Life is too short

I stumbled across this on the Facebook page of The Prairie Homestead, and it rang particularly true this morning. I was thinking something pretty similar as I struggled to run fifteen feet farther than yesterday.


How many times do we sit back and lament, waiting for a change; but unwilling to take the necessary steps to make it happen? I know I do it, and I'm sure you do too. I think everyone does in some aspect of their life, whether it is personal or professional: wanting a different kind of love, a different kind of life, or even in my particular early morning experience a different kind of body.


Yeah, how sad is it that for me, it was easier to overhaul my personal relationships and my career than it is to convince myself that I CAN run.


I have never been athletic. I have never thought that I could be athletic. In my brain I have always perceived the girls that ran (or exercised for that matter) for fun as "insane," "crazy," and maybe even "narcissistic." Never have I identified with them. I made up words and descriptions to make it less appealing, to make me feel superior, to validate my never running a consecutive mile in my whole life. To make excuses for not even trying.


I saw images of runners, with their long lean frames and stared at my frumpy self in the mirror chanting: "That can never be me. I don't look like that. Look at my belly, butt, and thighs. The damned things practically bounce off when I jog ten feet. I could never run. I can't do that."


And I never even tried...


Until a month ago.


You may recall a few weeks ago I referenced a conversation that drunk me had with Captain America where I told him my *actual* weight loss goals, and I ended the post with something about lacing up running shoes. Yes. Running shoes. It was a big step. It meant changing everything that I had ingrained in my own head about who I was. Sad as I am to admit it, not running DEFINED me and I didn't even know it until I made a haphazard blog post.


I started running that next morning. I drug myself up an extra hour early and headed out the door. I made it about forty feet before I was heaving and my sight was blurry. I walked the rest of the mile. The next day I made it fifty before I started walking. Susan, my dog with a horrible deviated septum, kept me company. Somehow running next to her as she wheezed like a creeper peeping into a woman's window helped. If she could do it, I could; I can.


The same things kept playing over in my head, day after day. This wasn't me! I didn't run! What was I doing? Who was I kidding? I couldn't do this. I should just go back to bed.


At the end of week two, and a quarter mile of consecutive run time, I actually stopped being wrapped up in my thoughts long enough to realize what my ego was saying to me. I started to argue back. Why couldn't it be me? Why couldn't I be a runner, or fit, or pretty? Why did I have to stay in the comfortable little scholar bowl mold that I had made myself in high school? That wasn't me. I wasn't that limited. I am not that limited. I can be anything. Hell, I already am more than that. Why not add runner to the damned list? Why not?!


Yes. I got pissed off at my own ego tamping me down. And you know what? It felt good.


We all have something that holds us back. Maybe yours isn't changing a deeply held belief about yourself, maybe it is wanting a new type of love, a satisfying career, a new lifestyle, or anything else under the sun; but don't give up on yourself. Don't let that damned voice in your head win. Get pissed. Trust me, you owe it to yourself.


Go out there and get that something you've never had. It feels good to change it up. 


Just not always at six-thirty in the morning after running 3/4 of a mile. That still sucks sometimes. But at seven? Man, it feels great. ;)

Life

I am exhausted. I am energized. I am up at 6 starting a load of laundry, pulling weeds and picking tomatoes. I am late to work because I get distracted by the bees meandering around my mint plants and my perfect moment of joy, being in tune with the universe, makes me not care one bit. I take a break to have breakfast with my grandpa and tell him about my day so far. We talk about his childhood and how much quieter things were when all he had to worry about was whether or not the harness was mended. I revel in being a part of his story. I am home at lunch with the dryer going, dusting counter tops, vacuuming my floor, chopping watermelon to throw in the food dehydrator with one hand and eating a sandwich with the other. After work I’m on the mower at my grandpa’s for two and a half hours before coming straight home to hop on a different mower to mow around paddocks until dark and then feed horses and chickens and stumble up the driveway under the most brilliant moon I have ever seen to take a quick shower and grab dinner before I turn around to finish up watering the horses to the sound of a tree frog chorus. Then it is home again to chop tomatoes and chat with my loved ones for an hour or two before falling blissfully exhausted into bed and waking up to start in again.

