Back on the zen train. Yesterday I read the story about the man running from the tiger who falls off a cliff and hangs by a vine over an abyss. When he looks up he sees the tiger. When he looks down he sees the abyss. Two mice come along (apparently unbeknownst to the tiger, but I digress...) and start gnawing at the vine. Just then the man sees a ripe strawberry growing nearby. He plucks off the strawberry and bites into it. Mmm...delicious.

Reading this story again got me thinking about feelings and I wondered if I knew this was the last time I was ever going to feel sadness would I be able to appreciate it as deeply as that man appreciated the strawberry? If joy can be found in each thing, each feeling, each circumstance, could I even bless sadness and grief and its part in this life?

So I love it when a train, in this case the zen train, gets caught up in a synchronicity. After all of these zen thoughts and an amazing meditation, I was driving with the kids in the car later on and really marveling at this life that is ours- this life that we are- and I went over to Powells to {gasp} buy a book. I didn't find the book I went in for- well, I found one of them but not the other- but I did pass by another book that caught my eye- a new release hardcover, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. So far so good and right on track when I opened up and read this quote by Colette, "What a wonderful life I've had. I only wish I'd realized it sooner." It made me want to pluck whatever strawberry happened along right then and enjoy it for all it was worth. So, of course, I bought the book. {A bold, impulsive response to a beckoning synchronicity, no less.) It seems there is still time, always time, right now for noticing what life offers and going ahead and picking it up. Mmmm....delicious. And now for those strawberries Eva picked out at the store.

terrence

Terrence found the dandelions on the table...

spring, take 1

We had a gloriously sunshiney most-of-the-day-outside sort of day yesterday and Eva spent a good bit of it out with the flowers. She brought in a few armfuls to put in water on the table- daffodils and pansies and quite a few dead nettle and dandelions. Then she spent some time arranging the flowers in water and setting up a flower display. She also set some aside to dry in the flower dryer she got for Christmas. (Oh, and onion tops. She brought in quite a few onion tops as well.) I am looking forward to the forget-me-nots which are just starting to bloom. We found some tiny vases last year which are going to be just perfect for forget-me-nots and wood violet bouquets...

Beauty where it finds you-

frogs and butterflies

I didn't post yesterday. I am posting today. I notice that I feel better when I do some sort of writing and this is definitely some sort of writing. The inspiration today is in the writing and not in the content, although goodness knows there is plenty to be inspired about when I remember to look around a bit.

We went out to Sauvie Island the other day and were lucky enough to find a few frogs down by the water. Eva caught one and held him for a while and then we took turns passing him back and forth until we decided {actually, it was after he peed on Samuel and Samuel said, "what IS that?" and I said, "it's pee," and he said, "you didn't have to tell me that."} he might be tired and Eva put him back in the water. When we went over to the other side of the lookout thingy which I can't seem to place with a name today, we looked for more frogs but found instead what Eva is calling a wild guinea pig. It did look quite a bit like what we think a wild guinea pig might look like and it also looked quite a bit like what we know a baby domesticated guinea pig does look like and also, to be honest, it also looked quite a bit like a vole or a small woodchuck who ran very fast and was not nearly as interested in being found by Eva as Eva was in finding him. He has been dubbed "the wild guinea pig" and probably shall remain so ever after.

We also saw several garter snakes, both down by the water and up in the leaves basking in the sunshine. And our first butterflies this year. I looked them up and one was {probably} definitely an orange tip. The other two were those little blueish-periwinkle butterflies. Are they blue copper butterflies? I'm not entirely sure. I know I have seen them before. We followed the first one around with our eyes and feet for several minutes revelling in the thrill of a butterfly in our midst. The second one came along when we were on our way back to the car just as we were telling Samuel about seeing the other butterfly and he was bemoaning how he would have liked to have seen that butterfly too and we all looked over and sure enough there was another one. Right there. And I pointed him out and said something very excitedly like, "hey look there is another butterfly just like the one we saw before!!" and he looked and Eva looked and I looked and we watched with our eyes and big smiles as the butterfly flew around us and across the path and out into the grass.

