Day 11

Half Moon 2012 from The Homesteading Hussy on Vimeo.


Today I celebrate this tradition!

Day 10

I drive under your vacant sign every morning and night.
Nothing shouts "Used To Be" like your emptiness.
I think of the slimy tininess you once kept warm.
And now you're just a bowl.
For snow to collect in.
On a day,
so close to when things are supposed to be sprouting,
and chirping around inside of you again.
I hope someone wipes their feet off and makes themselves at home.  

Day 9

I ran down a muddy road with a friend called Mud who pulled a dog with a leash tied around her waste.  She whistled to the birds and made my blue mood disappear into the beaver house.  I told her I heard the coyotes yip yip yipping the night before and between huffs she said, "cool".  I worry a lot about things I don't necessarily have to worry about but I had just left the taxes and escrow bill on the counter when I left.  They were there when I got home but there, too, was a desire to pull out the pom-poms and cheer myself on.  I guess that's what Spring does and a run down a road with a friend who talks to the birds.

Driving to hockey last night I saw two geese standing in the middle of the ice at the bottom of the hill.  They stood, honking, next to the beaver house- where my blue mood is lodged.  I tried to take a picture of them with my camera phone doohickey.  But alas, I can't see them in the photo.  But more importantly, I can't see the confusion on their faces, "Where the fuck is the water?" they bellowed.

I tried to honk back, "All good things come to those who wait!"

Day 8

Last year we missed the season.  It came and went quicker than you can say, "Holy Shit there will be no maple syrup this year." 

This year it's slow to come.   Late.  But we had a run of the sweet stuff yesterday. 

 Yeah Yeah- he's supposed to be in school.

He's "sick" with an earache.  Fever.  Nurse's rules.

So we put him to work instead.  Sucking the sugar water out of the trees for our guilty pleasure. 

Day 7

My new favorite!

Day 6

A Sunday afternoon nap with my dog at my feet.  Not before discovering this poem in a Mary Oliver collection given to me by my dear friend Chat.

Hurricane

I didn't behave
like anything you had
ever imagined.  The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything.  I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer.  Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling.  The back of the hand to 
everything.  But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn't stop.  They
looked like telephone poles and didn't
care.  And after the leaves came
blossoms.  For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me. 

Day 5

Today I celebrate this man and the movie that was made about him.  This clip is from the kickstarter campaign but it shows you a little bit about what the movie is about.  The producers were able to fund the project and the movie is just amazing and if you ever get a chance to see it- I hope you will. 




 

It helps me understand her even more and why I love her.  

Day 4

These boys will keep me young.  Today, I'm celebrating a secret stash of the pow and two beautiful hours to enjoy them with the happiest people I know. 

Day 3

Today I celebrate my hair stylist friend Ala who tells me NOT to pluck those grey hairs despite what I feel like I should do.  She helps me look pretty much the same as I did Senior year in high school.  She's from Russia and her s's and z's sound pretty much the same.   It's awesome.  I walk out of there feeling pretty much like a new woman, mostly because she puts make-up on me on my way out the door.   And for the last seven years that I've been going to see her, she still doesn't know that I (pretty much) wipe it all off on my sleeve when I get in my car.

I love you Ala because you know just how my hair will curl (on not) depending on if it's December or July. 

Day 2

 I blew my husband off for this.

 I blew off a powder day for this.

And I have no regrets because they are beautiful sweet cherubs.  I don't really remember the boys at 2.  I don't really remember much (because I'm getting old) but these two help me go back.  It was a dark time then. 

But they help me see all that was light.

And So It Begins...

I went running with Paul Bunyan last week.  It's been a long time since I've run.  Usually when I run for the first time in a long time I start to itch in places that have collected fat over the months/years.  I can only assume this is because said fat accumulation is JIGGLING.  And this itch usually takes place either on my BUTT or my inner thighs.  If this is too much information for you, well you should probably stop reading this blog for the next 40 days because I'm about to get all up close and personal with myself so let this be your WARNING.  Well, last Thursday my BACK FAT itched.  And I thought to myself, "Well, this is it.  It's time."

40.  Forty. Lordy. Forty.

I've always thought of myself as young at heart- may be my naivete or my lack of self confidence but I generally feel like when I'm around people with strong personalities they have this urgency (and I the need for them) to take me under their wing, even if they're younger than me.  So, I guess 40 sounds old and I can no longer go around carrying with me this disdainful needy personality trait.  It's time.

I was listening to NPR the other day (also something old people do) and I heard a woman say that one thing her mother taught her was that there were TWO important days in a woman's life: the day she was born and the day she realized why.  I obviously haven't figure out why yet.  It's time.

I've got white hairs growing out of my head and black ones growing out of my chin.  It's time.

It's time I celebrate this thing called old age.  And so I've heard of this tradition swirling around the ranks of middle-agedom about people celebrating 40 Days of 40.  And because I don't have the privilege of actually whooping it up in high style for 40 days I'm going to ratchet it down a few notches and write a little something every day about what I have the HONOR of celebrating before I turn the big four zero.

I'm not going to be celebrating ME or how great I am or how awesome I once was but am no longer; instead, I'm going to celebrate all the things I'm so excited to have around me.  Trite, I know.  But that's what you're used to around here, right? 

So today it snowed.  All day.  Tomorrow's the first day of Spring and everyone's wishing for the snow to go, the daffodils to sprout, the hyacinths to poke through.  But it's supposed to snow all night.  Maybe 10 inches?  Maybe more?  I'm so excited I could pee.  I know, it's crazy.  But I love snow.  I love the view from my window of the pond and my mountain and the ridge line I'll be buried on in another 40.  I love the hunkering down, the knitting I do, the reading the kids do, the puzzles that get pulled out, the pull to the mountain that's there the next day.  I love that the snow hides the ticks and the mud and the bugs and the dirt that gets into my insides when it all melts.  I love that the snow doesn't get into my rotors and brake pads and make us have to replace both like the mud does.

I love everything about winter and I'm simply not ready to let it go.  So thank you Mother Nature for hanging on for one more storm because today I celebrate one less day of mud seeping into the bottom of my bed. 

40 Days

40 Days of 40 
Starting March 19th
I haven't forgotten about you...
I've just learned from all of you...
About the art of growing old.

I'll share what you've taught me.