This is my life, and it is perfect.

Barnyard Tales Chapter 6. Death Wish

Have you ever pictured the great moments in your life as if they were in a book?

“The weathered barn wood slipped past her fingertips. The texture immortalized itself in her memory even as the sensation flew past. It was gone in a moment, but that moment lasted forever. The sensation of hand hewn wood would be with her forever; always drifting right past the ridges and whorls, always right out of reach. Her body turned with the effort of reaching for the wood. One leg struck a board catapulting her sideways; saving her life.

Milliseconds to outsiders felt like slow motion to her. Every sense was alive. The air rushing past her face. The delicate sensation of her foot slamming into oak and sending her shoe flying helter skelter. The hard shove of a stair upon her back and the finality of her concrete bed as she gazed up towards the heavens from whence she had come.

The girl was dazed, confused. She stared towards heaven wondering that she was alive. Golden straw peaked around the edges of the gaping space. Like a gilt picture frame on her demise. Pain was distant then; but the longer she lay the more her muscles cried out in agony, the stronger came her bodies cry. Soon it would be insistent. Soon she would not be able to ignore the call. The girl debated lying there longer. But who would come? Who would hear her pleas and cries?

No one. She was destined to be her own white knight. She rose, shakily at first, but more confident with each passing second. Rough barn wood was again beneath her fingers and hands she levered herself up and slowly climbed the stairs. Her jeans were ripped. Her body torn. Her eyes swam with concussive force.

Slowly she walked towards the house. Slowly she climbed the stairs. Slowly she entered and stoically she took what came.”

Actually, no, she didn’t take that stoically. As soon as I told my mother that I had fallen through the barn loft it went something like this:

Mom: “Are you okay?”

Me: “Yeah, I think so.”

Mom: “Is anything broken? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Me: “I don’t think so.”

Mom: “Well, that was stupid. You won’t do that again will you? I told you to be careful up there. Now get your ass back outside and finish feeding the horses.”

And then I cried. Not the pretty stately crying, but the "is that girl sobbing or beating a dying moose to death with a sick eagle" kind of crying. Because I make a sucky heroine. But I did go find my shoe and finish feeding the horses. And I did become really sensitive to falling off of things, like straw bales, in barn lofts, when there are access holes cut in the floor that lead directly to the barn basement. Because, I LEARN.

Except, maybe not because I fell through another barn just last year. Damn. I really am a sucky heroine. I'm like, hand me the flashlight and let me take a shower by myself in the haunted house with a lightning storm. Nothing bad will happen this time. Really! As much as I go into run down barns it is apparent. Clearly I have a death wish.

An amusing side note: I also only landed one half of my body on the step and I got a hematoma the size of a softball on one side of my butt. My parents both thought it was hilarious to say, “Only Lauren could fall through a barn and do a half assed job. It would have killed anyone else.” *snicker, snicker*

They’re so sympathetic.

Why choose a rural life?

Why garden? Why farm? Why create a life for yourself that is full of work?

It isn’t for everyone. God, I know that one. Heck, there are many times that I recall having to cancel my plans to get hay up and off the field or get up early after a night on the town that I wondered my about sanity and if this lifestyle was for me! I am a pretty intelligent girl. I have the kind of resume that could get me a job in the city with all the posh accoutrements I could desire. So why limit myself? Why restrain myself to one geographic area when the world is at my fingertips? Why choose a life of non-stop work over a life of relatively easy reward?

