Not my fault

Alder started it.  Even when it's three-year-old-urgent to get to the bathroom, he skids to a stop by the Easter lily in the hall and takes a deep sniff.  Then he whooshes off to the bathroom.  Three year olds have a lot to teach me.  I never pass that lily without a pause and a big sniff.  It's a new rule.

Besides making dumb rules for myself, one of my character flaws is to finish what I start.  It's been richly rewarded, but it's still a flaw.  I tend to work on everything until it is DONE. So I finish within my time frame at the cost of excellence.  I push my physical self to the point of unnecessary aches and pains and utter exhaustion to finish a project.  I constantly struggle with balance and living in the truth.  While I insist on waking up in a new world every day, with awe, delight and a knowledge that something new is about to happen -like a goose, or a 3 year old - I still work hard and I must get it done.   With that attitude, I'm constantly at risk of becoming a human doing instead of a human being.  A silly old grown up.

I think the one thing that makes a person crazy is insisting on not living in truth.    And the truth is, I am not a 3 year old, there are responsibilities and planning involved in running my life, my gardens, my budget, my practice, etc.  All that can so easily spin off into worry (borrowing trouble), and hurry. Being fully present to the moment can be tricky if you're always in a rush.

So, this weekend, I planted 36 bulbs in the barn garden, put in 6 new rose bushes, and 6 grasses, installed a sand box under the play set slide area and filled it with purple sand, built two little raised bed garden plots beside the slide for the babies to grow veggies, and wove apple branches along the garden's edge so the vines would shade the sand box and make it a cozy green tent in the summer.  I was pretty sore and tired at the end of all that.  But while I was doing it all with my Alder and Fia, we sang Little Bunny Foo Foo and Bear Tracks on tree stumps.  We marched and kissed and took breaks and ate snacks and slid down the slide and stuck our face in the Easter lily.  Made all the difference in the world. XOXOOX