This is an idea that I got from http://walkslowlylivewildly.com/. I thought it was nice, so I'm copying her. :) This list was geared for someone at home, but since I'm at work I figured I'd do it from here.
Outside my window…there is no window here in my jobsite office, but I can hear the city noises, and ocassionally the children from the local YMCA on a field trip to the movies
I am thinking…about how to set up an office space/area using furniture/items that I already have around the house- this weekend's "official" project.
From the kitchen…for lunch today- tortellini with home-made pesto. I'm so excited about that!
I am wearing…tan carhartts, grey t-shirt w/ a navy blue monkey embroidered hoody
I am creating…operation & maintenance manuals for this job that we're wrapping up
I am going…to the office to make copies, and then home!
I am reading…(in the evenings) "Mossflower", book two in the Redwall series
I am hearing…a city bus, the refrigerator, my computer's brain thinking, squeeky brakes on a passing car, the plumber doing paperwork in his office.
Around the house…Hubby framed the wall on the stairwell this week, and has also been getting the front yard ready to plant grass. The next hatch of quail is about the pop out of their shell. This morning (after I let him out & left for work) the dog got ahold of a bag of wood chips for smoking meat on the bar-b-q & played with/destroyed the whole thing (did I ever mention that D & the Dog don't like each other? this is part of the reason why!).
One of my favorite things…is a clean kitchen & all the animals fed
A few plans for the rest of the week…move the new rabbit cage frame to its final resting place, weed the garden, fold the laundry
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS
I was counting this morning…actually, I wasn’t counting. I was working on a spreadsheet of the almost 10,000 light fixtures that I have ordered, received, counted, unpacked & supervised installation of on this jobsite, listening to my iPod (“Celebration”) in an effort to drown out the sound of the mouse munching on something in the trash can across the room, and thinking about an adorable little Russian girl that I would have brought home with me 10 years ago if I could have…she’s 15 now. Her name is Lida. I’ll post a picture someday so you can see her as I remember her.
Remembering, and listening to the hauntingly beautiful sound of that song made me melancholy. So I did what any sane girl would do & wrote to a friend who shared that day a decade ago in the play yard of a little Russian Baby House…asked her if she still thought of “her” little girl Olya, and then went on to tell her about our hopes & dreams. Which basically do not encompass the place we are currently living.
And then I apologized for sending such a downer of an email and told her about all of the wonderful things that we have been able to do with the place we’re living now in spite of how very far it seems from our dreams (wherever you are, be all there…we are). And the tally was kind of amazing- so I thought I’d share it with you.
First and quickly- most everyone probably already knows that we hope to someday have property almost in the middle of nowhere and live as simply and with as little dependence on retail as possible. But right now we live squished between two houses in a rather dense suburban neighborhood on a city lot that is less than ¼ acre. On that lot there is a house, a large shed/workshop, a separate garage & a greenhouse. There is also a rather large concrete patio. In spite of all of these “obstacles” we have still managed to fit onto that little lot: (4) pheasants [to lay eggs, to incubate, to raise for food, sale & release],
(6) egg chickens, (20) quail [to lay eggs, to incubate, to raise for food, sale & release], (3) breeder rabbits + (1) pet rabbit, (9) fryer rabbits, (2) breeder ducks, (11) roasting ducklings & a dog. We also have 600 sq ft of vegetable garden
green beans, carrots, radishes, beets, spinach, lettuce, greens mix, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, rhubarb, strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries, grapes & raspberries. We have a pear tree & a fig tree.
A 100 sq ft of herb garden, and flowers in every corner of the yard. I should also mention that this is in spite of the fact that the entire front yard (another 600+ sq ft) looks like a war zone due to the excavation & re-decorating efforts of the dog & hubby- but once we get that landscaped & under control we’ll have even more growing space.
We have a 1,000 gal pond that will someday be home to a colony of crayfish, and a utility room full of 40+ baby quail w/ more eggs in the incubator. The greenhouse will continue to provide us with greens & hopefully tomatoes through the winter. We heat with a wood stove front the huge woodpile in our backyard, we’re getting rain barrels set up and have a compost pile in the works.
It’s easy to focus on the future with eyes only for what Will Be, but if you take a step back and look at the What Is where you are in the now…you might just be surprised.
Remembering, and listening to the hauntingly beautiful sound of that song made me melancholy. So I did what any sane girl would do & wrote to a friend who shared that day a decade ago in the play yard of a little Russian Baby House…asked her if she still thought of “her” little girl Olya, and then went on to tell her about our hopes & dreams. Which basically do not encompass the place we are currently living.
And then I apologized for sending such a downer of an email and told her about all of the wonderful things that we have been able to do with the place we’re living now in spite of how very far it seems from our dreams (wherever you are, be all there…we are). And the tally was kind of amazing- so I thought I’d share it with you.
