Bikes and Blooms and contradictions

  Recently I got myself a new ride.  My old bike was a faithful friend.  It's been with me from Canada to the gulf coast and I hate to get rid of it, but it was starting to show it's age.  My new bike is a commuter friendly trek.  I've ridden it to work for the last two days and loved every minute of it.  You see I'm a practical person and,  it feels so much more right to me to use my muscles and energy for something useful like commuting.  The gym will always seem artificial to me.  Let me haul some mulch or garden any day to burn calories.  Anyway my new ride has a basket and a light and I'm so proud.  I can't wait to take it camping soon.

       This spring has just been unusually early and extra pretty.  The azaelas and dogwoods have been gorgeous. (My new white azaelas have bloomed this spring)   I have some beautiful wisteria and lilacs. My new buckeye tree bloomed.   I love growing flowers.  This goes against my above practical nature but I have gotten over it. My husband can grow food- I put my efforts into flowers.  I felt guilty for just a little while.  I have really enjoyed my flowers this spring.

Spring Anniversary

   I spent the most gorgeous day yesterday outside weeding and gardening.  My wonderful husband of 26 years (as of yesterday)  worked outside also redoing the chicken house.  The hens clucked all around us approving of the work while the dogs and cats lazed around in the sun.  I have lilacs on the kitchen table, all the fruit trees, azaelas, and dogwoods are in bloom and the wisteria is budding out.  It's been such a mild winter, which might make the spring less beautiful, but it hasn't.  They grass has been cut and it was just one of those perfect days.  There is alot of work in front of us, which sometimes makes spring less than enjoyable to me, but not yesterday.  It was a gorgeous day.

     We have had chickens for 4-5 years now and like anything else after some time doing something you discover better ways to do that thing.  So my husband pulled the chicken house out and cleaned it up.  We had put a screen floor in it thinking the chicken manure would fall through.  That didn't happen and it was hard to muck it out.  So now the house has a wood floor and built in nest boxes that can be accessed from a part of the house that chickens can't get into.  So we'll  have a place to store their food and hopefully won't get chicken poo on our shoes when gathering eggs.  I think we'll paint it and maybe call it the hen hilton.  The ladies are obviously missing their house since a few hens have taken to daily inspections and lay their eggs in the new nest boxes while my husband works around them. 
    After our day of work, we went to Doe's one of my favorite places to eat steak last night and then to the movies in Paducah.  It was a wonderful day of celebration and thankfulness for 26 years together.

Ash Wednesday

    Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.  I attended service last night and recieved the ashes on my forehead.  It is a powerful service and humbling to remember our mortality.  A reading from Isaiah 58:1-12  included the verse about being like a watered garden.  This will happen for us when we feed the hungry, do justice and bring the homeless into your house.  Fasting and wearing sackcloth will serve only our own interest, according to Isaiah, which is interesting to hear.  Growing up Catholic, Lent was always a big production.  We tended to give up something, usually in a food category.  In the Episcopal church Lent is less emphasized, which is a relief.  Discipline is important to our spiritual life, physical well being, and work life.  But discipline comes from with in and should be encouraged, not legislated.  I am still pondering a spiritual discipline that would be appropriate for this Lent.  It's hard not to think in terms of food about discipline. but I am trying to expand my options.

Memphis the Musical

  Back in October me, my two sisters and two daughters went to see Memphis the musical in Memphis.  I kind of talked my sister into getting us tickets, not really knowing much about the show or what we were getting into.  I was blown away by it.  Maybe since I grew up in Memphis, I had a connection that not everyone would.  But I loved the music, the story line, the actors,  everything about it.  I've played the music over and over.  The previous October we all saw Wicked and we  agreed that Memphis was much better. 
I haven't heard alot of hype about the show but we all loved it and can vouch for it.  If you get a chance it's worth seeing.    

Basketball

  I love this time of year.  It's basketball season and it's a great to live in KY.  It wasn't always like this for me though.  I grew up in TN and football was king.  We made the trek to Neyland stadium on saturday more than once.  But in 1995 we moved to KY.  As we looked for houses, I noticed that people did not just have one basketball goal-they would have two making a court.  Soon after moving here, UK won the NCAA championship.  It got me hooked.  I found I loved watching basketball.  It's so fun when you have a winning team to follow. Everyone around me is watching basketball too.  Right now is a great time to follow basketball in KY.  Murray state has an 18-0 record and UK  has a winning team too.  We're still a month away from march madness.

New Year's Cleaning

  Something about a new year puts me in the cleaning mood.  No spring cleaning for me, it's out with the old and in with the new for 2012.  As I'm putting up Christmas, I'm organizing and tossing.What good is it to have stuff if you can't find it when you need it?   I open a drawer or a file and I'm contemplating what can be tossed.  I still have a file folder marked school which contains old school reports and act scores and kats test scores for my kids- which are 25 and 21 now.  Just tonight I went through a container of dress up clothes the kids had.  There was alot of potential in that container, so it got reorganized.  I keep looking around and wondering why do we have all this stuff?  I know we could live just fine with alot less.  I took a box to the Habitat restore last week and my yard sale box is full again.  I have a closet of clothes to take to the consignment store.  I haven't even really started on the papers yet.  The end of the year is a great time to organize those financial papers and get rid of everything except the year end summary.  It's good to be in this mood.  I feel productive.  I wish it lasted longer than January though.  Unfortunately this mood can be compared to all the people that show up at the health clubs in January.  This cleaning and tossing can be a mood driven activity.  I wish I knew how to sustain it.

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas

      This past week we travelled to Memphis and visited family and exchanged presents.  I came home to a Christmas party at work.  Today at church we had a wonderful sunday school and celebrated the last sunday of advent with the children's pagent.  After church, I baked cookies and listened to Christmas music.  Our tree is up and decorated.  Tommorrow I'm visiting my old workplace to bring them some Christmas cheer.  I just feel great, even though I'm not completely done with the shopping.  I think church, visiting with family and friends and the music are my favorite parts of Christmas.