Cath, etc.

The Jury is In

...on the old CSA.

Today is the first Monday since June 9 that we didn't stop by the garden that Jill built for our weekly box of vegetables.

OK. That's not entirely true. There was the Monday we went to New Hampshire and couldn't make the pick-up. And then there was the Monday that I had the Go-to Gals and the Paper Crafts team over for dinner (the night before our editorial board meeting) and Mark was out-of-town. Simply couldn't be helped.

But other than these two times, we've faithfully picked up our box o' veggies. Sometimes we even got a big ol' sack o' fruit.

And while I got a kick out of having carrots with tops:

...and I became engaged in an intense love affair with arugula; unearthed the mystery of mustard greens, turnip greens, and Swiss chard; learned how to cook and enjoy beets; and tasted the best potatoes I am likely to ever have; our thumbs are turned way down for CSAs.

The biggest issue for us? Quantity. We just couldn't get through the vast variety of vegetables they sent our way. And don't get me wrong. We love our veggies. We eat a lot of them. More than most families, I would guess. But not enough to eat nothing but veggies three meals a day. Because that's what it might have taken to get through them all before they went south.

On top of all that, our daughter, Nicole, brought over produce from her own garden to use. A friend at work did the same. It was a bounty with which it was difficult to reckon.

We got a real appreciation for eating in season, though. The root vegetables, in particular, seem to me better suited for late fall and winter. And yet, we were receiving them in mid-summer. I had a hard time bending my mind to the idea of eating a potato or a turnip in July. This may sound strange to you, but I don't eat many potatoes to begin with, and if I do, it's for Thanksgiving and maybe a Sunday dinner in January with a pot roast.

I could do without the turnips altogether.

In many ways, rather than reinforcing the idea of eating local and in season, the CSA emphasized how much my diet revolves around the fruits and vegetables I can purchase in my grocery store and how unwilling I am to change that. I enjoyed the fresh lettuce we received for about 6 weeks this past summer, but I wasn't and am not willing to take lettuce off the menu for the rest of the year. We were never offered bell peppers from the CSA, so in season or not, I bought them from the grocery store because they are a main staple in our diet.

Don't get me wrong, I do have limits on how far away the fruits or vegetables can travel to reach my plate, ever mindful of all the resources it takes to ship the things that nourish my body. I usually try to stick to no farther than California or the Pacific Northwest, occasionally Mexico. But I won't buy an orange that comes from Australia. I haven't bought a banana in a few months, and I haven't bought a fresh pineapple in over a year.

Another drawback? We didn't attend our local Farmer's Market because we were having difficulty keeping up with all the produce we received at the CSA. We missed the fun of seeing the vendors, taking in the crowds, and buying the delicious fruits, veggies, and homemade breads that we knew we would actually eat.

Which brings up another key point. I'm glad I tried new things like broccoli rabe, turnips, kohlrabi, and beets, but they aren't things that I would like to eat on a regular basis, let alone 6 weeks in a row. I guess I'd rather have a little more choice and flexibility. I'm used to it and I know it's available to me. These are very powerful forces in my world.

To be honest, I'm a little disappointed that it didn't work out better for us than it did. I love the idea of eating locally and in season. I wish that I could have adapted better than I did. But in spite of our best efforts, some of the produce went bad before we could get to it, and I felt forced to plan meals that I normally wouldn't have planned, and that jammed me up in ways that didn't make me happy.

I suppose I could have given more of the food away. But if I don't want to eat beets in the middle of the summer, I assumed that no one else would want to eat them then either. (With the exception of you, Jason. But then to get them to you there would be all that fossil fuel involved and that didn't seem sustainable, either.)

So, next year, we're thinking about putting in our own little garden and filling it with the vegetables that we love best. We'll supplement that with trips to our local Farmer's Market and will continue to by organic, local produce as much as we can from our grocery store.

We're still committed to buying local and in-season when we can. But we're realizing that we're modern folks who appreciate a good salad year-round. So, like I said, the jury is in. We're not suited for a CSA, and that's a good thing to know. We'll try another approach next year and evaluate the impact it has on our lives, trying to find the fit that's right for us.

