grim

Sort of a disjointed rambling kind of post. I have been lurking around the bloggosphere for the last couple weeks-lots of ideas in my head and im gonna purge it out today!

I'm not sure when I became so grim. I have always been on the serious side: a hard working, eye on the ball kind of gal. But (I think) I used to have fun, be spontaneous and silly and...JOYFUL. I don't remember how to relax and enjoy and just be.

I am either working or avoiding. I may look like I am cuddled on the couch ENJOYing a good read, but I am really AVOIDing something I feel I should be doing. Since I have decided only I am responsible for my life's story and am acting on that belief in other parts of my life- -this too needs to change. Strive for balance-spend part of my days JOYFULLY embracing my family's needs -dishes, homework help, groceries, etc but then also take care of my own needs; I need to laugh, I need to create art, I need to be able to relax in my own skin. I have a literally never-ending list of shoulds in my head, to find peace and joy I need to push them out the door. I am always telling my 8 yr old that she can choose her attitude -sounds like good advise for me too!

Talking to one of my employees yesterday, I said something like 'i could go home and sleep for a week!' She looked at me and said well why don't you? you never take a vacation. Hmmm why don't I? because i only work 3 days a week -isnt that vacation enough? just to stay home and putter/nap-that doesnt seem valid somehow. asking for help-asking my co-workers to cover for me. sounds like guilt and self worth issues are stopping me, that and $.

I need to stop listening to the news on the radio--recession, national debt, unemployment, economic collapse, gloom and doom. Then add working with clients every day with sick pets and no money; we are broke, please fix fido, we have $100 to pay you but then we can't buy groceries for the kids. No wonder I am getting burned out! I am getting mean -not like sadistic mean, but stingy and miserly mean- the opposite of abundant.

Unless you have balance like a ninja, dont go snowshoeing in 3 foot drifts with out a walking stick! I took a day off work today (yay me!) and went out for a snow day! We have all this beautiful snow (maybe another 6 inches yesterday?). The long grass in the slough creates the most wonderful drifts. Unfortunately I am not a ninja, and down I went-flat on my back shoes wedged under the snow crust, no walking stick. I flopped around, not able to use my arms to get up through the deep snow, finally I had to unstrap the shoes to get up. Not a pretty moment. But I am smiling now!

Revolution?

Just a Sunday evening musing- slightly tongue in cheek? You decide!

I just finished re-watching Braveheart with my girls. I get so immersed in the imagery and emotion of a saga like that-all that idealistic passion. It is easy for me to get swept away--then add hairy men in kilts and well, who can blame me? :)
It had me thinking about things worth fighting for; family, freedom of (or in my case FROM) religion, personal liberty. Unlike the movies we do not have a clear cut villain to go to battle with. A different kind of villainy, a slow erosion of personal freedoms, a kind of golden handcuffs for a very privileged society-the bad guy is? Who? Big Business? Our own government? Apathy? Ourselves? Multiple choice -all of the above.
I think the local food, self sufficiency, voluntary simplicity movements are all forms of mini-revolutions. We are not painting our faces with blue woad and lifting our kilts at the enemy, but being subversive revolutionaries because it's a subversive kind of war.
I heard somewhere (Stoney, chime in if there is a name or source for this)that it only takes a small percentage (17% ?)of population to change their opinion/actions and the rest will follow-I dub it the Sheeple principle. Think of this the next time you wait until you have cash to buy (or refrain entirely), bake your own bread, buy grass fed local beef -or grow your own chickens. YOU are a revolutionary!



PS

Not For the Faint of Heart

Did you know that the bacteria living in and on you would fill up a half gallon jug? In fact there are 10 times MORE bacterial cells in our body than human ones (good thing they are very small!) The article from Scientific American is here.
Pretty cool stuff-but I am funny that way. Our bodies function more efficiently with these little helpers, in fact 40 of our own genes have been found to be bacterial in origin.
I throw antibiotics at pets evry day...maybe I should be looking deeper. These dogs are not suffering an antibiotic deficiency, something else has allowed the pathogenic bacteria to gain ground. Or maybe not. Just food for thought.

Finish What You Start

I have a problem finishing things. I love to see the possibilities in things. But sometimes when you finish they are crap; all possibility is gone, the potential is never realized.

