Well, I started off well on my first 80 day challenge, but let stress and life stuff get in the way of creating a better, more healthy me over the last 30 days or so. Now we are on day 50. The great thing about life, is that each day is a new day. Each day is a day to start over fresh if you want to. Even if you make a lot of mistakes one day or for a whole week, or a whole month or a number of years, each day you can wake up and know that you can start right from where you are and begin anew. You don't have to wait for something to happen or some event to transpire, the change we seek is within ourselves, the power to choose is a gift we are born with, the great gift of God, and you can choose at any moment to change your direction. Even if it is one you have been headed in for years.
So it starts with a breath. A decision to take one step in a better direction. A choice to choose peace over retaliation. A choice to choose a healthy breakfast over a non-healthy breakfast. A choice to reach out to in prayer and rely on the Source of all creation or to keep depending only on ourselves and stay disconnected. A choice to speak a word in love to a family member or to speak out in frustration or anger. A choice to follow the calling of our hearts or to stick to the "safe" road that we are on.
Today is a new day. I have new neighbors living in the other half of the house now. I can no longer pretend I have a house to myself as with the other half of the duplex rented, I have to actually keep the kids toys and such out of the way, tie the dog on a cable when I let her out (she is used to having full run of the yard, but she is unpredictable around strangers and other dogs, and is very barky, so I have to keep her tied out my end of the house), and actually have to make sure I am not in front of a window when changing my clothes as I am so used to just flipping my shirt off and putting my pajamas on wherever, but that might be a shocker to my neighbors. What is the good of living in the very rural mountains if you have neighbors right on top of you? :)
I have been dong a lot of research on starting a small farm. I grew up on a small farm, and would love to have a small organic farm with pasture poultry for my children and myself, and sell some of the produce and eggs as well as using them for my family. I have often looked into this over the years, and as I get older (I know 36 is not old, and that is exactly my point, why wait until you are too old) the desire to be living on my farm grows daily. When I lived in the Ithaca area I looked a a couple of hobby farms, but at the time I did not want to commit the resources. Now I am not in a good financial place to do anything, and not in a good area to make money to get out of my financial pickle to begin pursing my dream of a farm. But I decided rather than look at what I can not do right now, I can take time to look at what I CAN do, and what I CAN do is learn, read, study, and prepare myself for the day when I will start farming myself. I have spent a lot of time in agriculture. I grew up on a small family organic farm (no pesticides or chemicals--unofficially organic). I studied biology in college. I worked in two different agricultural research lab groups at Cornell. I volunteered for 7 months at a demonstration sustainable outreach farm in Florida, bridging the gap between research directors. I even had a small backyard garden and apple trees in my house down near Ithaca before I moved back up here.
Ask and it is given...
I seek a farm, a place to raise cage free chickens, grow vegetables, and have some fruit trees. An opportunity to allow my family to get back to the basics as I grew up. A way to share both what we grow and what we learn with others through farmers markets and offering educational demonstrations on the farm. A chance to learn and grow as a farmer, an environmentally conscious person, and a spiritual being.
That is where my focus has been for quite a while.
The basics of my day today. I enjoyed a long and joy filled walk and walking meditation around the pond today--5 laps. The number of people walking around the pond is increasing as the weather improves. I enjoyed my time at the library, studying farming stuff and seeking new writing assignments. I enjoyed the wonderful report for both boys today, that they had very good days at their schools. I had a small breakfast sandwich this morning with a cup of coffee. I had yogurt with oatmeal for lunch, and a small bag of popcorn. And lot of water. I also had some grape pomegranate juice. I had toast with PB for a snack when we got home. I made a nice meat and bean chili for dinner, which we had with a slice of bread and butter, and water to drink. I had seconds too. I ate some jelly beans in there somewhere too...
I am going to go to bed here pretty soon. I have some cleaning that I need to do tomorrow while the kids are at school for a one time job (did some yesterday, will do some a couple of days this week--at a retirement home, some spring cleaning of hallways, windows,yard clean up, etc...), which is good as every little bit of $$ helps. I hope to write again everyday...see you tomorrow!
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