And that's what becoming green is all about. It's a journey, one step leading to the next. Slowly but surely, we're getting there.

Rant

Dear Grocery Store Checker,

I bought several of these reusable bags at your store. I have two sets. In two colors. One set for each car. So I can be environmentally responsible no matter which vehicle I am driving. For it is, indeed, entirely too much to ask for me to remember to transfer my reusable bags from one car to the next. I'm covering all my environmental bases here. For I do not wish to contribute to putting plastic garbage bags into the ecosystem at this alarming rate nor do I wish to play any part in using up all the resources it takes to manufacture them so that they can be used an average of 20.36 minutes--the time it takes me to put my groceries in the car, drive home, and put them away in my cupboards-- just so they can be put into the ecosystem at said alarming rate.

When I come to your line, I like that you are enthusiastic about my reusable bags. You take them cheerfully, setting one up for my fruits and veggies and you set aside the rest for all the rest. You are apologetic when you forget my $.05 cent refund per each and grateful when I tell you that it's fine, I'm just glad I've saved a plastic tree or two. Then you laugh a little, and I feel good about having brought a little cheer to your day. It's like we have a relationship, you and I, for that one little minute, even though I've been in your line a thousand times and you still need to ask for my ID. But that's another discussion.

I'm writing you today to encourage you to think a little bit about why your customers are using reusable bags. Remember, I bought the reusable bags so I wouldn't use plastic anymore. Right? When you put only 3-4 items in each of my reusable bags (like you do with the plastic kind) and then have to resort to additional paper or plastic bags for what's left over, you are missing the point entirely. The reusable bags I purchased are sturdy--because they are--what was that? Oh yes--reusable. You can put all kinds of canned goods in one bag, you know, lots of heavy stuff, and while I may need to use two hands to carry the bag inside my home, that beats the alternative.

Also, if something already comes in a handy container that's easily carried--like a six-pack of beer, milk, or a turkey--I don't need a bag to help me carry it. It already comes with a handle.

And while I appreciate that you have many fussy patrons who would like their meat bagged and double-bagged, even bagged separately from their other groceries, I'm just not that finicky. I don't get all bent if my perma-sealed chicken touches my refried beans. I'll be lucky if I can get that chicken out of its plastic sheath when I get home without losing an eye. Besides, if I choose a piece of meat that happens to be a little leaky, I do grab one of those recyclable vegetable bags you've got up there so it's not bleeding all over the entire place. If it's not leaky, then I figure the package it's in is good enough. Same thing with toiletries, cleaning products, and fruits and vegetables. If it doesn't come in its own skin, I've already protected it with one of those thin little see-through bags, which I will bring back to the store to reuse on my next trip...unless, of course, they contained something leaky.

In fact, by not understanding all these nuances behind the reason why I take care to bring you my reusable bags, you've created a whole new grocery-cart-emptying behavior. When I take my groceries out of my cart, I am careful to make eye contact with you and mention that my meat does not need to be placed in a separate plastic bag and hope that you'll convey that message to the bagger. When I see that he has not understood, then I've got to communicate it again, which makes me feel a little bit high maintenance and a lot whiney. When the six-pack of beer or the milk goes by, I've got to grab it before it gets into the bagger's hands, so now I'm feeling a little territorial and predatory. When the tiny bottle of aspirin I bought is about to be "wrapped," I'll feel obliged to say, "No thank you. I don't need an additional bag. The package it comes in is just fine." Unless of course I've had to intercept the bagger an annoyingly high number of times beforehand, in which case, I might just let that aspirin get wrapped in its own, special, protective plastic shell so it doesn't taint the rest of its little grocery friends. Which just makes me cranky.

For really, when we go to the grocery store we buy just as much packaging as we do food. And while I realize that we have to have ways to contain and convey the food we consume, we all really should be thinking about the tremendous amount of resources it takes to get the food we eat to the table.