This winter I began art lessons-one hour a week with my Mom. I am a pretty talented amateur artist in my medium of choice-charcoal. I have been wanting to try something with vibrant color, so we began working with oil pastels. At first I felt as if I was coloring with my kid's crayons, but I have stuck with it and am on the verge of creating what I would consider art (something which would give me pleasure to hang on my own walls). But I have frozen, I don't know how to go forward without wrecking the potential.

This is the metaphor for my life right now; on the verge and afraid to go forward-what if the reality doesn't live up to expectations, what if I really suck at this? What if I never try-that would be the worst. This is a piece of art I will finish (both the pastel and our homestead attempt), even if it is not a magnificent piece of art -it is me trying and not giving up.

Some of my previous art-currently gracing the walls of our home:







In other news: we may be land owners next week!! Now I can START to think about calling the real estate agent, well driller, and the building contractor. I also let the bunnies have a 'date'. We should have a litter of Florida Whites in 30 days. The female got very fat over the winter-I guess the girls were doing a very good job in feeding her. A fat bunny doesn't usually have sizable litters-hmm we will see what happens. I figure her litter will be about 6 weeks old when school gets out for the summer and we move to the camper on the land, they should be able to handle the stress of a move at that age. Spring is here-I'm just not quite ready for it.

Gratitude

************CAUTION: This is one of my long introspective wanderings in which I chronicle some insight to my psyche, really important for me to document and explore but boring as hell for everyone else!

I had a horrendous week (or two) at work, I felt as if every thing I touched failed and I know I could do, I have to do better for myself and for my patients. I have really been struggling with my career in the past 5 years since buying a portion of the clinic, I really do not enjoy being the boss. There was some non-existent communication between the other owner and myself which has led to alot of resentment on my part-mostly financial expectations not met. This has been spilling over into the part of my job I am so in love with-the clinical hands-on with people and their pets. I have developed a bad attitude and a whiny, 'poor me' the victim outlook. I haven't been taking my job as seriously as I should in a lot of different ways and last week was my wake-up call. Our clinic is moving forward and earning a reputation for high quality work; I need to be an enthusiastic participant or walk away. I refuse to hang on grumbling and digging in my heels.

I also realized how much of my image of myself is wrapped around being a veterinarian, that's not a big surprise -since the age of 17 that has been who I am or who I was training to be. Now 20+ years later it is part of me; part of what is valued about me. There are alot of self-worth issues here. I have value because of my profession-if I gave this up what would I be? An overweight stay-at-home mom who likes to garden? (don't yell at me-I am just exploring). My perception of self worth also affects what happens in the exam room. Thoughts of I am no good-what I do doesn't have value, the client will not accept treatment for xx dollars, results in a low estimate which means I am constrained to only performing x, when the cat really needs x AND y, so I do x and y but do not bill for y so I can stick to my estimate. (hmmm, remember what i said about financial expectation not being met?)

I just paid my computer guy $75 per hour to debug my laptop, I didn't blink-so why do I cringe when I bill someone $125 per hour to remove a corn cob from their dog's small intestines. In addition to my time, I am paying for a vet tech and expensive monitoring and anesthetic equipment. As a surgeon my time is worth that (and then some) but as me -kris- am I worth that? (Again the intertwining of professional and personal worth) I cringe and hand over the bill and guess what ? The client doesn't blink.

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH-long story short. I will use some of my 'off work' time to work-read journals, stay current on new drugs and surgical techniques. Keep the passion high for the clinical stuff. The owner stuff, well it pays the bills, I may sell after we have moved and built, but I won't let the victim just roll over and be passive about it. I will practice gratitude. Thank you for the opportunity to help people, thank you for the opportunity to use my mind, thank you for the income to live comfortably, thank you for the opportunity to improve and take pride in what I do. I can't tell you how much lighter and clearer I feel after figuring these things out, letting go of the resentment and replacing it with gratitude was absolutely liberating.

A Health Care Muddle

Is health care a constitutionally protected right? Is it right up there with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Do we have a responsibility to provide the same level of health care to everyone across the board? Or is health care something you earn; work hard, take responsibility for your own life, don't have kids until you can afford them, etc. The price I pay for being a Libra is I can see both sides of the argument. Both have merit. I fall somewhere in the middle I suppose, but all the shades of grey are difficult-it would be so much easier if things were black and white.
In theory I am a survival of the fittest kind of gal, and while supporting the weakest member of a society is good for those weak individuals it is bad for the society as a whole in the long run. Sorry if that is offensive, but I am too much of the Darwinian biologist to think any other way. I do not believe access to health care is something our society is mandated to provide to every member of society, but I would support health care for every child under the age of 18 yrs. I would also support a national health care pool from which you could not be excluded based on pre-existing conditions. But not free. Free is not free, free means people with income pay for those without. I have worked very hard for a long time and would rather not support someone who has made poor choices and screwed around with his /her life. There are all sorts of extenuating circumstances though-mental illness for example.
It is all just a muddy mess. What sort of solutions do you see?

