If Laura Ingalls and Martha Stewart could somehow have a bastard love child, that love child would be me.
What did I accomplish today? Grape jam and peach butter. And some splatter burns from the goo boiling down. Note to Self: Next time we make preserves invest in asbestos gloves and ask for hazard pay. Getting splatted with hot jam is no fun. It was like having delicious, purple lava erupting out of a stock pot volcano!
Joking aside I really like to can foods, especially food that I grew. The concord grapes were from my vine. My sister picked up peaches from a roadside stand. Last year I made salsa and spaghetti sauce. I've also made pickles and canned tomatoes and peaches in the past. My ultimate, long term goal in life is to have a piece of property, a farmette perhaps, with a big garden, fruit trees, different kinds of grape vines, chickens, maybe some sugar maples and grow and put up food for winter. Sell some if it for a little extra income, as well. It's a lot of work but worth it. I know what I'm eating, I know what was NOT sprayed on it. And we could have harvest parties! Ohhh, that would be fun....spend the day canning and preserving and baking and then BBQ in the evening with family and friends. Sounds like a good time to me but then again it's already been established that I was born in the wrong century.
Since I started this 120 day task 3 whopping days ago I have tried to redefine my idea of Abundance. Abundance isn't necessarily financial. Money is just a tangible form of the energy we use to attract situations and things into our lives. I am trying to keep a deliberate reign on how I think about situations. I am reading an interesting book (rereading, actually) called The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent: Living the Art of Allowing by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Today, before I sat down to write this post, I read a statement that said the following:
"Some are beginning to acknowledge: You get what you think about. But we would like to clarify this statement further by saying: You get what you feel about what you think about." (p. 28)
I can now step away enough to see that I have operated under a negative mindset that sounds something like, "Oh my God, I don't have enough. I need more money. I can't spend anything because I don't know if I can get more in time. I can't afford that." It's horribly depressing. It's a genetic-environmental trait, it's what I've heard my whole life and what I have experienced. Did I develop a reinforced ideal about lack and poverty by circumstance or did the negativity of the potential circumstance reeling through the mind in some way create the series of negative experiences? If there are a whole household of pissy, depressed, broke-a$$ people all thinking the same funky thoughts, what chance does hope have to shine and grow? Even if you don't personally subscribe to the Law of Attraction we could all agree, at the very least, that if people are fully entrenched in that mindset they will not be able to see or be willing to acknowledge that it's probably not as bad as they think it is. When you are busy being mad, you miss a lot of the good. Or the good that comes doesn't seem good enough.
So I'm trying to focus my thoughts on feeling good about what I have and excited about what is to come, even though I have no idea what may be coming. And it works! ::GASP!!:: Yesterday my sister called me to say that a friend of ours wouldn't be able to use her 3 sons' Renaissance Faire tickets they earned from the Summer Reading Program. So she gave them to my sister so we could take OUR kids to the Faire on Monday. As if that wasn't awesome enough, this friend also said she saw a BOGO coupon for adult tickets. I searched online for it, I posted on FB about it, I even went to the Turkey Hills in town to ask if they still had RenFaire coupons. No luck. I thought, "Oh well, it's still cool we can get the kids in free. Maybe a coupon will turn up." Sis called me back again tonight after we had spent the day canning together to tell me, hold onto your butts, she already had the BOGO coupon in her desk. She picked it up at a Hess station months ago and forgot about it until she got home. We are taking 5 people into the RenFaire for the price of 1 person. Put that checkbook away, there's more! My dad got a chunk o'change he'd been waiting on and said he's giving us some money to spend while we're there. I'm so freakin excited I can't even begin to tell you. I love love love the Ren Faire. Yeah, I'm a geek like that. I always feel more alive and alert after I've been to a place like that. It's art and music and history and artisan crafts people and everyone is there because they want to be there which makes the energy more interesting. I would like to eventually be a vendor there, or at least for the Celtic Fling, but I need to do some fine tuning on my business and product line before that happens. I want to have a business that distinguishes itself from the other spa product makers and environmental eco-crafters. I want people to walk away from my booth inspired and excited to encounter us again. I need to go for a long walk tomorrow or Sunday and ponder that thought. I always seem to think better after about 3 miles of walking through woods and rocks and crops and trees. Once my body is fully on 'right foot left foot' autopilot my brain is free to think and wander and careen at will.
**I also want to get a stand at the Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farms in York this Spring, so everyone, please put your collective 'good vibes' into that for me. Thanks!
And to top it all off, my latest DVDs from Netflix arrived today and it included a special anniversary edition of The Vicar of Dibly, my favorite Britcom of all time, and they are episodes I've never seen before. Awesome.
I am also thinking (yes already) about Christmas. I mention it because it falls in line with the way I personally think about Abundance and gifting. I don't have to give anyone anything. I don't expect them to give me anything. We generally get toys for the kids and bring a covered dish and just enjoy a reason to sit down and eat (which is a whole other post or 2 in and of itself). But this year, since I'm throwing down and making the Quantum Leap, I might as well do it up right. I want to figure out a way to make/acquire heartfelt gifts for family and friends without spending a small fortune. Not because I have to but because I want to and, quite frankly, I have the time on my hands for it!
Question is...do you guys care? Shall I blog my projects and instructions? I don't know if I can attach pages to this blog or if I have to start a whole other blog but if everyone is interested I can ask a friend....LEIGH ANNNNNN!!! HEEEELLLPPP!! lol
Sara Smile
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