Thanks for listening,

Cath Edvalson~a patron who's just trying to save a few plastic trees

Strangers on a Plane

Yesterday, on the 12-hour-long odyssey home from CHA in Orlando to Salt Lake City (which included a 2-hour wait after the shuttle had dropped me off at my airline and a 3-hour layover in Phoenix), I was surprised to have found a new friend.

When traveling to and from an industry event such as the semi-annual Craft & Hobby Association Convention, I find myself perusing the passengers, checking to see if there's anyone there I know. Because there are so many in my industry who hail from Salt Lake City, there usually is a handful of friendly faces on each flight as we make our way to the Magical Land of New Paper Crafting Product and then back home again.

As the time for my flight drew near, I scanned the crowd as per usual, and saw no one that I knew--and quite honestly, I was a little relieved. For I was extremely tired. After two long days of walking the showroom floor and trusting the waitress who had promised me the night before that it was, indeed, decaf in my cup--a fib that kept me up until past 2 in the morning--I was definitely looking forward to catching up on a little sleep, hopefully without any slack-jawed drooling.

Having procured my low A-number in the queue by registering online precisely 24 hours in advance for my Southwest Airlines flight the previous afternoon, I was able to get a window seat away from the Loud & Cranky Family I had noticed in the waiting area and had made a mental note to avoid. The plane gradually filled up, the aisle seat in my row was then taken, and as the remaining passengers filed on by, a thin, attractive woman was asking if anyone was sitting in the middle seat of my row. I would be lying if I said I wasn't relieved. Let's face facts. Everyone wants all the room they can get on an airplane. Not that I'm the tiniest of trims, but it was nice to know that I'd have a little elbow room on the 4-hour flight west now that she had chosen the empty spot beside me. I've suffered many a twisted, cramp-filled, uncomfortable flight after having sat by large, frequently flying, stingy-elbowed businessmen in my day. I'm just sayin'.

I felt a little badly that she was going to have to sit separately from her husband, but not so badly that I was willing to give up my window seat. After all, I arranged my very day so I could get the coveted low A-number in the queue from Southwest Airlines. So, I settled in with my current read, Saving Fish from Drowning, and waited for the flight to get underway.

As the flight attendants were squaring things away, you know, showing us how to fasten our seatbelts as though it were rocket science, telling us that we could use our seat cushions as flotation devices should we crash into some kind of frigid water, and reminding us to secure our own oxygen masks before those of the tiny, helpless souls we might care to rescue in the event of a tragic emergency, my seatmate took out a catalog from one of my favorite manufacturers, 7gypsies.

"You must have just came from CHA," I said.

"Yeah, I did," she returned. "Did you? What's your name?"

"I'm Cath. Cath Edvalson. I'm the creative editor of Paper Crafts magazine. Who are you?"

"Oh,OK. I'm Noell. Noell Hyman. I do subscription-based scrapbooking tutorials on a website called Paperclipping."

"Oh my gosh! I've heard of you, but I didn't know that you were you!" I said with enthusiasm.

Truth be told, I had just recently become aware of Noell as a result of her recent partnership with a blog called Scrapbook Update. Because of the recent sale of our company to New Track Media, and the requisite upheaval, I've been watching Scrapbook Update to see what has been reported about us. Hence, the name recognition.

Our conversation ignited immediately. One question after another, we each had something more that we wanted to learn from one another. We spent some time talking about our industry, but as the discovery process continued, we started to learn how much we have in common in our personal lives, which is a lot. It's not often that I run into someone who is as far down the path of sustainability as I am, and Noell is right there with me. She is a vegan and so we talked a lot about that, particularly with regard to how it compares to vegetarianism, which my daughter, Nicole, embraces. We also talked a lot about how difficult it is to determine where to draw the line between what you're able and willing to do to be "green," and what is beyond your capabilities at the time. As the flight progressed, one conversation jumped to another idea which took off in a new direction which landed onto something deep, profound, and heartfelt, and before we knew it 4 hours had passed without a single pause and we were in Phoenix and it was 106 degrees and time to move on to the next.

