Posts Tagged ‘winter’
« Older Entries |finally, some winter weather in new hampshire
Friday, January 13th, 2012
It has been a blustery, cold, icy, snowy, gray last few days. We finally got more than a dusting of snow here in southern New Hampshire. Granted, we only got a few inches of snow, but it is rare and strange for it be mid-January and for there to be so little accumulation on the ground. Our last snow of note was in October, when we had that crazy storm that dropped 10″ right before Halloween and caused massive power outages and tons of downed trees and limbs. Since then, the weather has been uncharacteristically mild.
So I permitted myself to get a little giddy about some snow and ice. And I used it as an opportunity to snap some pics…. with our NEW CAMERA…. finally…. yeah! Happy Winter!
The garden beds are sleeping soundly.
It’s a little bit slippery out there.
And of course the plow missed the end of our driveway by several feet. Time to shovel!
Tags: gratitude, winter
Posted in The Daily Balance | 1 Comment »
goodbye winter
Saturday, March 19th, 2011
Hello! I know my posts have been infrequent lately. I have been consumed with spending time sleeping and running and devoting myself to wellness over the past month.
Winter just seemed like the right time to make wellness a priority in my life. I am a work in progress, as we all are. I have written rather extensively about my propensity for working a lot and getting caught up in a vicious cycle of working late and staying up late and focusing outwardly. I have come to realize that I am very good at avoiding being present in my body. Avoiding uncomfortable feelings. Running away from anxiety.
But where is it getting me? Nowhere, really. It’s a cycle that just goes and goes and doesn’t lend itself to progress or nurturing.
And what I have come to understand is that nurturing is tough work. But good work—the real work. We need to nurture ourselves. And I need to nurture me, foster goodness and love in ME. Especially if I plan to become a parent.
This discovery seems so simple, and yet it has taken me a long while to really wrap my head around it. Every day is a new opportunity to be good to myself. Every day I owe it to myself to commit to being gentle to my body and mind. Nourishing. Forgiving. Urgent. Loving. Progressive. Patient. Nudging.
It’s a dance. A delicate balance.
And not every day goes smoothly. But I am doing the work. My hope is that it gets easier with practice, and that my good habits become second nature.
I can so easily be thrown off course by a bad work day, a conversation, a wayward feeling, a wave of anxiety or doubt. But I am learning to embrace these sometimes uncomfortable, ambivalent feelings. To exist in total, utter shades of gray. It’s been difficult, and yet, transformative.
It’s not this gigantic epiphany, more of a building. A resonance of how the next chapters of my life are meant to unfold. And while this learning has been ongoing over the last several months, the clarity really came during Winter. Winter allowed me to slow down and focus. And process. And heal. And dream.
So, goodbye Winter. You have been so good to me this year. I am ever so grateful for all that you have given me and what I am learning because of this time.
To cap it all off, today/tonight I am babysitting my 18-month old nephew. It was such a wonderful day hanging out with the bug. He brings me such raw joy, it is amazing.
Playing with a finger puppets Old MacDonald Had a Farm book.
Reading a baby sign language book
Just about nap time. Ready to snuggle.
If you are ever in need of renewal or affirmation, hang out with a toddler. It helps. My nephew is simply delightful. Happy, inquisitive, peaceful… such a healthy reminder of what we are all capable of and striving for.
Tags: gratitude, laughter therapy, winter
Posted in The Daily Balance | No Comments »
yeah for aloe!
Monday, March 7th, 2011
I am a huge fan of aloe plants. I have 8 of them, and most have grown from parent/baby aloe plants.
Aloe is very easy to grow because it requires very little water. Give aloe some generous sun, and be sure to root the plants deep in soil (they are top-heavy and will vomit themselves right out of their pots if not buried deep enough in soil).
We use aloe for all things skin-ailing. Got dry skin? Use the “gel” from aloe. Got a blemish or scrape or sore? Aloe to the rescue. Aloe works wonders.