Wanting and Waiting...My 'marshmallow' test

Have you heard of the famous marshmallow test? First performed by Walter Mischel at Stanford University in the 1960's, the marshmallow test was a measure of delayed gratification for 4 year olds. The children were told they could have this marshmallow NOW or wait and receive 2. The kids who were successful in waiting employed specific strategies-playing with the marshmallow or otherwise pretending it was something other than an ooey gooey yummy treat. The kids who could wait not only got a second marshmallow but, on average, an extra 210 points on their SAT scores. I have been using a similiar technique to deal with the waiting and the wanting which goes along with this land/farm purchase.

The four noble truths of Buddism teaches that craving and attachments are the root of human suffering and disquiet. If you can end craving, you can bring yourself to a quiet, peaceful place. This is what I have been working on. Rather than let myself become embroiled in the wanting and all the tension that stirs up, I am letting it go. The right solution will come if I don't push too hard and 'surrender to the stream'. A little new-age I know, but it's working for me.

Thanks for all the support by the way, it took all day yesterday -reading, painting, and puttering to get back to normal (or as close as I can get anyway!). When I put days like that into my 'Your Money or Your Life' hourly wage determination, things look a little different!

Take the Power

"This life is yours.
Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well.
Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly.
Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature.
Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you.
Take the power to make your life happy.”
By Susan Polis Schulz

Thank you dear sister Tracy for this quote. I have kept this framed quote you gave me years back and am ready to REALLY take it to heart. I have been a passive participant in my own life for a long time. I jumped into the river of life and have allowed it to sweep me away. It has been beautiful and exciting and at times overwhelming, but I am ready to steer my own course out of the main channel with all of its rocks and whitewater. I am ready for some quiet eddies and deep brown pools overhung with green boughs. I'll need to paddle a bit to get there, and the current is always tugging me back. Persistence, patience, I have the power to get there.
Peace, Kris

The Sustainable Food Pyramid

I heard an interesting hour of discussion on Wisconsin Public Radio today. Featured was Paul Roberts author of the books The End of Oil and The End of Food, and most recently an article for Mother Jones Magazine Spoiled: Organic and Local Is So 2008. His main point is that our current models of a sustainable food economy will not work on a much larger scale-as in billions of people. There are parts of the article I can agree with, but Sky Vegetables and vertical farming? The future of sustainable food is not so 'pie in the sky'. It is dirty and plain and unglamorous and lies in our OWN hands (and does not create controversial magazine articles). I believe food will become more and more expensive and this will force changes, just as the high gasoline prices hit people where it hurt the most-the pocketbook. This is the only way mainstream America will change.

Back to the sustainable food pyramid. According to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation sustainable Good Food has 4 qualities: Affordable, Fair, Healthy and Green. I don't think we can create an industrial food economy which is all of these things. If you think of all these qualities as points of a pyramid; the closer you get to affordable the further you are from fair, etc. You can't have it all. The only way I see all of these coming in one package is to produce my own and eat local. No more coconut shrimp for me, its cranberries, maple syrup and Point Beer!

The View From Here

My distance vision is very poor in the left and below average for the right, I believe the optometrist used words which sounded alot like, um, legally blind... Never the less I rarely use my glasses for anything except driving, or as an accessory if I wish to look more intellectual. In town this has not been an issue for me, as things which affect me happen close by. Visiting the Farm, my narrow zone of vision becomes glaringly obvious. Distant objects, animals, and cloud patterns are vital (not to mention beautiful!) and I am missing them because I am so near-sighted. The zone of interaction/field of view is so much larger out there.

I thought this was an interesting analogy to near-sightedness in the non visual sense. Some people go through life legally blind, oblivious to events which effect them even from a far off distance. If only it were as easy as pulling out the old eyeglasses to see things more clearly.

