My family, of course.

We are all living so spread apart, it would be amazing to all be together around one big table again.

Up by 5 out by 6:30 or 7am

It used to be earlier, but my days of hitting the gym at 5:30 (before getting kids to school and myself to work), or 6 am hot yoga classes, are over. Kept me sane at the times, but I have other things now. I’m still an early riser.

I wake up early because it’s my nature. Plus, I love mornings. I always have. There is a peacefulness. A fresh newness. I prefer morning energy, I personally have the most energy in the morning.

My favorite running time was always dawn, before anyone else was up, beach runs at low tide, with no one around. It’s beautiful. Moon on the water, sun coming up. I used to take my son’s dog, he also appreciated a morning run.

My kids are all different. Some were early birds, others had trouble falling asleep and liked sleeping in. I think everyone comes wired differently.

It’s odd that our culture praises early birds and shames late sleepers. Artists often prefer the peace of the middle of a night. Creativity flows from 1-4 am. I’ve felt that. I have plenty of friends who come alive as the night goes on, (while I slowly fade).

If there’s fun, I’ll push on, not wanting to miss it. But you won’t see me sleeping in the next day, not for any morally superior reason. I just can’t. I catch up by falling asleep ridiculously early whenever the fun ends.

I liked the last question about never sleeping, because if I never had to sleep, I could easily be awake at all the times.

I like sleep though. And I like waking up. I don’t get into any trouble while I’m asleep, that’s a bonus. So I vote no to never sleeping but I’m not sad to wake up at 2 or 3 or 4am. Or to stay up past my bedtime. Which is usually around 9-10 pm. I could be in bed watching a movie at 8 too. It’s all life. I have no routine.

…is probably singer-song writer soul satisfying, sometimes, but not always, up beat, but with authenticity and a good measure of heart. You know, music that is moving and affecting and can bring a tear to my eye, the kind that makes me forget and remember all the right things

Is there a genre of that? What’s it called?

This morning I woke up needing to jump in Jenny jeep and crank up the stereo.

Always delivers.

Top down, not caring if no one else wants to listen to Tom Petty or Andrea Boticci or George Harrison or Prince at full volume., in the morning

Jelly Roll, His Golden Messenger, or whoever

Sorry that some songs just sound better loud. Thats my favorite genre. The loud nuance-y song one.

Happy 4th weekend.

Im a sucker for romance. I love love. I love the deep, daring, logic defying nature of romance. The rose colored glasses. The exaggerated beauty, the surety, the boldness. It’s why I love opera and Shakespeare.

Romance means different things to different people. There’s a quote “there are plenty of mediocre things in life, love shouldn’t be one of them.” Romance is not, at its core mediocrity. We are told it can be bought, but it can’t.

Romance is monetized and redefined by media, this is nothing new. Fairy tales and Disney have taken their toll, but if we look beyond all the advertising, there is something deep and real and magical about what we call romance. It’s raw and vulnerable. The unexplainable eruption of emotion. Movies have tried to create it, and have done a fair job in some cases, but the true essence of romance, is organic on one hand, ethereal on the other. It’s like a connection to the cosmos.

Romance is like an electrical spark, a flash of lightning, a surge of power in love’s most undeniable form. it can’t last for long, but can be rekindled, remembered, appreciated.

Art, music, theatre and film find ways to depict it and emote a little, but the actual thing we call romance, is the inspiration. Art tries to capture the uncapturable, and often, does a nice job of retelling, recalling in some cases, and we humans, many of us, eat it up!

The last thing I want to say on this topic, is that romance can be more than just two lovers. It can be a sports team winning against all odds and bringing tears of joy to the most unlikely, tough hearted fan. Romance I think, is pure joyfulness encased in love, fleeting, memorable, and real, without being tangible.

I have never been able to keep plants alive. I blame ADD.

Kids and animals are easy. They walk around looking hungry, all day long, luckily.

Plants suffer silently, sadly. It’s too late by the time they show outward signs of thirst. I usually stay on top of watering for a while, a month at least, maybe two, by then there are already looking less healthy, less green. I don’t know why.

So against my better judgement, I decided to get some herbs for my kitchen (these looked great and made me very happy). When they started to falter, I put them out in my garden. Magically they all came back to life!

Speaking of magic, my garden bed is doing great!