And because it is such a forgiving, easy-to-grow plant, it’s very convenient to keep aloe on hand. And given the right conditions, it will grow babies. Like mad.
Aloe LOVES to reproduce.
My oldest aloe plant, however, was a stalwart. I had had this particular aloe plant for 8 years and it was doing its own slow growth thing. But then I started feeding it leftover coffee. Mostly for fun, but also because I had read that feeding plants leftover coffee was good for their soil ecosystems.
And watch out.
Last January I posted that my very old aloe finally had babies.
It took me a long while to realize the connection between coffee feedings and reproductive growth. And since January 2010, I have dumped many an extra cup of coffee on my grandma aloe plant.
Fast forward to present day March 2011:
Yikes.
The aloe are multiplying.
Tags: gratitude, house plants, laughter therapy, winter
Posted in The Growing Season | No Comments »
prelude to spring
Sunday, March 6th, 2011
The funny part about Winter for me is that after a while I stop paying attention to the weather forecast. Hmm… let’s see… cold. Dreary. Chance of snow. Yeah, I get it.
So imagine my surprise when I woke up on Saturday morning and bounded outside to get the mail, and it was surprisingly MILD out. Better than mild, it was above 50°F! Hellllllllloooooooo March! You made it!
Holy crap, it was AWESOME out all weekend. Granted it rained on and off all day today, but to have honest to goodness not FREEZING temps? Yes, please.
Craig and I danced around the house, daring to open windows and rid our little abode of the stale winter air.
It felt so amazing to get a breeze going in our house, to air everything out, and let the tiny bit of semi-warmth in. All day on Saturday, we could hear the steady stream of water moving up above in the gutters along the roof. We could see the steady stream of water flowing at the end of the driveway draining from the snowbank mountains on each side.
I went to bed figuring that it was a one-day fluke, but when I woke up today, it was warm out again! And overnight, incredible melting occurred. Within 24 hours, the multiple feet of snow was gone from our front garden.
Literally two days earlier I was lamenting the fact that at the same time last year, the snow was cleared away. And then just like that, Mother Nature got on the ball! Snow gone!
So of course I had to run out to the front garden and see what was going on. And lo and behold…
Beginnings of mums!
Beginnings of seedum!
Some sort of spring shoots. What will it be?
So very thrilling. So worth the wait. And just what we needed. A little nudge, a little reminder that Spring is on schedule!
Tags: gardening, gratitude, spring, winter
Posted in The Growing Season | No Comments »
sweet sleep, how i love thee
Friday, March 4th, 2011
I know this isn’t rocket science. But… wait for it…
Getting more sleep makes you feel better.
I know, I know. Thank you. It’s astonishing. It’s profound. Genius.
How do I know this to be true? Because like an idiot, I have been depriving myself of sleep for months on end, tricking myself into staying up way later than I should.
Slowly over the course of the last 2 months, I have been working back up to getting the proper amount of sleep. All week long I’ve been averaging 7 hours of sleep a night, and I have just felt really GOOD. Firing on all cylinders.
But along came last night and I messed up. I goofed. I fell asleep after work and slept until midnight. Then I made the mistake of getting up to brush my teeth and get my things ready for work the next day.
I was back to bed about a half hour later, but then I was wide awake. I couldn’t for the life of me fall back asleep. I lay on my left side, I lay on my back, I lay on my right side. I turned over my pillow. I stretched and flexed my legs. Nothing worked.
I did fall asleep eventually, but it was at least a few hours later. And today I am kicking myself for throwing my sleep routine off. I think I only got 4 hours of real sleep in one stretch. So today I am tired.
It is so easy to give into sleep when it’s not “time.” In fact, I made a habit of doing that all last winter. But not this year! Usually when I am feeling tired after work, I force myself to go for a run and I definitely perk up after. Let this be a reminder to stick to that routine instead of doing the whole, “I’ll just curl up on the bed for a few minutes.”
It’s never for just a few minutes.
Tags: alone time, running, winter, winter hibernation
Posted in The Daily Balance | 2 Comments »