The Transitional Inch Worm - Photos!

Yay, pictures!!

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Smiling and right atcha service Ma'am!

 Isn't she just the cutest little worm? I wish I could capture her in action better. In real life there's more blue to her green (about the color of this type), but she is also hard shiny plastic, and hard shiny plastic creates a glare when flashed upon, and I had to tweak the photos a bit so you could see the detail.

And now to wind her up so I can transition to work!

Birthday Reading, Relaxation, Transitional Inch Worms & Other Random Stuff

Birthday Tarot Reading
 
My birthday always feels like my own personal New Year's Day holiday - a day for me to think about the outgoing year, the upcoming year, my hopes/dream/wishes and design/dream/plan a pathway through it all.  I decided to get a reading with Margaret Ruth for my birthday (again) to assist in this processing. MR assisted me with a traditional tarot card reading, asking my guides/angels/committee about what I needed to do for what comes next in my life. And the answer was, RELAX. Chill. Enjoy. Be happy. How awesome of an answer is that?! Seems this answer is also something I've been exploring for awhile (see here and here) and I like getting reinforcement from my spiritual helpers.

MR mentioned that my guides said I was blocking their answers. That feels true to me - I have a tendency to resist relaxation. However, I have found that when I try to force myself to do stuff, my body will resist me by getting sick or exhausted. I when I try to force myself to relax when there's real work to be done, my body will resist me by going into anxiety overload. When I do what is needful (i.e. don't resist doing things when things really do need doing, don't resist resting when resting is needed) and keep breathing through it all, my life works and I don't get sick all the time. (Ever so not-surprisingly, the guides also mentioned that if I would keep with the relax motto my health would improve.) So, there you have it: The Plan for the Year - Relax. Which leads me to my next topic . . .

Relaxation

I am not particularly skilled at relaxing. As I mentioned above, I have this habit of worrying my way through rest so that my "resting" time isn't actually restful. I've been learning for the past year various ways to actually engage the relaxation response and turn off my brain when I'm relaxing. Sometimes, if thoughts keep interrupting my rest, I just have to get up and do whatever is bugging me, and then I can relax. Other time, I have to just accept the worrying as a part of my brain without clicking into that frantic-worry-space in my head. I've also realized that I have to make space for relaxing - mark that I am moving from "productive" space to "creative" space, if you will.  Which leads me to my next topic . . .


Inch Worms 

So the transitional inch worm is a little wind-up toy I got at the Discovery Gateway store. Whenever I've feeling like I'm stuck in a place and need some help inching out of it, I wind it up. She then scoots along the table merrily, helping me release my attachment to the task that is done already, and onto whatever needs attention next. Havi inspired this idea.

Random Stuff

• Looking for a particular book discussed on 3 Quarks Daily I found a new book to be published by OSC, Pathfinder. At first glance, it looks like the kind of book I like to read by Mr. Card - realistic people with magical abilities attempting to make their way through a charged moral universe. What a nice little bit of accidental findings.

• Going on a gentle, ride-around-the-park-twice, bike ride with the kids was sweet and wonderful. The best part was just doing it instead of putting it off, putting it off, then it starts raining and not doing it.

Now I am going to just do the thing that keeps popping in my head.

The "it's been a few months, perhaps I should write something" post

Two posts and several months ago, I blamed my lack of writing on a busy schedule of judgifying (no that's not really a word) and teachifying (ditto). Apparently my lack of writing is due to something else. I now blame sunshine, hiking, and lazy evenings sipping wine on the patio with Dr. C. Ahh, summer. Isn't it just AWESOME!

I have written a few blog posts in my head this summer, mostly as I'm biking home from work. Then I remind myself to enjoy the ride, the sunshine, the trees, the mountains . . . and I forget what I was going to blog about. Oh well!

I was re-reading my post about my 2009 intentions and realized I have not really changed my intentions much. This one got to me:

So, my biggest intention this year is to simply be with whatever my feelings are and not try to force myself into some half-formed ideal.

Still working on this, think I will be for a long time. I noticed when I went to my 20-year high school reunion last night that I was doing some of the forced-feeling thing. Not in the "wow I am so happy to see you (not)" way but in the "I don't care if anyone notices how fat and unstylish I am" way. Only after I gave up on all that did things get fun. Big surprise there, eh? And I realized this morning how, well, nervous I was and that I acted all weird trying to hide my nervousness from myself. What a colossal waste of time. On the other hand, nervousness got me to paint my toenails a delicious shade of teal.

Some of the things we planted didn't survive, like the Coral Canyon Twinspur, the thyme, the various stonecrops, flox and sedums (I just did not water them enough), a couple of the newest penstemons. There's one corner of the front walk that's really hard on plants. The walk also faces west, so it gets intense sun in the afternoon. The shrubs are growing very slowly - we hope they are building good root systems.

As for the food plants: the tomatoes have really taken off, as have our berry canes. The corn is tiny and most of the broccoli has been more bitter than it should be. Good greens and herbs. We have both intentional and volunteer squashes. We have no insect pest problems because there is a flock of about two-dozen quail who nest in the old pheasant cages next door. They swoop into the garden every morning and eat all the bugs. (They also enjoy baby plants - that was an adventure.) After the fall harvest, we intend to till everything we can and sow a late soil-building crop. Year by year the land will get better and produce more, we hope. We also need to do more tree pruning, to let some light in.

You might have noticed that I changed the layout of the blog. I thought that having the rain motif might encourage the monsoon season to, you know, create some actual rain. I also created better links to some cool blogs. I will hopefully be updating my reading lists soon.

Well, I think that's sufficient updatey-ness. Hope you are also enjoying your summer!