We all got one of the raised beds. Knowing my limited skill, I took the smallest one. With much enthusiasm, I planted a variety of vegetables and a few flowers that supposedly repel bugs. We had an array of free seedlings from a friend of G’s mom. Planting was fun. I even tried bean, carrot and lettuce seeds. Early on before we decided to each have our own, I planted some purple potatoes that were old. These are in G’s garden. They came up and look great.

Everything came up and GREW!

I credit the rain. Plus, because I planted so many things, weeds didn’t have much space to grow. It even looked pretty.

For once, plants solely taken care of by me, were flourishing. I see how this could be rewarding.

Then, bugs ate some leaves. I sprayed the leaves with soapy, cayanne pepper water. Then it rained, then more bugs. I had to take the buggy plant out to save the rest. My cucumber plants will hopefully pull through.

Still my garden is the most lush and in my opinion beautiful. I’ve been warned that this might be the best it will be, that it might be down hill from here. So I’m enjoying it as much as I can. I really don’t know what’s going to happen.

I can already see baby tomatoes, tiny beans and little cucumbers. My lettuce is nice, I’ve already made a salad or two. Sampled a few pea pods, enjoyed rosemary, tyme and basil. I love my garden. I talk to it encouragingly every day. I’m sure you can see why I put the baby bird in there. It looks like a sanctuary to me.

I’m not sure why I’m seeing this kind of success. Probably the rain. But after a few days of no rain I do water when it looks dry. I love going out every morning and checking on it every night. Something about the peacefulness of all that cool green. The quick growing and loveliness of all that life. It feels like for me, a triumph.

I’ll keep you posted. Let’s see if I get tomatoes or carrots. Or cucumbers…

My garage kitchen is evolving, much has happened.

Where do I start?

Can I just say that things never work out the way I think they will, but then, weirdly they kind of do.

So, here’s how I made a kitchen, without the why. (I may get to that)

First of all, there are the big pie-in-the-sky things like plumbing and electrical. Just finding one and getting on their busy schedules, then coordinating our schedules so we can all be here, was a whole thing. Oh and trench digging.

It’s kind of a lot. I made a friend at the restore Habitat place. I’ve become a wiz at negotiating some of these over-stock discount everything stores, but I’ve endured my share of disgruntled employees along the way.

Then there are the little things like paint and lamps and light fixtures. There are medium things like flooring and shelves. Not to mention, meeting people, tons of bad news, figuring out the configurations and getting all of us on the same page.

I’m making it up as I go, so it’s all backwards. I apologize if this is mind boggling, but sometimes, when you want to make progress, you have to work with what you have already. And reverse the direction things typically go in. In other words, I didn’t start with a plan, but I may end with one.

Originally, we got approved to build a mother-in-law type structure on the side property. This was good news last winter after going back and forth with plans and ideas with the town and each other, for months.

When the town then refused water to the additional, not attached building, we were sidelined.

One day I was tired of hearing no, so I started clearing the garage area and rearranging some things. G put in a butcher block counter for a neighbor who gave him the extra peices he cut to fit it. I retrieved them from the yard and found ways to use them. I was trying to make something useful for now, while we figured out what to do next.

Each step with my garage project has felt significant. The space is transforming. G and his mom were not sure what to think initially, but slowly got excited (in their own ways), so much so that we started talking about running water from the house.

As of today, we have an electrician coming to install a few more sockets and lights. We have located the main and the drain, but no plumber has agreed to help.

I found a sink at the restoration store. I accidentally purchased a Hosier cabinet that fits the sink and the area perfectly. A Hoiser is a somewhat famous antique. I saw some online for thousands, (when I googled about the metal drawer which in mine is mostly rust), my piece is in rough shape, but perfect for my purpose. We bought enough flooring on sale at the discount place to do the whole area. I’m on a roll.

It’s all cute, a work in progress. I have to wait for this before we do that. A lot of that kind of thing.

All, between yoga, work, baby birds, record cold, rain, gardening, and just navigating life here so far from home. It’s been freezing and now it’s hot, I’ve been chewed up by tiny flying bugs. It’s muggy and gray. I’m itchy and uncomfortable, homesick, missing my kids and my friends, G has been working an hour away…but…well, I’m kind of doing ok.

Projects are magical, this one has been super fun for me. What can I say, I’m loving the challenge!