First and quickly- most everyone probably already knows that we hope to someday have property almost in the middle of nowhere and live as simply and with as little dependence on retail as possible. But right now we live squished between two houses in a rather dense suburban neighborhood on a city lot that is less than ¼ acre. On that lot there is a house, a large shed/workshop, a separate garage & a greenhouse. There is also a rather large concrete patio. In spite of all of these “obstacles” we have still managed to fit onto that little lot: (4) pheasants [to lay eggs, to incubate, to raise for food, sale & release],
(12) broiler chickens,
(6) egg chickens, (20) quail [to lay eggs, to incubate, to raise for food, sale & release], (3) breeder rabbits + (1) pet rabbit, (9) fryer rabbits, (2) breeder ducks, (11) roasting ducklings & a dog. We also have 600 sq ft of vegetable garden
where we are growing potatoes, snap peas, cucumbers, shelling peas, zucchini,
green beans, carrots, radishes, beets, spinach, lettuce, greens mix, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, rhubarb, strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries, grapes & raspberries. We have a pear tree & a fig tree.A 100 sq ft of herb garden, and flowers in every corner of the yard. I should also mention that this is in spite of the fact that the entire front yard (another 600+ sq ft) looks like a war zone due to the excavation & re-decorating efforts of the dog & hubby- but once we get that landscaped & under control we’ll have even more growing space.We have a 1,000 gal pond that will someday be home to a colony of crayfish, and a utility room full of 40+ baby quail w/ more eggs in the incubator. The greenhouse will continue to provide us with greens & hopefully tomatoes through the winter. We heat with a wood stove front the huge woodpile in our backyard, we’re getting rain barrels set up and have a compost pile in the works.
It’s easy to focus on the future with eyes only for what Will Be, but if you take a step back and look at the What Is where you are in the now…you might just be surprised.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
DAILY LIFE
I have hundreds of pictures piling up, and a whole bunch that I want to share with the few of you who faithfully peek in here on our little world, but currently no time to go through the process of loading them onto the blog. So please accept my apologies for my long and boring absence, and enjoy a look at my day today- which is a pretty typical day for me.
Up @ 4:00am to get ready for the day, make & pack lunches, let the dog out, feed the yard rabbit (Bluebell currently has the freedom of the whole yard at her disposal, as a “reward” and escape from the not-so-small but newly weaned babies) let the dog back in & feed him, and head out the door by 4:45am. It’s already 60˚F, the sun is coming up and the traffic is very light. Travel approx 60miles, and at work by 6:00am- where I take a few moments to change from my very comfortable sandals into work boots. Check emails, catch up on orders and issue pricing, reconcile the “bucket of money”, make sure I’m aware of what the crew is doing today and impart any information that I have that they need. Down into the “basement” (lowest level of the expansive parking garage) to inventory & pack the materials that we are sending off-site, as this 2-year long project is nearing completion. Break @ 9:30 w/ the guys, lunch @ noon and then spread throughout the day: fire alarm inspection, installation of light poles in the plaza and up-lights in the tree planters, someone empty the stinking trash can in the office, type up some [electrical] panel schedules, get a couple of guys working on removing the mountain of trash in “the basement”, attend a subcontractors meeting on site, confer with the owners on location for equipment in the retail spaces, order some breaker lock-offs, look forward to what needs to be accomplished tomorrow, talk with the scheduling department about scheduling a couple of the guys to move on to other jobs come Monday, run up to the 6th floor to watch the guys jack up a transformer (all 550lbs of it) to install noise isolation pads in an attempt to quiet the beasts…getting off at 2:30pm and it's now 90˚F. Change back into sandals and head out into the heat (thankful for the air conditioning in my truck!).
Stop at the butchers for bones for the dog (who has been behaving like a saint lately…such a strange turn of events, we’re wondering what got into the little monster to be such a nice normal animal!), Cash & Carry for syrup to flavor the hubby’s iced tea, the feed store because somehow (in spite of my careful planning) we’ve managed to run out of all of the animal feed, all at the same time. (Generally I try to stagger the need so I don’t end up buying everyone’s food at once…it’s ridiculously expensive!)
Done at the feed store, and it’s just a hop, skip & jump across the river to home. Once home I hope that I’ll find that the quail eggs have begun to hatch, today is the day that they should start; make dinner; plant the next in the successive plantings in the garden (lettuce, carrots, spinach) and maybe have time to begin the construction of Strawberry’s cage (newest rabbit). Eat dinner & talk w/ the hubby, allow the cats to use us as their cushions (they live for our attention!), turn the incubating quail eggs, collect today’s quail eggs, make tomorrow’s lunch & get the dishes into the dishwasher (if I’m really on top of it) hop in the shower and head to bed- hopefully before 10:00pm.
