Through the Gate

Sometimes it feels like I always want to go through the gate. A little excited to see what's just out of sight while a little apprehensive about what I might encounter.

Read a quote recently, and can't remember where...
"Life begins at the end of your Comfort Zone."

To get there you have to go through the gate.

I want my girl

Sometimes it hurts so much I can hardly bear it. Even after more than a year. How do people survive? Why do we hide our grief?
I want my girl. I want to give her a hug. I want to sit around in our jammies and drink tea and chat. I want to go shopping and find fun lunch places. I want to share the books we've just read. I want to hear how her day went.
I want my girl.

90 degrees in the shade

This is not our normal weather... but the tomatoes sure are loving it. And the cucumbers and the zucchini, and we actually have some green peppers setting on. :)

I'm loving sipping iced tea in the shade on the deck.

Zuchinni for dinner

Zucchini with Pasta

6-8 small zucchini, shredded or julienned
2 Tbsp butter (the real stuff) or olive oil
1 tsp garlic
fresh ground pepper
2 cups uncooked organic whole wheat rotelli
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Start the water boiling for pasta.
Saute garlic in butter for 30 seconds, add zuchinni and cook until barely tender, stirring to coat with butter.
Cook the pasta al dente, drain and toss with the sauteed zucchini and half (or more) of the Parmesan. Season with pepper and serve with the remaining Parmesan.

This is one of our favorite summer recipes. It's easy and quick and is especially good with fresh-from-the-garden zucchini. :)

Creating Peace

Your tranquility can surprise you today, as you may be coping with a great many challenges at this point in your life. You may instinctively be using your home as a sanctuary where you can recover from worldly stresses, even if you have never before regarded your personal spaces as a refuge. The feelings of peace that spread through you as you rest and relax in a room special to you or your garden can be the perfect antidote to the tension you carry with you during much of your outer world existence. To make these spaces even more inviting and serene today, take a few moments to beautify them before settling in.

From my inbox today... after a morning out in the garden.

New Paint

We finished painting the living room today, complete with nice accent wall. The colors are lovely! Very calm and soothing. Continued work on the flooring is next. We may be done before September...

And for the record, we have eaten tomatoes from our garden three nights in a row! Yay for sunshine, warm weather and Tumbler tomatoes.

On the Boardwalk

Had a lovely afternoon with my hubby. He realized that crabbing season opened yesterday, so decided we need to go crabbing this afternoon. Just came in and said, let's go. So off we went to Taylor dock at Boulevard Park. It's a lovely boardwalk trail along the shore. I had fun watching the silly gulls who were just sure we were going to give them the bait, and were not at all shy about it. It was wonderfully warm with a light breeze to keep it from getting too hot.
A fire boat stopped just a bit out from where we were sitting, and practiced it's spraying. Fun to watch. There were a lot of sailboats out in the bay, and the people watching was great! It's a well used boardwalk/trail, folks of all ages and types, bicycles and walkers and runners in groups, by themselves, with dogs. One couple had their ferret on a leash. Made us smile. Almost as much as the two girls who gave us the Spock peace sign going and coming back from Woods Coffee with their iced mochas. What a riot.
My managers daughter and her adorable family walked by; they were out treasure hunting and then going to the beach. I got to see their sweet new baby in person. What a doll, just a cute as his older brother.
We had fun with some new to the area folks who were totally mystified with the crab ring... they stayed and watched for awhile. And a couple of kids who really wanted to wait, but mommy had to be somewhere and had to pry them away.
The crabs were not cooperative, so we came home with just a bit of eel grass on the crab ring... no crabs today.

Sometimes you just need to go do something totally unplanned and enjoy yourself. I need to do more of it. It's good for the soul.

I want to go away!

 

Right now I REALLY miss the ability to go away in our little motor home for a week at a time if we want to. And I want to. I am feeling stressed with life in general right now, and want to be somewhere else for a while. Somewhere I can center myself. A quiet peaceful place far away from high maintenance people and an out of whack workplace.

This is a good option...

More from the Garden

Look! Almost ripe tomatoes! We love these Tumbler tomatoes. They are prolific and really good. Bigger than a cherry and better flavor we think. Any day now we'll be in fresh tomato heaven!

 And our day lilys are starting to bloom. I love the darker color of this one...

Being in the garden helps me relieve the stress of the day...

Look what's blooming...

Summer gardens make me happy!

What You Want

This arrived in my inbox a few moments ago...

July 6, 2009
What You Want
Aries Daily Horoscope

You could feel like taking on the world today. It might seem to you that you are ready to handle more responsibility in your life. Even if you feel confident about taking on more, you may want to think today about what more responsibility may mean for you. You might consider what you truly want from life and whether or not doing extra will help you obtain your goals. Perhaps you can reflect upon where you are now and the changes you would like to make. Think about how adding new obligations would fit into your life and assess if this would challenge you or make you feel overwhelmed. If you envision yourself being inundated, you could ponder how you could effect positive change in your life as it is right now. You may find that thinking about the outcomes of your initiative might help you gain better focus.

Reflecting upon what we truly want allows us to find healthier ways for achieving our goals. Our confidence and ambition sometimes lead us to feel that we can take on anything we need to in order to become successful in our lives. Thinking about the direction this will take us in gives us time to understand where we should really put our energy. This directs our attention to the things that are important to us and will allow for our success. Assessing where you want to go in life today will let you focus your talent on being successful in a way that will be meaningful for you

Change

It's all around... all of the time. It's just a bit overwhelming today.

My friend Cheryl moving away highlighted last week. She came and played at the Scrap Paper doll class last Sunday. I miss her already. I am so glad I can keep up on her new blog. I sent her on her way with a little travel angel. It is made of pieces of map from her route between here and there. It kept her safe; she has arrived and is starting her new job today.

We're in the process of 1) painting 2) tearing up carpeting and 3) replacing with pergo flooring in the hall, living room, dining room... (okay...mostly my sweet hubby... but I DID pick the paint). It will be so lovely, and the house is in turmoil and I don't have a peaceful spot to hide.

There is my art room, of course, however it has been in turmoil for a while. Haha! It is giving me the incentive to finally finish the re-organizing. It's half done. There are boxes in here of Jen's things, and a couple of old "important paper" boxes in the closet to be gone through and shredded. Not to mention finding places for all those freakin' art supplies I keep buying. (Shhh... don't tell!)

I just want to get in the motor home and go camping somewhere quiet and peaceful and do art when I'm not going for walks like we did a couple of weeks ago. This was the view from the window where I sat doing art... while John was fishing in the rain.

It doesn't appear that we'll be able to camp again for a while....

Sigh