Focusing on my little project has been a huge exercise in expansion, and in enthusiasm, also in focus. I assure you, things haven’t changed, but then, they kind of have…

Believe it or not, this has required more of me than I knew I could give. I have had to be more confident, more courageous, more creative. Except for putting up the shiplap, I’ve single handedly done most of it all myself. I found plumbers, electricians. Listened to their projections, absorbed their bad news and financially impossible quotes. revamped, re schemed, and pushed. Water is still pretty unlikely at this point, but we might get a pump.

Today it’s, of course, raining.

I recently heard this:

We humans can find peace by looking at the bigger picture, seeing the vastness of the universe, observing from the perspective of consciousness

Or

by focusing in on our smallness. The tiny microcosm of what is right now in front of us. Little moments, influencing our own vibration. Both can take us out of fear and of worry.

The news online and on tv these days is scary. Making things happen is still a fine distraction for me.

I had a big mess of disorganization waiting out there.

Much has come together but there are still many more puzzles to solve.

We were watching a busy robin couple.

They built their nest in a small tree/bush that is getting cut down this year. G told his mom that she had to wait for the robins to be done with their nest before having it chopped. She has been wanting to do it for years. The robins have been nesting in this same tree for as long as anyone can remember.

Their nest this year is at eye level. The robins haven’t cared that we are sitting close by in the breezeway.

They haven’t cared that we peek in and take some phone pics of their eggs, even their just born babies. We are nosy, but leave them alone.

The other morning I startled awake to a frenzy of alarmed bird noises. A crow was attacking. I ran outside and hopefully interrupted the crow. The two robin parents chased it far away.

I peeked into the nest. Two of the three babies were motionless, but still there.

All morning I watched for the robin parents to return. They came close, but wouldn’t return to the tree or nest. Hours went by.

How long can baby birds go without eating? Google said thirty minutes. I knew that was wrong because the parents would be gone a couple hours when the babies were just born. I worried about this because it was so cold and the babies had no feathers. They hatched on three different days, one, two and three.

The attack happened before five am. It was close to one o’clock and still the parents were not going back to the tree.

I decided to look for worms. It didn’t matter how deep I dug, I couldnt find a single worm. The robins did this effortlessly. All day long. How was I so bad at it?!

I consulted AI. Yes baby birds eat full size worms, bait worms would work. So I went to the local gas station/bait supply (Henny Penny) store and explained to the girl what I was using them for. She recommended the red container variety. She actually gave them to me for free.

That’s how I ended up feeding baby birds. On that day I was actually busy. Too busy to be a robin parent.

With what? it would be fair to wonder since I’m still on the east coast. Lots of stuff actually. (I’ll catch up soon). I had to be at work in minutes when the first baby I fed, (he ate four little worms!) JUMPED out of the nest! I got down off my stool and put him back in, he jumped again! Twice more and then hop/ran into a big bush. Meanwhile the parent robins decided to show back up and became frantic, so I left them to figure things out. One in the nest, one on the ground, one half fed, the other full, but lost. I had to get away from the nest because it seemed to be freaking the parents out completely.

At work I got two texts from G’s mom.

“The nest is empty!“

Then later:

“I found the frightened baby when I was mowing. I caught him and put him in a grocery bag. The robins are frantic. What should I do?!”

Maybe let him out? G’s mom is not one to get involved trying to help nature. She told me she was just trying to calm him down. Talk about trauma survivor. First the crow, then abandonment, then chased by a lawn mower and now captured . I guess he ran stumbling out ahead and she felt sorry for panicking him.

I was home less than an hour later. The baby, still in the bag, chirped a little so I offered a worm. He ate about three. There was no sign of the parents. Dusk was settling in. I googled. I asked AI. What to do for the night?

I learned that baby robins don’t eat after dark. It was suggested that I cover the bag with something light like cheese cloth and leave it in the garage because an abandoned baby bird would be very vulnerable to predators at night.

Apparently robins don’t fly out of their nests, they jump out at 13-16 days and spend another 10-15 days hopping around helplessly while they are fed by their parents.

I read up on baby robins. I slept badly, and got up as soon as I heard birds, this was predawn, around 4:30. I had the idea to put my little captive into our fenced vegetable garden. I fed him and waited for more light. Placed him where there were plenty of good hiding places. He could fit through the wire if a parent came back, otherwise he’d be safe.