Love. I love the farm. I love the land. I love the animals. The joy I get from watching a bud pop up out of the ground, a kitten’s first faltering footsteps as he begins venturing out under their mama’s watchful eye, or a newborn calf romp and play in the sun is unparalleled by anything else I have witnessed. A walk in the woods after a spring rain puts all of the art in the Louvre to shame. There is something special about that brilliant sunlight scintillating off of deep green moss that pops off the water stained wood. Everything is in stark golden contrast and the colors are so vivid that they sing to your soul. Oil paint can’t capture it, and digital cameras don’t even come close. It grounds me in ways that are more than just the mud covering my boots. It connects me to my world in a way that I have not been able to experience in any concrete haven. Every day is a reminder that there is joy to be found in life; and life is meant to be enjoyed, experienced, lived.

Diogenes was a Greek philosopher that chose to live in a barrel in the equivalent of a city park. In essence he believed that the gods had given man a simple life, but man complicated it by itching for luxuries. I certainly don’t want to give up my home, but I believe that Diogenes had it a little bit right. People are notorious for distracting themselves with the pursuit of luxuries, rather than enjoying the bounty that they have been given. I saw a sign once that said, “Don’t be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” I take that to heart.

Farming, gardening, living. They are synonymous in my personal dictionary. By choosing a rural lifestyle I am choosing to live a life of appreciation rather than a life of yearning, a life of action rather than distraction, a life of hard work and peaceful reward.

And for me, that makes the work worth it.

(Please remind me of that the next time it is freezing rain and I am sick, and still have to get up and feed the cows! ;) )

DIY Disaster, well it is a dog house made out of pallets!

I was inspired by all of the cool things that people have done with pallets lately. http://howdoitcom.tumblr.com/post/43161225742/more-pallet-ideas The projects look amazing, and pretty simple, right? I am very interested in repurposing because: 1. It is cool, and 2. I’m cheap. Dog houses retail for about $150.00 a piece at the local feed store, and though I love my dog, I did not want to spend that much when I knew I could build one. How hard could it be, right? If only I had known. This isn't an exact tutorial, because if I had it to do over again I would do things a little differently. Think of it more as an inspirational piece! Anyway, not knowing what I didn't know, I decided to get crafty.

I have taken three things away from this experience. Saws-alls are not as easy to use as I thought. I am capable of using power tools, sorta. Most importantly, always pre-drill your holes! Dear Lord in Heaven pre drill your holes. It sounds like a stupid extra step, but it isn't. Across the path of least resistance danger lies in giant wooden chasms!

Hyperbole aside, I am lucky enough to have free access to small shipping crates with collapsible sides at work. For this project I used one crate bottom, two sides, two pieces of scrap lumber, one 1x4 board, and one salvaged crate lid cut to size. I also used a band saw, a miter saw, saws-all, a drill, sand paper, hammer, and 1 ¼” screws. Oh, and all my PPE. Gotta be safe!

I started out by setting the sides on the crate. I haphazardly decided on a door size and cut my scrap lumber to even lengths before screwing it onto the crate and learning the importance of pre-drilling holes. Without planning on it one end of my scrap wood fit perfectly into the space I had made with a few taps of a hammer, so I screwed that on too. Then I tried to cut out a nice rectangle using a saws-all. It didn’t work so well. I then absently wondered if they made bondo for wood, but went along anyway. It might not be pretty, but it was my creation damnit!

I was not very good at taking pictures of this one. Sorry guys, but do make sure to note the splitting wood and my freaking awesome saws-all job! That's ergonomic, or aesthetically pleasing, or something?!? Maybe?

I used my awesome measuring skills, ie holding it up and marking it with a pencil to determine the length I needed (but you could use a measuring tape) for the roofline which I cut in two sections, one piece being the length across the front and one the length of the sides. I then attached my front board to the poor, splintering frame I had made for the door and proceeded to draw a diagonal line across the side board so that when I cut it I would have two identical pieces.

Which I pre-drilled (see, learning!) and screwed to the front board. I chopped a scrap piece of wood in half and screwed the back ends of my diagonal pieces down for stability. I then grabbed a lid and screwed it on top of my angled boards. I then tried to sand down the doorway so Susan wouldn’t get splinters. It needs a few coats of waterproof paint, but Susan loves it. That’s the main thing.