Choice

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I recently began a daily mediation practice. I’m not too great at it yet: sometimes it is less than 10 minutes a day and often full of distracted thinking. Today I was thinking of the challenges that await me this week. I was thinking of a specific instance that has the potential to be intimidating and nerve-wracking. I haven’t been worried at all about it though, and during meditation I realized that I can choose what I feel about it. I can choose to be confident and not worry, and I could also choose to get nervous and stressed. I had been choosing to not worry, and it is a choice I can continue.

How often do we just let our feelings happen to us, instead of actively choosing them? Later today I was starting to feel a little stressed, and I thought, “I can choose not to be stressed.” And I wasn’t. It is only when we think we are victim to our emotions and feel we have no choice that they overtake us. I am learning that I do have complete control over my thoughts, and in turn my emotions. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to overcome bad habits, but it is possible. We always have the choice to be happy, to be sad, to be angry, to be stressed, to be calm. Emotions aren’t something that happen to us, they are choices we make from our thoughts.

Weber Basin Garden Visit

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Recently the Weber Basin Water Conservation Learning Garden (they need a shorter name) had a garden fair, and I thought it would be fun to go down there. I haven’t been there in years, and it has matured nicely since a visit while I was in college.

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I’ve been looking at permaculture methods for so long, I miss the water wise gardens that I used to work in/look at and love all the time. They aren’t exclusive at all either–permaculture just often forgets to make things look nice along the way of creating super productive gardens. Solely focused water-wise or xeriscaped gardens don’t.  It was a good reminder to me that even if I am exploring and working with permaculture, I can still remember to make the gardens pretty and not just productive.

Quick side note: A water-wise garden primary focus is to conserve water. It often includes edible gardens, native plants and other good gardening and environmental practices, but it zero-ins on water conservation the most. Many times, a water wise garden will simply tweak traditional garden practices to conserve water more. A permaculture garden would also include water conservation, but the primary focus is the three permaculture ethics: care of the earth, care of the people, and return of surplus. A permaculture garden tends to have more food production and doesn’t follow traditional gardening at all, but instead mimics and builds upon natural landscapes.

Applesauce

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PB went on a vacation with his Grandma without us. The house was a lot more peaceful, but also boring. I enjoyed spending time catching up on some projects, as long as more time with these people:

applesauce

Mr. C is quite good at helping plunge the applesauce.

Abundance

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I’m getting more produce from my garden each day than I have most of the summer. All the projects we have planned for this year are nearly completed, and the garden is starting to take shape. I have canned fruit, frozen salsa and still have plenty of veggies and fruit to eat. The flowers and other plants I’ve planted are thriving and looking great.

chickens
harvest
salsa
tomatoes
zinnia

I’m exhausted. The promise of winter without any garden works sounds nice right now.

Time of Abundance 

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Right now I feel like my life is abundant. My prayers are full of gratitude. I have plenty of food in the kitchen, much of which came from my own garden. I am able to be a homemaker and spend the best time of each day with my children, watching and teaching them. I am overcoming some of the weaknesses that have brought me down in the past. I have much to do every day, and most of it is very meaningful. I have an abundance of friends and family that I continue to deepen my relationships with. I an learning about and incorporating new practices into my life that have made it richer, including meditation and permaculture. My body continues to engage in the amazing task of growing new life, and I feel my baby move frequent inside me. My husband has a stable job he likes, and although we are not rich, we have enough means for our needs and most of our wants.

I don’t know how long this time of abundance will last. My family has all worked hard to get to where we are now, and the Lord has blessed us. We’ve also had harder times, and I’m not expecting them to stay away forever. Now, I’m just focusing on becoming the best I can so that whatever does come, I will have a store of spiritual strength.

Slide

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I always wanted to put a slide down our hill. We finally did, and both the kids and I love it.

slide (1)

When I was looking for slides, I wanted a longer one but this one was far cheaper. Turns out it was the near perfect length. The hill wasn’t as steep as the slide needed to be, so we dug into the hill a bit. We made a platform out of a pallet we already had on had. I spray painted it with the kids, and it was anchored with some rebar. It ended up being a pretty easy project that is a lot of fun.

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Now we just need to landscape around the slide, I’m not sure quite yet what we’ll do, but certainly something other than bare dirt. Any ideas?

Wind Caves

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My four year old can beat me in a race right now. I’m not in very good shape right now, thanks to the wonderful excuse of a baby in my abdomen. Still, I wanted to go on a hike. We ditched the idea of the six mile hike up the mountain, and decided to go to the easily hiked Wind Cave trail. I think it was about my third time hiking this trail. Well, the not-too hard less than four miles round trip was almost too much for me this time around. While I was huffing up the trail, Joe reminded me that I hiked Logan Peak when I was similarly pregnant with PB. I was too ambitious then.

starting

PB generally does better hiking than walking (trying to get that kid to walk anywhere is like walking up the down escalator). It was a bit too long for him though, we had to do a lot of motivating and listening to complaining.. Even Mr. C who had the benefit of riding on Daddy most of the way had a meltdown right before we got to the windcaves. But we did make it. And I realized on the way that I don’t love hiking because it is easy, but because it pushes my body to do more than it normally does. It is better because it is hard.

athetop

Peach Days

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Our community does a big celebration right after Labor Day named Peach Days. It is right around the time peaches ripen, and it is an easy time to find an abundant amount of peaches for sale. This year we had a peach tree adopted at a church garden, and we had a good harvest of huge peaches. One of my main activities on peach days was canning peaches.

peaches

Saturday we went to the parade and wandered around. It was hot, lots of walking and looking at things I didn’t care about. Not my favorite. The kids did have fun, eating huge amounts of candy from the parade, riding carnival rides, and looking at cars at the car show. This was probably the favorite activity:

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