Two weeks is a long time. It’s a wonder we have robins at all, the odds aren’t with them. Our baby was only ten days old, (or nine or eight) a full three to six days too soon. I had the phone number of a wildlife rescue place that was closed. I was hoping to take him there in the morning, but they told me no.

I fed him before yoga and after. He stayed put and ate the whole container of bait as the morning progressed.

I had go to buy more.

At one point I saw the mother sitting on one of the garden fence posts. So I turned and walked the other direction.

When she was gone, I checked on him and he was gone too.

G spotted him a few hours later in a blueberry bush, parents hovering.

The next day out neighbors were talking about a baby robin on their side of the road that appeared randomly (they had no trees and no robins until they saw this baby, and then it’s parents). Ours was still in the bush.

My new bird expert friend said it happens that babies can become far apart and parents will still go to all of them. We compared pictures, these two looked to be the same. Could it be that both are surviving and doing just fine?!

I see them every day now. First one, then two robins on the ground, then if I watch closely, a little hopping fluff that quickly disappears.

I wonder about how I got caught in this baby robin drama. Up until now, I never held a baby bird or fed one. I didn’t know they could digest whole worms. And I had no idea about fledging. I would have guessed it might last a couple of days. Not weeks! We once had little birds nest in our yard, it went quite differently. One day they all just flew away. No learning to fly, they just somehow could.

So if I ever see baby robins hopping around, I’ll know to look for their parents, or just figure they will come back. Even a full day later, these ones did. I’m glad I fed them though. Somehow the adult birds were afraid to check to see if babies had survived. Interesting that the babies knew to jump even as young as they were. Cool that the parents picked up as if nothing had happened.

It’s supposed to be 90 million degrees today, with 99% humidity

Summer slammed into the cold rainy days we were so used to, yesterday.

No gradual shift, just wow

We miss California.

Not only the weather.

Everything.

My little microcosm, the overall state of the world. Nothing feels good or right at the moment. Home seems so far away.

I don’t feel tough enough to fight the New England battle today. To listen to the news. To have nothing to look forward to. To simply exist in a world that nothing makes sense in. I’m alone on planet disgruntlement. Add in some muggy heat.

It’s lonely for sure. There must be a reason to get up, but I can think of one.

But this is what I need to remember: often, when there has been a stretch of hard, sometimes something good and unexpected shows up. Not the way I think it will. A day can shift. A moment can.

So I got up and made the bed, found something to wear, dragged my grumpy self to yoga and of course, my mind started to shift while there.

When I arrived back at the house, G was finishing a project and decided we should drive to a beach with waves. As we were leaving, his mom decided to clean the outdoor ceiling fan. She had him get out the ladder and set it up.

As we drove away I said that I tried to talk her out of it. I offered to do it, even as she watched. He sighed and turned around. There was no leaving an eighty seven year old on a ladder in good conscience. We could go later.

But before we had a chance, his brother came to visit earlier than expected. The three of them had a whole ceiling-fan-cleaning-this-is-our-mother moment.

The breezeway was cool, the tide was low, we decided to walk out to the island. It was a great day for a swim and a walk in the water right off the dock. Afterward we enjoyed a cool drink on the breezeway.

Then we all went out for supper and stopped for ice cream. The visit was lovely. The day played out easfully. Nothing big, but enough to shift my whole energy to fun. Lightness won out.

Spirituality is this for me. It’s leaving my heart open, even the tiniest bit, even when it’s hard, so that when lightness settles, I can feel it, and appreciate it and be influenced by it, and then so can my day. It could be the smallest, most subtle of things, that will change energy completely. The force is everywhere, the potential, always there, thankfully. Though often I forget to remember this.

Oh great question. How do I waiste time?

Well, I have plenty of ways depending on the definition.

Luckily,

because my brain might explode from boredom if I didn’t!

Time waisters:

Writing, reading, yoga, painting, designing (in my head), walking, working, shopping, tidying, organizing, meditating, etc

Today we are doing that thing you hear New Englanders do in summer.

We are going to the cape.

I’ve never been. Summer is officially four days away, though its feeling like it won’t be coming this year.

I don’t have any expectations. Its a little fun to say, I’m driving to the cape! Even in dense fog.

Here are some pictures of Spring in NE

The sun came out! Summer happened! What a fun day.