It's strange to think that if she had not sat in that empty seat next to me, I still would not really know who she is, and vice versa.

It's strange to think that if she hadn't sat in that empty seat next to me, our lives in this industry would have continued to run parallel to one another, unbeknownst to one another.

It's strange to think that I could have so much in common with someone I had never known, and that we could share so much with each other in such a short period of time.

Which all causes me to wonder: how many other people on that plane might I have connected with? How many flights have I been on where I don't even say "hello" to the person next to me, let alone make an attempt to get to know them?

I know that I'm not going to connect with everyone I sit by on an airplane, nor is it necessarily desirable. There are many flights, especially when I'm flying for work, when all I can manage is to put on my seatbelt and close my eyes and do a bit of the slack-jawed drool. But when push comes to shove, I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, we are all much, much more than just strangers on a plane.

I've Been Blissfully Lost in Summer

We celebrated this girl's patriotic birthday at the ballpark:

The Birthday Girl, Nicole

Barty & Beccah

Who are these people?

Waiting for the fireworks on the field

I've hiked more than I have in years:

The Grove on Clark's Trail in Corner Canyon, two minutes from my house

The view near the top

A newly installed fence

I've been devouring the fresh vegetables from our CSA, joyful of the fact that my carrots have tops:

I've been having a love affair with arugula making recipes like these:

Goat Cheese & Arugula Over Penne

Penne with Beef & Arugula

Carmelized Onion Pizza with Gorgonzola & Arugula

Posing for pictures at work like these:

I've written 21 blog posts this month alone in the Moxie Fab World (four of which have not yet gone live.)

We watched the Draper Days Parade go by our house with good friends, letting "Parade Cath" out for the first time in four years (CHA Summer has fallen on this weekend since I started working at Paper Crafts):

Megan, Jennafer, Susan, Brandy, & Dave

 Brandy & Dave

 Megan & Jennafer (or is that Jennafer & Megan?)

 Barty & Beccah

Apparently, we let "Parade Mark" out every now then as well:

And all the while, Tuesday Night Picnics have become my new favorite thing:

 I hope your summer is going as well.

_{Thanks to Susan R. Opel for sharing some of her parade photos.} 

The Garden That Jill Built

 

These came from the garden that Jill built.

They were grown about a mile from our home in the garden that Jill built.

They were grown on a fertile piece of land about a mile from our home in the garden that Jill built.

They were grown organically just for us on a fertile piece of land about a mile from our home in the garden that Jill built.

We pre-paid in March so they could be grown organically just for us on a fertile piece of land about a mile from our home in the garden that Jill built.

We pre-paid in March when it was time to start planting so they could be grown organically just for us on a fertile piece of land about a mile from our home in the garden that Jill built.

This is the first box of vegetables for which we pre-paid in March that were grown organically just for us on a fertile piece of land about a mile from our home in the garden that Jill built.

These are the braised greens, arugula, green garlic, broccoli rabe,  lettuce mix, oregano, wildflowers, and walla-wallas that came from the first box of vegetables for which we pre-paid in March that were grown organically just for us on a fertile piece of land about a mile from our home in the garden that Jill built.

We'll have more through the summer in our big box of vegetables for which we pre-paid in March that will be grown organically just for us on a fertile piece of land about a mile from our home in the garden that Jill built.

We'll be healthy locovore greensters who are glad to support our neighborhood farmer when we get our big box of vegetables for which we pre-paid in March that will be grown organically just for us on a fertile piece of land about a mile from our home in the garden that Jill built.

We are grateful for the garden that Jill built.

Speaking of Voluntary Simplicity...

Just as I was making my decision to simplify my life and go part-time, and maybe more to the point, just as I was approaching my boss, Jennifer, to see if Ihad any options to do so, a local news station was approaching the Utah Society for Environmental Education (USEE) about doing a piece about voluntary simplicity.

