Puppy Pumpkin Hush Puppies

While this might officially make me a crazy pet person, I baked up a batch of pumpkin dog treats this morning.


Don't they look like little orange hush puppies? These are a low fat treat and are said to be kind to dog's bellies, so it sounded like the perfect treat for Nola, who is staying with us while Molly and Jerry go on their honeymoon. Nola and Asta loved them, as usual Oso was too cool for a treat we shared with the other dogs. But Nola and Asta followed me around for a half hour begging for more by moving from spot to spot and sitting next to each other, hoping their good behaviour, the sitting, would make me so happy that I would continue to give them the treats. Mom and I tried one. They would actually be very tasty for humans if you added just a touch of sugar and a few more spices. Yum.



You can find the recipe and over 100 more dog treats in The Organic Dog Biscuit Book.

Attack of the Killer Mosquitoes, Seriously

Hurricane Dolly ripped through the area last week and left behind quite a mess. We were without power for days, but some people still don't have power so we were lucky to get it back so soon, and many downed trees in the yard plus some water damage to the house. I know we got off easy, but I am still exhausted and ready for a break. I have never seen so many mosquitoes and I am recovering from a nasty stomach illness I must have picked up walking around outside during the clean up. I am tired, simply put.

That said, I have several writing deadlines this month and I have to get back to work. I joined a writing club on line and it is helping. I have been very ill the past few days but have managed to get some work done anyway, in large part because of the club. So things are looking up.

Now I just need to recover my health, meet my writing deadlines with successful material, find a way to rid our yard of these horrid biting potentially disease-ridden mosquitoes and get everything cleaned up. If we can manage those things I will be satisfied. I will have to do the writing and the recovery myself, but I am not above accepting the help of my loved ones in the form of dog care and meals.

You may think I am exaggerating about the mosquitoes but seriously, it is like the set of some mosquito horror movie out there. Even if I wasn't sick I wouldn't be able to go for a run. The amount of bug spray you need to repel them is so nauseating as to make you wonder if it is worth it.

Okay, to be really satisfied I also need a new camera. I still can't locate mine. It got lost in the post-wedding shuffle, my sister's wedding, not mine, and I have given up hope. But I need a camera, for blogging, for field work, for me. It is very frustrating not having one. So those are the things I want in the next two weeks.


1. My health back
2. My writing deadlines met and the submissions successful
3.The mosquitoes gone
4. Clean up accomplished
5. Camera

Better start chipping away at the list.

Back again

I have been absent for so long it feels odd to be blogging again but I have been working on getting a daily writing habit going so the more I write the better off I am.

I have moved from Spokane to my field site in south Texas and am currently working on getting everything in order to start my research in the fall. I have a lot going on at the moment, none of it helped by Hurricane Dolly, who managed to mess things up quite nicely down here. We lost power for days, many people in the area still don't have power so we are some of the lucky ones, and we had to spend days cleaning up the yard after the storm downed the trees. Luckily most of the trees in our yard survived so it was giant branches rather than trunks. Some of the neighbors weren't so lucky. I managed to pick up some horrid bug in all the post-hurricane muck and spent the last 2 days mostly incapacitated. I am feeling better today, although nowhere near 100%. The marathon training will have to wait until I am recovered. I had just started it in earnest the week before so that should make it easier to return.

Lest you think it was all bad, I do want to assure you that we did have some fun during the storm. During the hurricane there isn't much you can do besides watch and wait so after everything was boarded up and the yard was cleared of debris we started the wait. Our favorite part was sitting on the sheltered back porch in the middle of the storm (the eye just missed us as it came over the island and then turned north) so the winds never calmed until the end of the storm. Anyway, I had a sore throat so I made some hot toddies and we sat in the anti-gravity chairs on the porch under the roof and watched Dolly blow through the yard. We got soaked through our raincoats but the toddies helped with that. It was fun, memorable fun. So for all the damage you did Dolly, and there was plenty, we salute you for the fun you provided and give thanks that so few lives were lost.

Hosmer

My grandfather passed away a week and a half ago. He is greatly missed already. To see pictures of his life, and the rituals that honored that life, please see my family's blog at www.redpeonies.blogspot.com

Here's to you Hosmer. We will find a way to carry on without you and in doing so we will honor you, but it won't be easy. You were truly singular and full of life. I love you.

Forgiveness

Yesterday morning, instead of going to church or even sleeping in, we decided to go to a 2 hour yoga class to celebrate Easter. It was a karma yoga class, one where everyone donates what they can and the donations go to charity. It seemed to fit the day.

The teacher dedicated the practice to forgiveness. The session included a lot of forward bends for internal reflection and twists for letting go. It was a fitting, but strange combination, when you think about it. Spending time looking inward only to let those thoughts go. Perfect for reflecting on forgiveness.

To forgive is to experience a letting go, a freeing and while satisfying it is not always easy. The practice ended with people sharing thoughts about learning to forgive, learning to let go. I am not always comfortable with the sharing moments. I like to listen to other people but I feel anxious about participating. Something in me holds back, but in the spirit of openness and letting go, I shared. And the truth that I shared is that the person I have the most trouble forgiving is myself. The person I am hardest on and expect the most from is myself. I can forgive almost anyone else, eventually, but I still reprimand myself for things said and done to other people in years past. I have trouble forgiving myself for not living up to expectations and dreams that I am not sure I even have anymore.

