Everyday adventures

Get the Hose

January 21, 2011

I had a couple of blog post possibilities in the works for today--but after I arrived at the barn this morning to find this:




I began to rethink my day.  I have never seen Tank so dirty before in all the time I've had him.


Apparently, he felt the need for a mud bath. 


And he still had his breakfast on his face (the brown stuff on his nose is bran mash).

Fortunately, it was warm enough today to hose him off instead of curry and brush all that mud and sand off him.

Sigh.

Happiness

Find a Happy Place

January 17, 2011

It’s gray and rainy outside today, and my plans for a walk with my neighbor and a trip to see Tank have been postponed or cancelled. I’m curled under a blanket with my computer on my lap catching up on emails and convincing myself that in a little while I’ll hop on the elliptical for some much-needed cardio to replace that walk.

If you’re looking for something to brighten up a rainy Monday (or any other dull sort of day), here are three cyber-destinations that help me find a happy place:

http://1000awesomethings.com/ Check out the picture under “Clean Baby Smell.”

http://gimundo.com/ Sutitled: "Good news…served daily." When you’d rather read about heroes than horrors, check in here.

http://www.gypsygirlsguide.com/  Daily inspiration for your inner gypsy. (Thanks, Laure Ferlita, for sending me a link to this blog.)

Bonus destination:  Please click here for a great post about creativity, self-esteem and body image written by Elizabeth Patch.

OK, enough fooling around--time for that cardio…


P.S. I’d like to say happy anniversary to Larry, my husband of 23 years—he qualifies as a both a pleasure and an adventure, sometimes at the same time!

Word of the year

Illumination

January 14, 2011

All through the hectic holidays, I avoided taking time to focus on a word of the year for 2011. It was almost like I was afraid. It’s a big commitment—I’ve got to live with this choice all year!

Finally last night I sat down with a long list of words I’d compiled over the past few weeks. The first word that had popped into my head was “possibility”—with echoes of Emily Dickinson’s line, “I dwell in possibility.” One morning I woke up with the thought, “I want to create beautiful things,” so I added beauty/beautiful to the list. I love my life and don’t want to change it—I just want to make it richer and more vibrant. Vibrant, bloom, more, fruitful and flourish were the next additions to the list. These all had their merits, as did the half dozen other words that I had to choose from. But nothing resonated with me quite the way “open” did last year.

I find that I often discover what I really think about things by writing about them, so I took up my list and started writing random thoughts about what I want 2011 to be like, what I want to focus on this year, and so on. This year I want to improve my level of confidence, to live more consciously and have more fun! I want to flourish instead of feel as though I’m bumbling along just making do. I’m ready to heal some old emotional wounds—BUT I don’t want to be so serious and earnest all the time. I want to be more light-hearted instead of worried and anxious. And that’s when a word sent a tingle up my spine: light. Light, not heavy; happy, not sad; bright, not dark. Open the windows and let in the light. Get rid of excess—weight, stuff, wrong-headed beliefs—and lighten up. Maybe that’s why I started the year off cleaning out my office?

Light has an aspect of consciousness to it that appeals to me: casting light onto my thinking and my actions instead of operating in a rote manner. It has a positive connotation, a certain brilliance. It can be a noun, verb or adjective. The properties of light are quite intriguing and offer scope for future analogy. “Light” works perfectly with “open”: the door is cracked, the window is open, the light can shine in.

So. Here I am with my bright, shiny new word of the year. What effect will it have?


(If you’ve chosen a word or theme for the year, please share!)


We all walk in the dark and each of us must learn to turn on his or her own light. ~Earl Nightingale

100 Things I Love

I Love a Good List

January 10, 2011

It’s the second week of 2011—isn’t it about time for a good list? And I mean, a good one, full of simple pleasures and joys.

A few years ago, I compiled a list of “100 Things I Love” as an exercise in something self-help-y I was reading at the time. If I recall correctly, I was to pull it out when feeling a little blue, just to remind myself of how many things there are to love in my life.

When you have to make a list of 100 things, some interesting items appear. Alongside the expected—family, friends, chocolate, libraries, horses and books—appeared the more unusual:

Mahjong Titans (a game I play on my computer)
Yellowstone (we visited a couple of years ago and I'm dying to go back)

Yellowstone--did I mention we were there in June?
Shoes (you don’t have to take your clothes off to try on shoes)
The smell of leather (mmmmm).

Here are a few more, in no particular order:

Ladybugs
Crossword puzzles
Rain
Wind
Singing
Robert Bateman’s art
Anne of Green Gables
Old houses
Flea markets
Walking in the woods
Being alone
Homemade bread
Flannel sheets
Fires (in the fireplace, not the forest!)

What would you put on your list of 100 things? Share a few with me—I’m always looking for more things to love!

Imperfections

Future Imperfect

January 07, 2011

Reading this post reminded me of a concept I’ve heard about that comes from Japanese culture: Wabi-Sabi. To sum it up in a rather general way, wabi-sabi is the art of finding and honoring beauty in the imperfect.

Now this is a concept I can get behind! I love the look of old and imperfect things. I buy distressed furniture, partly because we tend to distress things ourselves even if they don’t come that way, but also because it appeals to me. I find old pieces with a few battle scars much more appealing than something brand new and sleekly perfect. However, wabi-sabi is more than a design aesthetic. It’s a whole outlook on life, an outlook that “[acknowledges] three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect,” (Richard R. Powell, Wabi Sabi Simple).

Wabi-sabi doesn’t just put up with imperfection—it embraces it. That’s a good thing for all of us. I’m guessing you’re not perfect—I know I’m not. When I find myself bogged down in the same old issues, now I see I need to go beyond accepting that I’m imperfect all the way to loving my imperfections. This really goes against the grain for those of us in a culture that believes all personal faults should be eradicated immediately, if not sooner.

Perfect doesn’t exist. Imperfect—with all its glorious faults and detours and mistakes-that-turn-into-blessings—does. So today, let go of one thing you’re still a perfectionist about. Examine and embrace the flaws you see. Let the beauty of wabi-sabi wash over your life.

To learn more about wabi-sabi, go here.