A new project to do together

I was in for a surprise this week when my husband suddenly expressed an interest in aquaponics. The vegetable garden has always been my sole domain, and though he's been happy to assist now and then, he has always considered it my little realm. But he saw a documentary about growing vegetables aquaponically, and now he's intrigued. Today we went to a store specializing in aquaponic systems, and we were fascinated by the slowly revolving towers of lettuce on display, the buckets of tomatoes, the six-foot-tall rosemary bush. But all the white plastic columns and tubing looked a bit clinical, like an operating room, and the costs were sky high. My handy hubby studied the systems a while, and then we went to the Home Depot and he figured out he could build his own system for under $100. We're going to start with a small unit, just some tomatoes and lettuce, to see how the experiment goes. We can expand later as we work out the quirks.

The idea appeals to me on a few levels. No weeding. No bending and crawling on hands and knees. No mud. Fewer bugs. The water units can tend themselves for a little while if we go out of town. Intensive vertical gardening allows for more food produced per square foot. And fewer squirrels, if we do at least some of this indoors. But best of all, it's a project my husband and I can do together.

Finished with room to spare

I got the rewrites done in record time. It was cosy, I'll have to admit, sitting in the garage with the laptop and the space heater while the freezing rain fell outside. No distractions but the bowl of chocolates that somehow followed me out there... I think the reviewers' comments were valid and helpful and the story will be stronger because of them.

Still a few days left of vacation to enjoy, too! Glad I don't have to make the trek back to work yet. Shoveling the snow today was more like bailing, it was so wet and slushy. We got off lucky having wonderful warm weather up until Christmas, but now it appears we're going to pay for it. But I don't think the usual winter depression will be so bad this year. After all, there are only three or four months of winter left! That's nothing!

Time to break out the seed catalogues and start thinking about spring.

Down to the Wire

One week to complete the rewrites on my next manuscript. Stormy weather forecasted for Toronto. The perfect time to hunker down in my "office" in the garage and write.

Okay, so I have a weakness...

In spite of all my talk about lightening up, discarding what I don't really need, and everything, I gotta admit...I got fifteen books for Christmas and another $50 gift card to Chapters Bookstore and I couldn't be happier! My family and friends know me well...

I'm like a kid in a candy store. Which will I choose first? What a delicious decision!

A Gardening Metaphor for the Coming Year

I was up a few hours before the rest of the family this morning, so I curled up on the couch in the lamplight to read. And got to thinking. And pulled out a notebook and started writing. And as sometimes happens during periods of quiet reflection and introspection, thoughts I never knew I had in my head came pouring out of my pen. And here is the insight I had this morning, with the wind whistling outside and the house hushed and sleeping.

I know I often beat myself up for not doing everything correctly or well, and I'm especially hard on myself for not having done in the past all that I knew I should be doing. I got caught up in the day-to-day and "young motherhood" chaos and neglected some of the more important things. I'm reaping -- I think -- some of the results of that in my present life. I tend to see my children's struggles as the result of something I neglected or failed to do in the past. I have always had a hard time not judging myself harshly about this. But here's what came to me this morning: At that difficult period of my life, as a young mother, I was a seed, pushing through mud. Slogging through mud, really. And maybe in my life now I'm beginning to blossom, to become what I'm supposed to become, but I can't look back on that seed and judge it for not being a flower. That seed pushing through mud was a vital, necessary stage of my growth, and any flowering I may be on the verge of now is due to that process the seed went through. It isn't realistic to blame myself for not blossoming sooner, or to expect that seed to have thought as a flower. It was the best seed it knew how to be, and even if there were things I knew at the time I could have done better, it was still an aspect of being a seed: thinking like a seed. I know more now and I can't expect myself to have acted then on what I know now.

But then the really staggering thought followed: God doesn't expect that either. He understands the process and allows for it.

And now it's my children's turn to be seeds pushing through mud, and I need to understand that process and allow for it for them.

Ha! It may not sound profound to anyone else, but I just had an epiphany. And no doubt when I'm eighty and in full bloom, I'll look back on this insight and laugh at how little I still understand.

Paring Down the Purse

I've never really used a large purse, but for the past many years I've used a clutch purse, like a large wallet. It is so old that bits of the leather are falling off and sticking to the contents, and I have to scrape sticky bits off my credit card whenever I want to use it. The outside layer has worn away to reveal a thin cloth layer below, and it's only a matter of time before it falls apart all together. I hate spending money on such things, but I knew it was time.

In the spirit of going smaller, I have downsized to a truly tiny wallet that fits in my hand. It's so small I fear for my credit card, which looks like it might snap. It's difficult to pry out, so it will give me a second chance to rethink purchases while I wrestle with it. Maybe it will save me money!

In this process, I have had to go through my old wallet to cull out unnecessary things and decide what was truly vital. Library card, MasterCard, Air Miles card, health card, bookstore points card, driver's license, a card giving my blood type and St. John's Ambulance ID, and my insurance info card. Bus tickets, money, and a few gift cards.

What was in the pile I didn't fit in? Three business cards for the same taxi company. A card for a taxi company that only serves Oakville (where I don't live). The card of a fellow author I met four years ago. The contact information for the lawyer we used when we bought this house fourteen years ago. An ancient coupon for a sandwich place I've never eaten at. A discount card for an Optical place I've never used. My identical insurance info written down on about four other cards. A slip of paper bearing a phone number with no indication to whom it belongs. Old receipts and stubs. And the contact info of my financial advisor, whom I see once a year, which can go into my address box instead of being carted around with me.

All this flotsam and jetsam of a life. We collect bits as we go along, like mud accumulating on our shoes, and until we stop and look, we don't realize how much we've collected. One clutch purse is not a huge beginning, but it's an indication of how much useless stuff I'm going to find tucked into corners and crannies elsewhere.  2016 is going to be my year for setting down burdens, letting go of stuff, cleaning out, and shrinking my life and my belongings down to a manageable size.

Katie the Dog

The subway system shut down for two hours the other day while workers tried to rescue a German Shepherd that had somehow gotten stuck on the tracks. They think she might have been hit by a train. Unfortunately they had to put her down in the end, the kindest thing, but for those two hours thousands of people drew to a halt, detoured, walked, and waited while a good portion of the transit system of this major city stopped.

The sheer fact that I haven't heard any complaints, the fact that everyone I talk to feels so sad for this dog, makes me love this city and its people even more. We haven't lost our compassion. I live in a lovely place.