Gathering More Than Moss

Last week, I arrived for a forest yoga class - and in that chit chat with other practitioners that happens before class I shared that I recently become a certified Forest Bathing Guide. The collection of ladies cooed with their support. Everyone my age said, “Cool, now you need business cards." Everyone younger than me said, "Cool, now you need a QR Code." So I thought I'd splt the difference, dust off a blogspot habit I formed years ago, and create a space to share the journey I'm on with all of this.

Sunrise Service

I rolled over in bed this morning. The house was still cold. The muffled noise of my daughter sleeping from the other room. I stared up at the darkness. 

I breathed a quiet 'thank you' without anything specific in mind. Then I laid still and watched the sun come up slowly as if to say 'you're welcome'.

Swimming Upward

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert,

Late Fall

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”   -L.M. Montgomery

Exceeding Expectations

This was the first year that I took up the vegetable side of the garden. I planted everyone's cast offs. My mom had one too many pepper plants, the neighbor had a butternut squash with nowhere to go...garlic, broccoli all acquired the same way and tomatoes. Oh, it was a crazy, good year for tomatoes. My backyard was hot, humid and tomato-lucious all summer long.

I had so many tomatoes I couldn't eat all of them. I tried to offload a batch to the delivery guy from my favorite Chinese restaurant. He was polite about it but had to say no. Against company policy. So I stuck the whole lot of them into my slow-cooker over a late summer weekend. Boiled them down with oregano and garlic in an attempt to make marinara sauce. Jarred up the sauce and froze it in the deep freeze until our house had a hankering for lasagna last night. 

We boiled up noodles, thawed out the marinara, grated some cheese, stuck everything into the oven and gave it a go. Cooking is like that for me. Slap a whole bunch of stuff together, set it in the oven, and spend about thirty minutes just living on hope. The hope this particular collection of ingredients will turn out OK.

This one? This lasagna? OK, wow. I'm a lasagna lover but the homemade sauce kicked it up a notch or two. Dinner exceeded expectations.    

Morning Trail Run

Amherst, MA (3miles)

Peppered

I made use of the dry, warm weather today by planting thirty crocus bulbs. I looked then at the bare ground and tried to imagine it peppered in yellow and purple petals next spring.