Max Roth from Fox 13 News was interested in discussing the movement, the classes that are offered through USEE to explore the issue, and did they have someone who had made a significant change in his or her life as a result of taking the class?

And so, this interview was born. It aired last night and is a two-part segment. The first part is an interview with Andree' Walker Bravo. She works at USEE with Nicole, took the class with us as well, and has become a favorite friend.

The second part is an interview with me and my co-star, Mark. It was a ton of fun to do, and I was glad to play a part in promoting this new way of approaching our lives that is already bringing us a sense of calm that has not been present in our lives for a very long time.

Click here to begin. Click here for Part II.

Enjoy!

ETA: If you are local to Salt Lake City and interested in learning more about voluntary simplicity by taking a class, contact Jason at director@usee.org

To see how my daughter, Nicole, is living a simpler life after having taken the class, click here.

So I Took This Class on Voluntary Simplicity...

It all started sometime around the time when Nicole graduated from college a year ago right about now.

Actually, it started way before that, when Nicole decided to be an environmental studies major, and actually it really started way way way before that when my mom would garden and make my clothes and find ways to stretch a pound of hamburger for a hungry family of five with 3 teenagers--but for the purposes of this blog post, we'll start at last May.

In our proud moment of knowing that we had helped to launch a college graduate into the world, there was a tremendous sense of relief.

For it seems as though we had been planning and saving and sacrificing and supporting Nicole and her dreams--and our dreams for her--since the very beginning.

We worked very hard. We saved. We stayed out of debt. We didn't fill our lives with a buncha stuff that we didn't really need. And all (OK maybe not all, but a lot) for that oh-so-important piece of paper and the opportunities it would provide her.

While Nicole was toiling through her senior year, Beccah was just beginning her journey towards her goals as a college freshman. It was the one year we had been dreading financially, well, pretty much since the day I did the math early on and realized that we would have two kids in college for one year, if all went according to plan. So, once we had cleared away the debt with which I came to our marriage, Mark and I started saving for our daughters' educations.

It was a lofty, far-in-the-future period of time that became part of the present and then a memory in the past much too quickly.

But once the dreaded year of two girls in college had passed, we were in a position to re-evaluate our prirorities.

This is where the class on voluntary simplicity comes in. Nicole works at the Utah Society for Environmental Education and they are an amazing non-profit organization that works to bring the environment into the dialogue of the community and environmental programs into the state's classrooms. As part of their mission, they offer classes that bring environmental issues to the fore, one of which is this class we took on voluntary simplicity.

The literal definition of voluntary simplicity is to "choose to live a simpler life." It's all about minimizing the things that take us out of enjoying our lives and maximizing the things that do. Of course, things like making a living, taking care of ourselves and our loved ones, and maintaining our living spaces can take up a great deal of time and energy.

For more on what voluntary simplicity is all about, click here.

The quote by Hans Hoffman on the cover of the booklet we read and discussed in the class says, "The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."

_{Photo Credit}

Ironically, the trick is learning which parts of your life are the necessary ones, and which are the unnecessary ones getting in the way.

Throughout the course of the class we were asking ourselves questions like:

• How much money do we need to make in order to be happy?

• What does work mean to us and what is its purpose in our lives?

• Do we have the time, and maybe more importantly, do we have the energy, to do the things we truly enjoy?

• Could we live more with less?

My answers? As follows:

• How much money do I need to make in order to be happy? We are very, very fortunate in that we could be happy making less money. We would have to cut back, sacrifices would need to be made, but we could be happy.

• What does work mean to me and what is its purpose in my life? For me, work is all about contributing to something greater than myself, being creative and engaging my brain in ways that are meaningful to me, interacting with people I care about and who also care about me, and to feel that I am helping to make the world spin a little more smoothly by bringing joy in the form of the product I help create and finding joy in the people I get to know through that product. If I were in it for the money, I'd be doing something else.

