Lazy Sunday and a Sense of Place

Yesterday was warm, sunny, wonderful. Olympia, Washington is the greatest place in the world to build anticipation and appreciation of warm sunny days. We have months of drizzle. The summer though has months of sun and beauty - the jewel in the crown of creation. I'd rather be in Olympia during the dry time.

Sometimes I daydream about living in Arizona in the winter, but then I think not. I'm beginning to see the loveliness of being in one place, and travel isn't as attractive to me as building beauty and connections here. I went on a tour of energy efficient houses last year, and one of the stops was at the home of a landscape architect who had built using straw bales.

I want to spend my time and money on loveliness and neighborliness here. I want to stop wishing I lived in Vermont or Montana or West Virginia and live here. That's a hard, hard task, though, since I love to daydream of living on more land where it would be possible to ride my donkey without having to trailer somewhere all the time!

The economy is a worry. I want to spend time and money on our infrastructure - boots that last, jeans (made in America), a hand pump for the well, fruit and nut trees, the garden.

The biggest worry I have is for water for ourselves and our donkeys. When the electricity goes out, I need a way of getting water out of the well. Generators are nice, but they depend on gasoline. If ethanol works out, all the better, but I think we have a good chance of disruption somewhere between gas runs out and ethanol supplies MILLIONS of us.

Aw, but it's Sunday. Time to go out and play with the donkeys. Everyone wants attention!

Relax and have fun!

Auriel

Cain's Mistake

I wanted to write about Cain's mistake. What an awful feeling it is to try really hard to please and be ignored, while someone else gets attention and all that wonderful affirmation!

Tempting to get angry, morose, unhappy. Better to do a little creative ignoring and find someone who does appreciate you. I ended up raising donkeys and taking fiddle lessons (you cannot believe how much fun this is!).

When you only receive affirmation all the time, it's too easy to get a big head about it and ignore other people's needs. It gets very, very old to hear how wonderful so and so is, and what they did this time, and what they're going to do that's so much better, all the while crumming on someone.

So don't be sad if you are not being inflated with vain flattery. Eat a little chocolate and go have a laugh with friends. They appreciate you in a real way, anyway. And no, I don't have anything brilliant to say about Cain and God - I don't understand that story very much, except that if you are disappointed, don't do bad things. Actually, the level fastest way to get over a disappointment is to go do something nice for someone!

There you go,

Enjoy Spring!

Auriel