Then we walked back to the car and I helped Jack climb in because he is a senior dog now and doesn't resist me giving him a hand. It felt so good to have him with us today while we walked in the woods. He didn't seem to mind being kept on the leash the whole time. It seemed a small price to pay for feeling well enough again to go walking in the woods with us and the butterflies and the frogs. When we all stood still in the sunshine we could still hear the frogs singing out in the water beyond.

fairy houses

Yesterday we spent some time outside at the park with friends. While Samuel ran off with Ben to play with lightsabers in a secret fort, Eva and some of the other girls made fairy houses. I went over a few times to stop other kids from knocking down the houses and sent them all over to another area where some flower bushes were growing. By the end of the day, the houses had been such a hit that there was a large group of toddlers and preschoolers building other flower lined houses in the area I had sent them to. It was very sweet to see all of those little ones carrying flowers back and forth with little branches and rocks. Such sweet inspiration.

on again, off again

I had three self-imposed projects that I started hmmm over the last few months that I have dropped nearly completely. I am not reading Shakespeare in the way I had thought I would. I do still carry around my copy of Romeo and Juliet, though, just in case and last night after the kids went to sleep I started reading it again just enough to get me to go to sleep. Ahem. I have not started any more home projects and have certainly not finished up home project #4- couch! I know this because we still have no couch. Whenever I think about this I hear the song "Yes, we have no bananas," in my head which should say something about the lack of bitterness involved. And, I have not been knitting one new project and then finishing up one old project each month for about 2 months now. I mean, I suppose I could hurry up this month and fit something in {maybe} and let go of only February. It turns out there is a reason so many of my old projects are sitting around. They make for dull company and I have half a mind to rip them all out. In fact, I am still stuck on the most {possibly} boring knitting project ever- putting in a pocket- into the sweater that I have taken so many pains to modify before the weather got too warm to wear it. Again, ahem. I had such high hopes for putting a zipper on that sweater as well and darn it if I didn't buy the wrong sized zipper that last time I went to Joanne's in search of a zipper. How on Earth I bought one that was 5 inches too small I don't understand. Now I have it straight. All this of course means that I have to motivate myself to drive over to Joanne's again and get another zipper and until I do that, there the sweater shall sit. Nothing quite like almost-finished-knitting-sitting or even this-knitting-was-once-finished-and-is-now-sitting-again. Still, I have very little bitterness, more like complete non-interest. I mean, don't get me wrong, it will be a shame {sort of} if I don't wear this sweater again until next fall. Then again, I think my neglect has more to do with some of the details not working out in quite the way I had envisioned them. The whole point of modifying this sweater was to make it better than it was. It is better, I will give it that. But will I actually wear it {still}? That is the question. Have the modifications done enough so that I will put it on and wear it out there- even if only to the dog park? Or for a walk in the woods? Who can say until it is done. And what then, if I won't wear it? More modifications? To what end?

This, I must say, is the good and the bad of knitting. On the one hand, knitting does give you, as I have written before, an opportunity to fine tune the endless possibilities inherent in an unused skein of yarn. On the other hand, what about finally finishing something already? Surely, while the process is amazing, there is also something to be said for a product as well {at least eventually}? I don't know. I am torn. Obviously.

These questions, I can find them anywhere and everywhere I look. To what end? I think, as with everything else, it must be both. It must be the joy in the process and the thrill of the product. Without both we are left with a lot of lifeless stuff taking up space {too much focus on product} or naked and hungry in the snow {too much focus on process}. It's good to have both.

And what does that mean for my sweater-in-the-fixing? I've really no idea. At least not now. I can fix it up, put in the zipper and the little embroidered flowers I have planned, wear it to the park, marvel that I made it, bemoan the smaller pockets each time I put my hands inside- modify those? Or I can put it back on the shelf until next year, forestalling the product a little while longer in favor of a longer process. Wherever the sweater takes me. Or something like that.

{dog}

tail wagging with love
trusting in sausage for me
walking to the park