It's time for me to get a serious start on packing.

I started out strong this morning, taping the bottoms of boxes, identifying which cupboard I would begin to pack first, and then, as I reached for the first item, a glass serving tray, I noticed a problem. I had nothing to wrap it in. That old reliable, reusable newspaper pile was conspicuously absent from my packing materials. During our last move, nine years ago, this was never a problem. We had tons of it. However, we don't get our news this way anymore. Long ago, we became members of the ever-growing group of I.N.R.'s (Internet News Readers). The occasional Sunday New York Times we get for a lazy-day-in-bed treat (seems like a while since we had one of those)gets recycled the very next day with the garbage pick-up.

And so, all my good intentions for today are momentarily stalled as I sit here and decide what to do next. I know, I thought to myself, I'll blog about it!

So what's a girl to do? Neighbors are all at work - no luck there. If you happened to see my earlier post about paper towels (yes, I actually wrote an entire post about them), you'll know that it is not even a remote option for me to use those. I've given the garage a serious once-over for potential glassware protection - nothing there. Can't use our cloth towels, we still need them. Am I seriously supposed to go out and buy $10 worth of today's paper?

A better idea yet, I'm thinking, is to make a cup of tea, curl up with the new blanket my mom knitted me (oh, and my dog, apparently, who inserted herself just before I snapped this picture), and read my new library books...

It's all about family

When I look back over the last month, it's stunning to me everything that has happened. We sold our house, celebrated two family birthdays (my son's and my sister's), had Christmas, New Years, and...the best part, my brother-in-law came home from Iraq.

My sister and he have three kids, ages 2 1/2, 5 and 8. They are a military family. He's in the Army. My sister has been raising their kids on her own, off and on, since they were born, as her husband is deployed every two years to various parts of the world. At the end of December, he finally came back home after serving a year (his second tour) in Iraq. Fear, concern and worry were feelings we all became very familiar with while he was gone. The joy on his children's faces when he came back was awesome to see.

I thought I'd share some of those pictures today and say how thankful I am that he's back home safe and that my sister has her family all together again.

Signs for Papa:

Doing a good job being patient while holding the signs for Papa:

Is that him?:

Here he comes:

Group hug:

Smiles everywhere:

I think my sister is pretty happy:

They're baaaack

I used to love looking through the "Where's Waldo" books with my kids when they were little. Can you spot the mama deer and her baby eating the vines in my backyard? I caught their motion out of the corner of my eye when I was getting coffee this morning.

Look at that sweet, white spot on the fawn's nose between her eyes. I'm going to miss this little face.

Somehow, though, I have a feeling that where we're moving, there will be a whole new family of deer to become acquainted with (and attached to). :-)

A day on the mountain

I was excited to go to Mt. Hood today, about 90 minutes east of Portland. It was my son's first ski race of the season and our first trip up to the mountain in about nine months. Although there were no clear shots of Mt. Hood due to weather (it was overcast, foggy in spots and a bit windy), it was still beautiful up there:

Here's my boy at the start of the race. It's cute because he's always a little nervous:

But once he's going, he's in his element:

If you're not from Oregon, yet this building below looks familiar to you, you might recall it from the movie "The Shining". This is Timberline Lodge and exterior shots of it were used as the hotel where Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall's characters act as caretakers in the movie. It's absolutely gorgeous on the inside.


Our faces started to freeze much too soon and it was time to head home. Today was a good day - no thoughts of all the packing and organizing and moving logistics needing to be done. It was really nice to take a little mental break.

There's this thing I don't like doing

So, maybe it did need to be done. It's possible I was having to use my body weight now to close the cupboard door on the items stored inside. Perhaps a good Winter Paperwork Purge is always in order, whether one is getting ready to move or not. But somehow, going through piles and piles of records, bills, bank statements, and other miscellaneous documentation to determine which must be kept and refiled and which must be shredded and disposed of is my personal hell. I hate it. It takes me days. Papers will be strewn through the house, across the floors, over counter tops, even in the laundry room, while I try to get myself through this seemingly endless task. It seems that not only have I saved every single thing sent to me over the last year, but when I do finally tackle this project, I unintentionally take a trip down memory lane. I'm one of those write-notes-to-myself-on-the-outside-of-bill-envelopes kind of people, so going through this pile now, I am forced to recall each and every payment, argument, minor dispute, and change of service that has happened since the last time I did a purge. I also remember, upon seeing a particular envelope, how IRRATIONALLY ANGRY it makes me that Qwest sends me their statements with the envelope upside down now (if you have Qwest for phone service, you'll know immediately what I mean). But, now that I've started, there's nothing to do but plow through it. I will feel so much better once this is done. And, as always, I've got my faithful pup by my side who, every time I sigh heavily or start muttering to myself, jumps up, walks through the mess, and crawls into my lap.

Look who came to visit me...

Even though we currently live in an urban neighborhood with busy streets and many houses, deer are a familiar site here. To see a fawn this late in the year, though, was surprising to me. This little beauty had no fear. She jumped right down from our upper level backyard onto our patio to eat the leaves off my jasmine bush.

Even when she saw me, she wasn't particularly worried:

My husband couldn't believe that I was letting her have her way with my prized jasmine. He has witnessed my many tantrums and fits over the years when the deer have devoured my roses. "It's cold out and she's hungry" was all I could reply. She's just a baby. And she stripped those branches in seconds flat:

It didn't take me long to find her mama keeping a close watch from a distance:

Then my pup, Roxy, saw them and started to bark and claw at the glass door. This is the last shot I got of the fawn before she turned and ran away: