I read a lovely article today about a woman who was overwhelmed and realized the work she was doing had nothing to do with her actual talents or things she enjoyed doing. She got therapy, pondered a while, and POOF, she’s now living on a goat farm in a yurt, perfectly happy to enjoy a quiet life.
Yurt, sweet yurt. Image by @sojourneynicole via Twenty20
I’m happy for her. As she pointed out, it’s not a character flaw to be someone who shudders at the idea of trying to “make it” and cramming as much as possible to achieve some new goal every few months or climbing the corporate ladder until you “win.” Knowing full well that most people aren’t going to “make it” or “win,” it’s probably a good idea to take comfort in more modest goals and aspirations that allow you to live a full but not overfull life.
Looking at the list of things I’m involved with lately, you’d think I am among the over-achieving group and that I am trying to “win” at something. Most organizations volunteered for? Most confusing schedule? I sure don’t look like a very good hermit.
Most of you know that I’ve been playing with hair color for the past few years. It has been blue, maroon, pink, purple, and white. Why?
Purple.
Who knows? It was fun. Especially since I started using this Overtime stuff. It doesn’t hurt my hair and fades fast enough that I don’t get sick of any color. And they are also excellent conditioners with ingredients you recognize. They smell like mint and rosemary, too. Nice.
Blue!
Today I tried one of their intense colors made for dark hair. These have a lot of pigment. I bought the intense rose gold and red. I let Anita decide which one to try, and she picked the red.
The Overtone for dark hair!
I’m glad I had gloves. My hands turned really red when I rinsed, too. I had an old towel and plan to sleep on an old pillowcase.
Cooking for 20 minutes.
I’m happy, though, that even my brown hair shows the color. It will be fun to see how it fades!
Red. Not orange. Not pink.
One day I’ll let my hair be normal. It looks fine that way, too. I just like having fun with impermanent color. I’m scared of permanent things like tattoos or piercings.
This is one of the most interesting times in my life, at least as far as my mental state goes. Why so interesting? Oddly enough, it’s because I’m not in a tizzy about anything. It’s not because my life has suddenly turned out to be like I imagined adulthood would be as a child, where you go to work, come home and do hobbies, enjoy a meal with your loving spouse, and sleep soundly, knowing you have the money to pay all your bills. Nope, that’s not it.
Little things just make me happy these days, like my peace and trees corner (shh, they are not Christmas decorations).
Rather, as I’ve mentioned in other blog posts, it seems as if all the things I have been working on to become my best self have taken effect, at least for the most part. Like what, you ask?
First, I had to accept myself the way I am. I’m human, with some issues that led me to develop some habits and tendencies that might bug people (let’s see, over-reacting to perceived criticism, crying when confronted angrily, problems with being “yelled at” or picked on, sarcasm, coming across as “looking down” at people…whatever). It’s weird, once I convinced myself that it was okay to be who I am, so many of those behaviors lessened. I haven’t cried in AGES other than when totally appropriate (death of people and dogs I love, mainly).
Things just hit you sometimes. Yesterday I was walking toward Rowdy the Rental Audi in the work parking garage, and I got a flashback of being a kid. I’d talked about missing my parents earlier in the day, which probably prompted the experience.
I suddenly felt the heavy weight of the humidity at my house in Gainesville, Florida, smelled the dark black earth, and heard the thump-thump of my dad, doing his favorite activity, known as “digging a hole.” If Dad was upset, frustrated, or just needed to get away from Mom’s antics for a while, he’d go out in the yard and dig. He used to joke that some of the camellias had been moved five or six times, for no good reason.
I suck at wallowing in self pity these days. After a day or two I hug my inner child and set my sadness on a mental shelf. That works until I start dreaming about whatever the issue is, which shows my subconscious is processing away.
So I’m bruised and battered by the last few days, but allowing myself to enjoy what’s good.
Smiling, but woozy still. And blurry.
I asked for some photos of old friends getting together for my overdue big project. The things that were shared made me all warm and fuzzy.
Friends who make you laugh make it hard to mope.
And Lee sent me a photo of Penney showing all her pug heritage by sleeping all wrinkly.
She was snoring when the picture was taken but is always smiling.
And of course, my constant companion Vlassic reminds me of what unconditional love means. That’s what I feel from my circle of close friends, who’ve been there for me, even while dealing with their own issues.
My precious. He’s smiling.
And that’s what I feel for my family. No matter what. Please tell your family if you feel the same.
Sad times come to everyone. It’s part of life. When you’re sad and feeling unloved, nothing beats having the people who do love and care about you remind you that you aren’t alone.
Flowers. They help.
Today, my therapist and friend listened to me, affirmed my experience, and gave me flowers. That’s about all you can do, but it means a lot!
Tell you what, it’s been a whirlwind around here the past couple of days. Lots of it’s been fun, but there has also been challenging stuff.
Me looking tired, but proud of my pink glass decanter to go with my orange glass.
Kathleen, Lee, and I have made a kind of unspoken pact to just go with the flow as our plans constantly shift due to weird circumstances. We’ve just been trying to start a business, deal with an elder care challenge, and remodel a building.
You can’t be sad if you have cherry pie with a paw print on it.
But all sorts of paperwork issues, legal surprises, scallywaggery (I made that up), illnesses, and twists and turns have meant schedules and priorities change at a moment’s notice. I’m proud of how patient we’ve been, though I think I could do better.
*We were only calling it poop coffee or butt coffee as we laughed our way through our beverages…
The thing is, I always tell people I’m willing to try any food, at least once. So, when my colleague Chriztine decided she was interested in trying the coffee pictured at right, I (and two other coworkers) just had to say, “Yes.”
What does that mean, “zero contact with the animals?” Well, this is that coffee that’s passed through the digestive tract of the civet cat, which you may have heard of (many people think it goes through monkeys, but no). The sustainable part is important, because the poor little animals were being mistreated to get them to poop out enough beans to meet demand. We didn’t want anything to do with that!
So, according to the story on the bag, this is the nice version of the kipi luwak coffee.
Gimme some coffee. And don’t call me a weasel!
As a naturalist, I feel compelled to let you know that the civet is actually not a cat, and is more closely related to our friends, the mongoose family. I found this out in an article from Singapore, which informed me that “the special taste of these coffee is due to the fermentation process when the civets digest the beans.” MMMMM. Also I learned that this kind of coffee is called “weasel coffee” in Vietnam.
So, did I drink it?
First we spent a long time grinding the beans, during which time coworker Jen frequently reminded us that the roasting process will have killed off any germs or wee beasties living on the coffee. Whew.
You can tell they’re looking forward to this.
And then we poured hot water in and watched it drip. Was it chocolatey like Dipu thought? Were the beans old, like Jen thought? Were we all laughing too loud, like I thought?
Ready to give it a try. Note beautiful staging of coffee-making equipment.
Next, we all had to pose with our cups ready. And then we drank it. Guess what? It tasted very much like a cup of coffee. We didn’t detect any excessive smoothness or other fermentation results.
Yep. That’s coffee, all right.
But, since it was the most expensive cup of coffee any of us had ever imbibed, you can bet we all finished it. (Thanks, Chriztine.) We tried to get more people to drink it, but most flat-out refused, even when I politely stuck the cup under their noses and demanded, “Wanna smell my poop coffee?” So hilarious.
Rob painfully tastes the coffee. The new guy behind him got a good chuckle out of us. He was getting “pod coffee,” as we call the product from that machine (some like it; some don’t).
Rob here tried a tiny bit and said he did NOT like it. That will save him the investment of buying more if he did like it!
The best part of the day was making all the jokes and laughing away some of the work stress. I will say that I’m glad the only coffee I brought home was some medium-roast blends to drink in the mornings at the Bobcat Lair. No more poop coffee.
By the way, we have civets in Texas (ring-tail cats). Wonder what happens when they eat mequite beans?
Monday evening we expanded our usual guest list to include some new people, in honor of Labor Day. We invited our cabin tenant, Tyler, along with his wife, Yanelly, who just moved to town. We also invited our new friends, Kayla and Matt, who recently bought a house from us and now live next to Martha and Mike.
And if you’re in the community, you have to hang out with Fiona (that’s Matt and Kayla)
We realized that we’ve been busy creating a community ever since we started coming to the ranch. We’re so grateful to Sara and Ralph for letting us buy our little slice of heaven and start down the road to making a life in Milam County. And now we’re helping bring in more folks, like my sister, Mandi and family, Mike and Martha, Kathleen, and Kayla and Matt!
You do have to cook a LOT of burgers for a community cookout, says Mike.
Forming a community
Pretty much everyone who’s become part of my social circle in Milam County has been because I volunteered to do something. That may explain why I’m such a “joiner,” as Sensei Larry, who taught my sons karate, has been saying for 20 years or so.
