Don't Be So Defeatist, Dear

No new posts in a week?! Someone must have gone back to work full time this week. . . .

All winter long, I've posted three posts a week like clockwork to this here blargh, but then on Monday I worked my first eight hour day outside of the home in nearly seven months and before I knew it, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, even Friday  had all passed me by while Of Woods and Words sat in radio silence. Don't act like you're surprised.

I constantly overestimate my abilities and/or the amount of free time during the summer and then am always shocked when things start to fall to the wayside. On Thursday morning, for the first time in a long, long time, I woke up to a stack of dirty dishes next to the kitchen sink. To say it was a displeasing (nay, disappointing) sight would be to put things mildly. All week I've struggled to find the time to work my side jobs, exercise, clean and do just about anything else outside of work other than staring blankly ahead at the Netflix du jour each night.

It's easy to focus on all the things I can't do (start a batch of bagel during a down moment in my day, spend my lunch break catching up on blog reading, or ever find time to clean the bathroom, etc. etc.) with the return to full-time, out of the house employment. And when one's workplace is 43 degrees at the start of the work day and warms all the way up to 52 degrees after eight hours, one's mind does tend to stray to the melancholy. So although I may not really be wanting to see the good in the situation, I'm trying to keep my chin up, while the words of Lady Violet ring through my mind:

But enough about me.

In other news, the lake ice finally went out on Wednesday. That's just one day before the latest ice out date for the lake in recorded history. I was kind of hoping to break the record, but I guess the open water is kind of nice too. Andy and I got the dock in last night and on Thursday evening took a rather chilly boat ride around the lake.

I've been working towards the perfect golden, crispy potatoes for a while now. No variation of roasting them in the oven gets them quite the way I want them. Mel from Mel's Kitchen Cafe finally came to my rescue on Wednesday. Check out her golden skillet potatoes. Easy peasy and so, so good. Check that one off the bucket list. ;)

It's finally warm enough to put the seedlings outdoors. Unfortunately, it's also finally warm enough for chipmunks to be up to their rascally ways. Gardening fail #1 of 2013 is me leaving the seedlings outside all day while both Andy and I were away from the house. Goodbye two Brussels sprouts, a pepper, some cabbage, and several leaves from the eggplants and kohlrabi. Live and learn. Live and learn. I try to be calm about these sorts of things because hey - it's nature, but I would have been a little more forgiving about the whole plant massacre if the chipmunk had actually eaten the leaves and plants he chomped off. It's so very demoralizing to see the chopped off leaves wilting next to the maimed plants.

About the only thing I've managed to roll over successfully from my old "working from home" schedule this week is my running. I just wrapped up week 3 of this, my most recent running attempt, and next week, I face 6 minutes running, 2 minutes walking splits. On Wednesday night, we used the car's odometer to chart how far I've been going on my runs. Including the warm up and cool down, I've been covering about 3.4 miles on each run. Not too shabby and actually, I was kind of shocked by how far it was.

I hope you've all had a wonderful week and are filling your weekend with fulfilling and restorative activities. So far today I've caught up on all my cleaning chores (including the bathroom and washing floors!), made a batch of bread and put a corned venison (more on that later if it turns out well) in the Crock pot for supper.
   

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We Gardeners Are Fickle Folk

Right now, my mom and I work the same job, although never together. As a result, we share some co-workers.

When we're not at work, we're tending our gardens, which include several rather prolific cucumber plants. (The never-ending fridge pickle container in my fridge has not seen an end yet.)

Seeing as Mom and I are both blessed with cucumber plants that keep giving and giving, we're both prone to share the wealth with our co-workers. So last week, when I was harvesting several pounds of cucumbers for my first-ever attempt at canned dill pickle relish (a success . . . more on that in a later post), I saved the straightest, plumpiest, most beautiful cucumber to give to a co-worker. When I handed over the cucumber, my co-worker said, "Oh yeah, your mom gave me one yesterday." (She still took the cucumber, I mean, it was lovely.)

If you grow cucumbers, you know that the vast majority of cucumbers that you pick don't resemble the straight, homogenous cucumbers you buy at the grocery story. Some of the cucumbers look like golf balls, some look like the letter "C", some are real skinny at one end and super fat on the other. They all taste good; they just all have their own individual style.

When I told Mom that I'd brought this co-worker a cucumber, Mom said, "Yeah, I brought her my straightest, plumpiest, most beautiful cucumber yesterday."

Oh, we gardeners are fickle folks.

We all know our cucumbers come in all shapes and sizes, that our tomatoes have blemishes, that slugs and who knows what else love to munch our cabbages and potatoes, that our peppers, cauliflower and broccoli are often much smaller than what we're used to finding in stores. The vegetables may have some faults and imperfections, but that doesn't diminish their value. Unless, it seems, if we're giving away our veggies.