I would be much happier if my eyes could see the far away things more clearly, but lately I wish that my other 'vision' was a little near sighted. I see so many things out there that are frightening. But at least I can see them coming.


These are the views of and from my house as of today:

I love this yard, it is on a hill with many mature trees, but I have alot of different 'zones' to work with. Good neighbors, low crime and only three miles to work for both of us.


South East corner, slopes toward road, full sun, we cut down cedar bushes as old as the house last fall from the front of the house-this spring we will get the roots!



View from deck towards North East corner-big maple throws shade from noon onward, sloping away from house. We have two baby Mulberry trees planted out here.



View from South West of back yard. swing set, sand box and our best (almost) flat ground. Baseball and kickball field for now.



View from deck to North West corner -two bunny cages, compost pile, tin shed and a fire pit! Also partially shaded, stays wet since it is at the bottom of a hill. The apple tree is down to the right along with rhubarb planted by previous owner along the alley.


Kris

Have You Played Today?

Children do it, animals do it, why have some adults lost the ability to play? Play is using imagination and creativity; getting lost in the flow, carried away even. Play is so important to childhood development and I also argue- to adult happiness. Now don't go play on the monkey bars (unless you want to), but really think about what is fun for you. Where do you find release; where can you loose your self in the moment?
Play has been put on the wayside for many of us. There is alot of pressure in our society to be productive, to accomplish long lists of important things. Play is a guilty pleasure.
Escaping is not play. Escape is trying to drown out your life with something else, like alcohol or food or TV or the internet. I will sometimes escape with a long book-hide out away from my family and escape to another place, and not come up for air until the book is done. There is a fine line between escape and play; play energizes and feels good-escape does not.
I am so guilty of this. I have nearly lost play in my life. I have actually gotten to the point where I don't know what to do on a day off if I don't have (domestic) work to do. My cycles go like this: work, work, work, burning-out, work some more, escape....work, work, work....
Incorporating play into my everyday life is one of my biggest goals, it ranks right up there with learning to grow my own food, and spending time with my kids. If gardening and planting and cooking become all work and no pleasure then what is the point? If I take something which I consider play and overdo it, make it another entry on my to do list then this experiment is for nothing.
Fun for me is horseback riding, drawing and painting, biking, getting lost in a book, flying a kite, planting and gardening. There are more but those are the biggies.
Please tell me how you play! And I challenge you to try to play a little every day!

Evolve or Die

Two separate events have me thinking...a discussion with a client who is a family court judge and a National Geographic article on Darwin and the 150yr anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species.
Survival of the fittest, hmm I wonder. The human species is doomed. We enable the weak to survive and reproduce. Drug addicts and violent offenders have children who are predisposed, whether through genetics or environment, to also be violent offenders or drug addicts. These are children who would not likely live without the help of society. Foster care, social services are great for the individual but are they good for the human race as a whole? Are we enabling inferior genetics to survive? What are the implications hundreds of years from now?

Another thought along the Darwinian lines, a species separated geographically(or socio-economically?) will evolve to thrive in their environment. What does this mean for inner-city youth? The tools they need to survive their environment are much different than those needed by prep school kids. If these subcultures are isolated will we evolve into sub-species??

I am not being elitist-I probably would not have made it to reproduction age without medical intervention. I am also the biggest softy in the world, but I've been thinking and questioning the world, questioning normal. Kris

Recovery

I think I am finally recovering from Christmas. I feel sort of worn thin. I'm mostly an introvert and i am beginning to honor my need for quiet alone time to function. Work has been busy ( thank god ), but man am i burned out on work and people in general. I am dreaming of a whole weekend to be 'off duty'. I did play hooky today anyway, DH was gone and i was on call for work, so the 'chicks' and I watched Lord of the Rings trilogy ALL day. A good fantasy escape!

I am so inspired by all these great homesteading blogs, I really don't think I can take another year here in town. Yes I know we could 'homestead' in the current house-but I feel we need a bigger change. I need space from my job-I'm hoping physical distance will help with emotional distance as well ( to cut back hours and sell my share of the business or just cut back hours and retain ownership-that's another post!). Logically the next step for us is to list our house early spring, with the market the way it is, the house has to sell first. I am so stuck on what happens BEFORE we list. All those projects! You know -emptying closets, clearing the junk out of our finished but not used basement, fixing that dripping faucet and bathtub drain! Wishing isn't going to make anything happen. We just need to start somewhere! Kris