I think that learning to forgive is one of the most important steps we can take towards emotional growth, but I also think it is something we have to learn over and over again. And we have to learn the difference between forgiving and forgetting. (Is it possible to forgive if we can't forget?) And, to top it off, we also have to learn that sometimes it is not so much forgiveness as acceptance that we need to practice.

I am fascinated by the difference between acceptance and forgiveness and the way they are both connected to love. I believe that much of what we have trouble forgiving ourselves for doesn't require forgiveness so much as it requires acceptance. Acceptance that even as we love deeply and broadly, love is ever-changing and transient, never the same but always present. Acceptance, rather than forgiveness, that we are not perfect beings, that in our flaws we can find our humanity.

I don't have any real answers, but I do know that this little chicken helps make it all a little better.

Happy Easter!

Hot Hot Yoga

My new year's resolution this year was to cultivate balance in my life. I have a vague notion that finding balance involves signing up for a yoga class, practicing everything in moderation, and professing tolerance for one's fellow man. Until recently I'd been dabbling in yoga at home and enjoying the occasional run on the treadmill mixed with a little lifting. I was enjoying my hobbies without obsessing and even throwing in a little grad work now and then. I haven't even attempted the whole tolerance thing yet. Baby steps. You understand.

So while in Oswego to see Hosmer, I was happy when several of us had a chance to attend a Bikram yoga class with Sandy Eby, our cousins' aunt. It was a first for the four of us who went, and it certainly made an impression. Sandy is just about to open up a beautiful yoga studio for the general public and I highly recommend that anyone who has a chance, and any interest, should take a class with her. It was awesome, and very very hot. And this is coming from someone who grew up in south Texas where we know from hot.

Of course Molly and I, becoming immediately obsessed, started searching the Internet for information on bikram classes in our local areas. Molly scored big - 2 studios in San Antonio. Spokane - not so much. Are we really surprised?

After finding out more about bikram yoga studios, we wondered, what should one wear to hot yoga? Our usual capris were somewhat uncomfortable while completely drenched in sweat, particularly when we then walked home in the snow after the yoga. It was a true family exercise in extremes. It turns out women are supposed to wear yoga shorts and sports bras, not too surprising, if somewhat skimpier than I am comfortable with, at least until the hot yoga has helped sculpt a new me. But it was the men's wear that catches the eye. It turns out men are supposed to wear these.

Look closely now. No, your eyes are not deceiving you. That is most definitely velvet leopard stretch. Truly awesome, no? Talk about the hot hot yoga.

Sadly, with no opportunity for hot yoga in Spokane I will have to resign myself to never seeing these on the person next to me in yoga class, but perhaps learning to accept such things can become part of my quest for balance. I have signed up for a monthly pass at the local yoga studio. So forward progress. I'll keep you updated on that whole tolerance thing.

Lost

So at what point do we have to sit down and admit that we are lost, at least somewhat. Is it even possible to be lost when you know where you are going, even know you are on the right road, but are unsure of where you are and what you are feeling at that exact moment?

I am tired of thinking. I want to act. But what action and to what end? When I am honest, I must admit that the actions I dream of, both waking and dreaming, are drastic, vibrant, truly alive, but also have true disaster potential. What does it mean that I dream of something that is not, cannot be?

Spring is dangerous. It wakens in me something that slumbers during my more civilized moments. It awakens the illicit and forbidden, the me that feels both more alive and more alien.

I fear this is something that work will not quiet. Perhaps I should amp up the running and the yoga, will myself to balance and forget what cannot be.

Hope

There is hope again, and beyond hope there is the comfort that I have seen him. We have confirmed again in person that we love. In this moment, my grandfather is still here with us. We will have to wait and see what the coming months bring us.

My heart is breaking.

My grandfather has leukemia.

I feel as if a part of me has broken loose.

I have no words and no way to imagine a world without Hosmer in it.

I should be exercising right now

I should be running right now, or at least on my way to the gym to run but instead I'm sitting on my sofa, trolling the Internet, and listening to Weese purr up a storm. If you haven't met her, she's big with the purring, and currently very happy that I am on the sofa rather than the treadmill.

If not running, then I should be writing. I have tons of grad work to do, and a few more personal projects to keep me going when the grad work feels flat. But I'm not writing either. Well, technically I am writing, as you might point out to me, but it isn't really the writing I should be doing and honestly, I write on my blog so rarely that sometimes I wonder why I have one.

What else should I be doing? Hmmm. I have that incredibly ambitious knitting project for my sister's wedding that is at this very moment sitting in the corner mocking me with its complexities. I have a spring cardigan that I haven't bothered to sew up and finish, don't ask me why. I have dinner to make and laundry to fold and people to contact and although all of these things are important to me and need to be done, (well maybe the laundry isn't so important and I'm not feeling particularly hungry, but you get my point) I am not doing them. Instead I am pondering and stewing and generally sitting inside my own head marinating in thoughts and wishing I could think of some way of acting with real purpose. Currently the courses of action I can envision feel reactionary and panicked, acceptable only when there is no time to consider. I have time to consider, at least for now, but this waiting has become tiresome. I don't do well when the waiting becomes tiresome. Are you surprised that patience is not one of my virtues, or only that I recognize this in myself?

Of late, I have had conversations with friends that leave me wondering, curious about my motives, my actions and even my emotions. I am balancing on the edge of inappropriate revelations, wishing in some way that I could find a way to remake myself, but into what? Now that is the trick.

What do I see in myself and what do others see in me? How do you go about answering those questions? How do you go about even asking those questions?