Because when I give away my vegetables, I give away only my most beautiful vegetables. I really want to put my best gardener face forward when I gift my vegetables in a gesture that's part generosity, part survival (OMG - I can't use all of this!) and part vanity (Look at how awesome I am . . . can you believe I grew this?!)

The cucumber story not only explains where my control issues come from (thanks Mom), but also shows the twisted value we all place on perfection . . . or rather, "perceived" perfection.

It's amazing how the myth of perfection permiates our everyday dealings. Even when we all know better, we remain tied to the idea that we must at least give off an impression of being pretty close to perfect.

My co-worker probably wouldn't have been any less grateful and gracious if I'd given her one of the more funky cucumbers. It would have tasted the same. Heck, it might even have sparked some conversation or at the very least, a smile.

So where am I going with this post? I'm tempted to say, and who really wants/needs perfection anyway?! But no matter how much we acknowledge the fact that we'd better off if we could just ditch our unattainable notions of perfection, I have a feeling that none of us will really be truly letting go of the pursuit of perfection (despite our best conscious efforts) any time soon.

They say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. But I have a better idea when it comes to our twisted relationships with perfection: laugh at the ridiculousness of it all and celebrate our vegetables all their shapes and sizes. 
 

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I will judge you

Source: someecards.com via Devon on Pinterest

I have a teensy, weensy little problem with being judgmental.

I mean, it's not a big deal.

For example, the other evening we were listening to the radio and the folk singer dedicated his next song to his daughter, Sienna.

"Sienna?!" I nearly shrieked. "What kind of person names their kid after a minivan? I mean, what's her brother named? Sorento?"

But everyone does that  . . . right?  (No offense to any Mamas or Papas of Siennas -- or Sorentos for that matter -- out there.)

The truth is, I've been judgmental as long as I can remember. When I first took the Myers-Briggs back in Sunday School, I didn't really understand the difference between having a judging or perceiving personality. But my parents laughed pretty hard when they heard that all but one of my answers indicated a judging personality.  (Now why we were taking Myers-Briggs personality tests in Sunday School, I can not tell you. All I know is that I was raised in the United Church of Christ which is filled with dirty hippies bleeding-liberals the belief that we are all God's children and that there is no wrong or right way to go about religious instruction.) To this day, my introversion and judging are the two factors of my personality that show up most decidedly on such tests.

And you know those quote board you kept in your dorm room or apartment during college? One of the quotes attributed to me was: "I don't know her and I don't want to know her. I just want to judge her."  I think the quote was somehow related to someone's Facebook profile page. (Back when Facebook was just for college kids. Remember those days?) Regardless of how that quote came about, I mean, good grief.

I swear I'm not an awful, heinous person. I'm perfectly capable of being friends (good friends) with people who don't share my political, religious, or ideological belief system. I'm tolerant of other cultures. I try to approach life with an open mind.  I've just always had an issue with expressing my snap judgements verbally. Apparently the axiom "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" just never stuck in my brain.

Lately, I've been thinking I should probably work on not saying the first thing that pops into my head. You know, at least not all the time. 

But it's hard, you know.

Like last night, when I was sitting on couch, knitting away on a sock and noticed an unfamiliar truck rumble by the cabin. Because the cabin's perched on the tip of a bay, we have a great view of the road that loops around the bay and as I watched the truck creep up the road it became obvious that these people had no idea where they were. The truck went all the way up the farthest driveway, then backed out and stopped at the far end of the road.

Four men popped out of the truck's cab, all dressed in grey tops and jeans. Three of them had fishing poles in their hands and they each proceeded to hop onto various docks. Not public docks, mind you, docks owned by summer residents of the bay. One of them even jumped onto a dock which is anchored slightly offshore. (The docks are all anchored "at sea" during the winter months so they can bob around when the ice goes out and not get ripped to shreds.) The fourth member of the party walked down the road, picking up rocks and hurling them into the lake.Then, after about 10 minutes of casting their lines and throwing rocks, just as suddenly as they'd come, they all popped into their truck and drove off, never to be seen again.

All the while, I sat on the couch, knitting away. All that was needed to make me a "real" old biddy was a shawl, some glasses on a beaded lanyard, and a rocking chair. I didn't say anything at all. (Full disclosure: I was home alone.) But I sure judged the snot out of them.