• Do you have the time, and maybe more importantly, do you have the energy, to do the things you truly enjoy? As much as I love my job, it completely drains me. Like many of you, I arrive home utterly exhausted with not much left to give. It's the age-old argument, can any of us really have it all? For me, I would like to be able to spend more time with my family and friends, hike more, write more, garden more, cook more, entertain more, and to stay on top of household tasks and errands better. Like most of us, I'm sure, I'd like to be able to breathe a little slower and enjoy a little faster.

• Could you live more with less? Yes. I could. Emphasis on live more.

Mark and I agonized over these issues. We talked as honestly with one another as we ever have. We looked at all the scenarios.

_{Photo Credit}

Bottom line: Mark is the main bread-winner in our family. If we were going to make any changes, it would not be with him. But if we made changes with my job, he would benefit greatly from the time and energy I could commit to tasks that would take pressure off of him at home.

The other bottom line: I love what I do as creative editor at Paper Crafts magazine. I didn't want to quit. If I learned anything from looking hard at the answers to the aforementioned questions, it was that the work that I'm currently doing is extremely important to me.

 

Underscoring the point: The economy. What if Mark got laid off? What if the economy continued to tank beyond what it has already done? How could we even be considering such a thing in such a volatile time? And as we continued to explore our values, we began to realize that we are considering this because it is such a volatile time. The rise in gas prices last summer, the plummet of the stock market in the past few months, and the lay-offs that we all have been mourning have, in fact, caused us to take this very hard look at our priorities.

I decided to approach my editor-in-chief, Jennifer Schaerer, to see  if I had any options.

She listened. She nodded her head in understanding. She was more receptive than I could have imagined, although I shouldn't have been surprised because bottom line: she is an excellent manager who is very tuned in to her people and will do what she can to make them happy in their lives because she knows she will get better work from them in the long run.

Did I have any options? It turns out that I absolutely do.

Effective May 1, I began a 24-hour work week. I continue to perform the tasks essential to being the creative editor at Paper Crafts which entails, among other things, overseeing the content in the magazines we produce, writing and sending out the calls for submission, trend-watching to keep our publications fresh, overseeing the content for the PC101 column, writing the Moxie Fabs column, and hosting the Moxie Fab World blog.

My esteemed colleague, Susan R. Opel, has received a promotion in the bargain, as she will be performing the tasks that I will no longer have time to do, mainly overseeing submissions judgings, sending out acceptances, and following through with designers in the project-acquiring phase of magazine building. She is a rock star.

I am very happy that my need to cut back turned into a good thing for my dear friend, Susan.

I am very grateful to have a flexible, open-minded boss and a supportive team.

I am grateful to have an opportunity to be a more attentive wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and in many respects, creative editor.

I am very grateful to have taken this journey with my husband and life-partner, for together we are stronger in our purpose.

I am very grateful to have the chance to live a simpler life.

The Stuff That Gives Them Joy

 _{Photo Credit}

In the middle of everyday life--

(wake up, coffee, workout, shower, breakfast, go to work, work so hard, your eyeballs pop, right outta your head, come home, make dinner, clean up, Facebook, blog hop, bloggity blog, read a little, maybe read a lot, watch a show, On Demand, stay up too late, for no good reason, brush your teeth, collapse in bed, wake up soon, anxious thoughts, get back to sleep, after a while, alarm goes off, I'm never really ready for that alarm)

--the routines that give our lives structure, there is the stuff that gives them joy.

Like the lively discussion of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral at Classics Book Club last week and the general agreement that if one is to commit to eating only food that is either grown and/or raised by you on your land or within your own county, then it helps to be an internationally famous author who works from home.

Like the joy I found in a Thursday-night trip to Costco where there's nary a line and even more importantly, the lack of negotiation of large carts going all directions in the snackfood aisles, not to mention the blessed absence of having to politely tolerate all the oblivious shoppers who think they are the absolute only ones in the store.

Like cleaning off the backyard deck, table, and chairs for the first lengthy sit outdoors of the season.

Like the wonderful reunion we had with our Tennessee friends, Don and Shelley, well-loved and well-missed.

Like chatting with a dear friend for over two hours on a lazy Saturday morning.

