Welcome home

I've been on a bit of a blogging hiatus but it's good to be back and starting my Monday with this post.

Our family took a little vacation to visit family in Park City Utah, celebrating my daughter's sweet 16th birthday while we were there.  I think it was one of our best vacations ever - even though we didn't even leave the house on many days.  We just hung out, cooked, ate, played games, watched the little ones chase each other through the house.  It was love filled and felt very full.  I woke up last Monday, back home in my own bed, feeling revived and just filled up with love and the good feeling of abundance that comes when you've been surrounded by those who love you.  Every morning since I've woke with the same feelings, and begun my day with some affirmations - Om Shanti, Om Mani Padme Um, Thank you God, May all beings know love.......

This last week brought a surprise visit from out of town friends and a nice long soak in the hot springs while we caught up.  I was also inspired listening to a talk by one of my favorite children's authors - Jeanne Duprau, author of the City of Ember series, which I'm in the middle of right now.  Jeanne spoke of writing about what you love, and big ideas that you never stop being curious about.  I'm not aspiring to a novel, but even a dabbler like me can be inspired by a master to write a little more, and hopefully, improve a bit.

Last night we had a dinner and Apples to Apples with old friends.  It feels so good to connect again.  And to enjoy Bella's dark chocolate cheesecake - amazing with friend Kim's brownies.  (I know that sounds like too much - but honestly, it was heaven).

Today I am working on some new Indian slow cooker recipes, baking bread, taking the dogs for a hike, and hanging out with Bella this afternoon.  She is beginning a new adventure and I'm so excited for her - more to come later about that.

This morning I want to end with a prayer of gratitude for one of my best friends in the whole world - our Lab-Kelpie mix Bear Cub, 12 years young and not quite himself these days.  I think he's losing his sight, and he's sore a lot, he doesn't follow me around all day like he used to.  Once upon a time there was just me and Buddy on the trail, and I could never ask for a more loyal friend.  He is good and sweet and tolerant.  For you Buddy - may you know love and happiness and comfort today.  May your heart be light.  I love you. 

Gifts: Days 8, 9 & 10

Day 8:  My gift was a loaf of home-baked bread to my sweet friend Sandra.  This was really a small gesture of gratefulness because each year for the past many, she has let me come pick from her huge garden at the end of the season.  This year I brought home potatoes, chard, spinach, parsley, onions, carrots, beets and broccoli - all organic and delicious.  Just seeing her family's garden is really a gift.  And Sandra is the kindest, most giving of people.  While we picked she told me how she is going to start distributing free cloth diapers to mamas who need them.  I'm so lucky to call her a friend.

The second part of this gift is really cool too.  Because Sandra has such a large garden I am able to take food not only for my family, but for my friend/neighbors too.  So I got the joy of sharing all this bounty.  That feels really good.

Day 9:  Yesterday I brought a hot chocolate to my dh.  He was so happy and grateful.  It felt like a really good gift.  He's now working in suddenly very cold conditions outside, all day long.  The day before it was in the 70s, but yesterday brought snow.  I am happy for the snow, for many reasons - putting out our wildfires, cleaning the smoke from the air, bringing moisture to our dry climate, and because snow is really beautiful.  I celebrated by taking my dogs for a little snow hike - Mr. Ed's first time playing in the snow.  Predictably, he loved it!!  (Mr. Ed is known to be so easy going and fun loving, he can have fun just about anywhere).

Dh with his cocoa treat

Day 10:  Today I sponsored my friend at work for Bowl for Kids Sake.  That was easy!!  I'm also driving pretty far to watch my youngest play volleyball this afternoon - probably the last game I'll get to see.  That feels like a gift for both of us.  And my friend just invited me to walk dogs with her.  That will be a huge gift for me.  Thank you Universe for answering my call - to help me feel better today.

Fungus!

What a fun way to welcome June!  My girls and I joined 3 other fun-(and fungus) loving homeschool families for a hunt along the Yellowstone River today, at Loch Leven.  As we pulled up, the pouring rain did not bode well for happy kids, but as we finished our lunches, the sun came out and shined for the next 2 hours!  We looked like a bunch of humans doing impressions of hound dogs, heads down, wandering about, getting really excited over something our eyes or noses or intuition led us upon.  I found the first morel, a really small one, but you would have thought I had found GOLD!  Katy found the gigantic morels(I'll come back to them because they were an exciting mystery) and a large fairy ring of probably edible mushrooms (I have to do a tad more research before I take a bite of those).

Bella found horses (of course!), other kids were enchanted by red-tail hawks, the river, nests in trees.  It was a magical couple of hours watching kids and adults alike thrill at their discoveries.

Ok, back to the mystery morels.  Another mother and myself thought we had correctly identified them as false morels, which may or may not be safe and tasty, but picked them to bring back to the group to show off anyway, just because they were so big.  But others in the group thought they too were morels, really good ones.  Hmmm, what to do?  So someone suggested we stop by the Livingston Ranger Station and let them have a stab at it.  We did, and the awesome young lady rangers there correctly identified them as morels, after slicing one open to confirm it was hollow on the inside.  YAY!

Just a side note, I am so happy whenever I encounter female rangers (something I never remember seeing as a girl), and today, there were three and not a fella in sight.

Whatever you are searching for today, I hope you find it!

A flower for Thay

Opening "Peace is Every Step" tonight, wondering at the revelation I would encounter, I found this poem, by a friend of Thich Nhat Hanh's, who died at only 28.

Standing quietly by the fence,

you smile your wondrous smile.  

I am speechless, and my senses are filled 

by the sounds of your beautiful song, 

beginningless and endless.  

I bow deeply to you.

The "you" in the poem is a flower, a dahlia.  The writer was so moved by a flower, he stopped and wrote this poem.

Ah, to be so in the moment that we notice a thing of simple beauty, that we are touched deeply, as if by a lover.  This is living.

When I read the poem, my friend and neighbor filled my mind.  We exchange - words, pie, books, missing ingredients, sometimes tears, a sort of broken blender (for paper making) - through our fence (opened to allow exchange).  How much she enriches my soul.  Cheerful in the face of pain and a dreadful disease, cheerful in the face of any kind of woe, cheerful in the face of my grumbling (about the puppy, my husband, the weather!!).  Always with arms open, heart open, ears open.  She doesn't seem to know how to judge, saint behind the glass.  Occasionally I have to remind myself not to elevate her so, that she too is only human.  But I do think her doctor may discover her heart is abnormally sized.  Sometimes I let myself think about a day in which she does not call hello over the fence.  "Beginning and endless, I bow to you."  Thank you Thay.  I will treasure today, for this moment doesn't keep.  Let my senses fill.  

Tonight I came home late from work and everyone was asleep.  Sitting on the counter, one luscious piece of cream cheese cherry pie.  I don't even have to wonder where it came from.  And somehow it tasted like warm sunshine and laughter and a wry sparkle and love, on surely the coldest, most dreary, blizzarding night of this year.  I will have to get that recipe.