Please make me not feel like a horrible person and tell me I'm not alone in making awful, off the cuff, "I don't know the whole story" judgements. And please, if you know how to make it stop, let me know!  I promise I won't judge . . . too harshly. ;)

 

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Planting Seeds in the Cruelest Month

First sprout up: basil

T.S. Eliot betrayed his Midwestern roots when he wrote in the Modernist poem The Waste Land: “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

April, if you live in northern Minnesota, is a good time of year to not be at home. Around here, the month brings lingering ice, lurking snow banks and April showers that come in the form of snow. Meanwhile, mud season makes a bold entrance, so that even as Old Man Winter refuses to give up his icy grip over the land, mud splatters pant legs and dirt get dragged indoors on shoe soles and ground into the rugs. Vacuuming becomes a twice daily chore and during the slow melt that is April, even snow grows dirty.

Throw in Tax Day and we’ve got a rip roarin’ good time up here this month.

It probably comes as no surprise after that flattering description that I try to spend as much of April away from the Ol’ North Woods as possible. Last year saw Andy and I jetting off to the Pacific Northwest and I followed that up with a reunion trip to NYC. This year I’m headed to . . . maybe the Twin Cities for a weekend?

As you might imagine, attempting to avoid an entire month is a rather expensive proposition and this year, the old wallet wasn’t up to the task.

But I’ve been planting seeds.

The very end of March and early April mark the prime time for starting the summer vegetables and flowers. Because I’m usually gone during this span of time, my seeds usually get started closer to the first week of May and those seedlings are pretty piddly and sad when it comes time for outside planting. This year, the seeds got started right on schedule.

As I planted my tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflowers and flowers Saturday I was reminded of the uncertainty that surrounds every thing we do. The directions on the little Jiffy greenhouses I purchases told me to put two to three in each little seed pod. There’s no knowing which seeds will germinate and from the seeds that do sprout, which ones will weather the transplanting into the garden and of those, which of those will produce. I tried to get nicotiana planted in the pods, the seeds so teeny they seemed to disappear on my finger tips and thought, “it’s a miracle these can amount to anything noticeable at all.”

In the misty, grey chill that is April, ennui tends to be the prevailing emotion. But if I’m going to spend the whole accursed month up here, then I might as well commit to getting 1000 words written on the current novel in progress each morning before anything else happens. Unless I keep planting seeds, I can’t expect anything to grow and blossom in the warmer months to come.

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Something in the Air

Lately, there’s been something in the air. At first, as a series of blustery days churned up the lakes, riled the trees, and brought in cooler air, I assumed that strange buzz in the atmosphere was simply autumn’s arrival. But the fact that temperature inside my work place today reached 91.1 degrees today pretty much debunked that theory.

And there’s still something in the air. A sense of energy. And even more than a sense of energy, some sort of urgency. Something that prompts me to keep going even when my mind tells me the day is done. Something that has me reaching for the “get some zzzs” herbal tea on an 85 degree evening.

Maybe it’s the result of the solar storms last week that painted the night sky in lovely shades of northern lights.

 

Northern Lights | WTIP North Shore Community Radio, Cook County, Minnesota

Or maybe it has to do with planet alignment. Whatever it is, the last week I find my days starting strong, only to spend most of the work day cranky yet after heading home and making supper, I am struck by a sudden urge to “go” just when it really should be time to turn out the lights. Andy calls it the “summer doldrums.” It doesn’t seem like doldrums to me exactly (at least not early in the morning or late at night) but it definitely feels unsettled.

Part of the unsettledness is perfectly logical. The first half of the month is always more frantic than the second half as I pulled together the month’s allotment of freelance articles. Once we hit the 15th of the month, things slow down, or at least, the manner in which things unfold is based slightly more on my whims.

Tori over at Rabid Ink wrote an interesting post on working to relax and it strikes me that what she writes about might be part of what’s going on around here as of late. This summer has been a juggling act of a wide variety of projects and it’s easy to view any sort of free time as procrastination. Instead of taking a load off at the end of the day, I find it more comforting to sit at the computer and attempt to tap out a few sentences, paragraphs. Keep that up for too long and there’s bound to be a strange sense of energy in the air that’s morphed out of my control.

So I’m giving into the summer doldrums, the solar storms, the planets, visit from muse, whatever this disturbance is. I will work on freelance assignments by morning and type out commentaries in the evening hours while simultaneously blogging, scouring Writer’s Digest and Fund for Writers for ways to hone my writing craft and improve my platform, and crafting editorial calendars. It seems silly to sit passively in befuddlement when something beyond me seems to be prompting: go, go, go. Someday soon, I know I'll wake up and find whatever it was has disappeared and it'll be same ol', same ol'. But until then, I might as well get something done.

Have the summer “doldrums” or some other strange force hit where you’re at? What do you do to manage it?

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