Like shopping with Nicole for new spring duds in two sizes smaller than last year.

Like cleaning out a drawer, which led to another drawer, which led to an entire closet.

Like helping my aunt and uncle move from the home where she had also lived, a day filled with hard work, a few tears, and the bond that is shared through the experiences that shape our histories.

Like collapsing in front of the TV with home-delivered Chinese food the General Tso's chicken especially spicy joyfully stumbling across Masterpiece Theater's David Copperfield--all three-and-a-half hours' worth--and having a husband who recognizes your glee and agrees to putting off Kill Bill one more time, just for you.

Like waking up to what will surely be the last major snowstorm of the season and not really minding knowing I'll be in southern Utah later this week for a much-needed hike-in-the-desert-'til-I-drop fix.

Like putting in a hard day's work and gearing down to prepare myself for another on the 'morrow.

So that's me. What stuff is giving your life joy these days?

Delight in Being Aware

Photo Credit

I have lived on the same spot of land for 13 ½ years now. Mark and I moved into the little yellow house with a wrap-around porch a week after we got married. I had spent 4 ½ years in an apartment as a single mom of two little girls, Mark in a condo. We wanted a place with a yard, where the girls, then 9 and 6, could run and play and dig--and where we could establish ourselves as a family.

We reclaimed gardens, we put in a fence. We moved shrubs, we planted an aspen grove, we built a firepit. We raked the leaves, mowed the lawn, built arbors and garden structures, and installed bird feeders. We tore down inadequate decks and rebuilt them to suit our insatiable need for the outdoors.

When we are lucky, we still see an occasional pheasant in the front shrubs, or a fox steal across the road, or a deer in a nearby pasture. And we delight in the flocks of geese that fly overhead at dawn and dusk from August to November—and know that it will be a sad day indeed when they no longer come.

In the summertime, we live on the porch, moving from space to space as the sunlight shifts with the passing hours. In the winter, we live in the hot tub—the only place to comfortably watch the sunset turn from gold to pink to periwinkle in the shrinking twilight, the silhouettes of the giant cottonwood and the silo behind, sentinels to the coming of night.

Today I noticed that the mourning doves are back, wondering if they are yet preparing for another brood. The magpies squawk throughout winter and I will admit I hope they choose not to nest in our trees again this spring—the six babies we hosted two springs ago were raucous enough, though we will take our turn if the front pines prove suitable once again.

Soon, we will rejoice in the return of the robins, their hesitant babies nestled in a snug nest, tight in the crook of the blue spruce; and later we’ll see Fred and Betty the hummingbirds, flitting from the honeysuckle to the Rose of Sharon to the trumpet vine—our yard and garden being home to much more than a family, but to an entire system, knowing that the delight is in the awareness; being conscious that it is ever there.

While the House is Quiet

The house is quiet.

The refrigerator hums. The heater blows its warmth. The lights are low.

I yawn.

I'm thinking about Beccah who is starting a new program in a new school and a new job in a new place. Tomorrow. All in one day.

I'm thinking about Nicole, snug in her electric-blanketed bed in her sweet little studio apartment, glad that I will see her tomorrow evening for the first night of our class, Voluntary Simplicity.

Where we will also see Jennafer, and Andree, and we will learn some new things about life and the choices we make, all together.

And afterwards Mark and I will visit our friend who is hurting right now. And we will offer her our support, give her a hug, lend a hand, or maybe a shoulder.

And in that gesture we will wish we could see her, there at the house, like it always was. But we know that we can't do that right now, and that there's a chance we won't again. And we will wish that we could help her in the same way, because she's hurting, too. We care for her just as much.

But we will have to wait. Each needing different things from different people right now, but sending her our love through space and time, hoping that that very space and time will deliver her to happiness, whatever shape it takes.

I am missing her. Missing them and what might no longer be. And yet hoping for the best outcome, even if that is, for a time, what seems like the worst possible scenario.

Sending her my affection, my love, my concern.

While the house is quiet.