Up @ 4:00am to get ready for the day, make & pack lunches, let the dog out, feed the yard rabbit (Bluebell currently has the freedom of the whole yard at her disposal, as a “reward” and escape from the not-so-small but newly weaned babies) let the dog back in & feed him, and head out the door by 4:45am. It’s already 60˚F, the sun is coming up and the traffic is very light. Travel approx 60miles, and at work by 6:00am- where I take a few moments to change from my very comfortable sandals into work boots. Check emails, catch up on orders and issue pricing, reconcile the “bucket of money”, make sure I’m aware of what the crew is doing today and impart any information that I have that they need. Down into the “basement” (lowest level of the expansive parking garage) to inventory & pack the materials that we are sending off-site, as this 2-year long project is nearing completion. Break @ 9:30 w/ the guys, lunch @ noon and then spread throughout the day: fire alarm inspection, installation of light poles in the plaza and up-lights in the tree planters, someone empty the stinking trash can in the office, type up some [electrical] panel schedules, get a couple of guys working on removing the mountain of trash in “the basement”, attend a subcontractors meeting on site, confer with the owners on location for equipment in the retail spaces, order some breaker lock-offs, look forward to what needs to be accomplished tomorrow, talk with the scheduling department about scheduling a couple of the guys to move on to other jobs come Monday, run up to the 6th floor to watch the guys jack up a transformer (all 550lbs of it) to install noise isolation pads in an attempt to quiet the beasts…getting off at 2:30pm and it's now 90˚F. Change back into sandals and head out into the heat (thankful for the air conditioning in my truck!).
Stop at the butchers for bones for the dog (who has been behaving like a saint lately…such a strange turn of events, we’re wondering what got into the little monster to be such a nice normal animal!), Cash & Carry for syrup to flavor the hubby’s iced tea, the feed store because somehow (in spite of my careful planning) we’ve managed to run out of all of the animal feed, all at the same time. (Generally I try to stagger the need so I don’t end up buying everyone’s food at once…it’s ridiculously expensive!)
Done at the feed store, and it’s just a hop, skip & jump across the river to home. Once home I hope that I’ll find that the quail eggs have begun to hatch, today is the day that they should start; make dinner; plant the next in the successive plantings in the garden (lettuce, carrots, spinach) and maybe have time to begin the construction of Strawberry’s cage (newest rabbit). Eat dinner & talk w/ the hubby, allow the cats to use us as their cushions (they live for our attention!), turn the incubating quail eggs, collect today’s quail eggs, make tomorrow’s lunch & get the dishes into the dishwasher (if I’m really on top of it) hop in the shower and head to bed- hopefully before 10:00pm.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
PROMISED
I read something someone wrote this morning, and it has stuck with me…they were musing on whether their life was all that there is, or if more can be expected…as a child of God, is it right to want more, or to just be content with what is. But the poser was the comment that, after all, Jesus never promised anything.
Just a musing, something someone was thinking about, something I happened to stumble upon on the right day at the right moment to get the gears in my head working. It may not be right to expect or demand more than what has already been bestowed- but I know that Jesus has promised things to me. He has promised that He will give peace, and that abundantly. He has promised that His yoke will be easy & His burden will be light. He has promised to be with me always. Snippets from very familiar Bible passages, often glossed over in their extreme familiarity & over-marketed clichéness. But just stop for a moment and consider these all-to-familiar verses…or are they?
He has promised PEACE. Peace like a spring day with daffodils, peace like a hug from a loved one, peace like the sighing of Bronn Journey’s harp, peace like the moment when the autumn sun dies into the earth in golden hallowedness. He has promised me peace.
He has promised lift the weight of those things that are too hard for me to bear, strength when the journey seems to long endure, help when the burden is too heavy, HELP when I can no longer see my way through the storm or the fog or when the trail withers and fades away and I find myself alone in a wilderness. He has promised to ease my burden. He has promised help.
And he has promised to be WITH ME always! To be with me when I am happy, to be with me when I am sad. He will be there when I have spent the last of my strength and can go no more, He will whisper in my ear when I don’t know what to say. He will be beside me when the voices of the angels of heaven are shouting for joy over me, just as surely as He will be right by my side when the dark forces of the hosts of hell rise up to defeat me. He will be with me always.
He is Emmanuel- God with me. He is El Shaddai- my God is enough.
He has promised.
Just a musing, something someone was thinking about, something I happened to stumble upon on the right day at the right moment to get the gears in my head working. It may not be right to expect or demand more than what has already been bestowed- but I know that Jesus has promised things to me. He has promised that He will give peace, and that abundantly. He has promised that His yoke will be easy & His burden will be light. He has promised to be with me always. Snippets from very familiar Bible passages, often glossed over in their extreme familiarity & over-marketed clichéness. But just stop for a moment and consider these all-to-familiar verses…or are they?
He has promised PEACE. Peace like a spring day with daffodils, peace like a hug from a loved one, peace like the sighing of Bronn Journey’s harp, peace like the moment when the autumn sun dies into the earth in golden hallowedness. He has promised me peace.
He has promised lift the weight of those things that are too hard for me to bear, strength when the journey seems to long endure, help when the burden is too heavy, HELP when I can no longer see my way through the storm or the fog or when the trail withers and fades away and I find myself alone in a wilderness. He has promised to ease my burden. He has promised help.
And he has promised to be WITH ME always! To be with me when I am happy, to be with me when I am sad. He will be there when I have spent the last of my strength and can go no more, He will whisper in my ear when I don’t know what to say. He will be beside me when the voices of the angels of heaven are shouting for joy over me, just as surely as He will be right by my side when the dark forces of the hosts of hell rise up to defeat me. He will be with me always.
He is Emmanuel- God with me. He is El Shaddai- my God is enough.
He has promised.
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