life is good

Poem

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

Last night I couldn’t fall asleep.  I lay listening to the soft tick-tock of an old clock on top of the blanket chest.  And I wrote my first poem since my college days.  One of my majors was English with a Creative Writing emphasis.  I always struggled with poetry – prose was more my thing.

This poem just showed up in my head.  Unannounced, unplanned, unedited.  It was just there and I kind of like it.

Here goes:

The tick-tock of the clock

is the sound of old.

New time is silent,

Yet holds all the noise

of the world.

Why a poem now?  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s best to not question creative gifts.

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New

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

A new month!  A new week!  Yea for new beginnings.  The washer is washing, the dryer is drying.  The dishes are…waiting.  And, although there is no picture, stuff left the house yesterday.  A mouse pad, some worn-out undies that I wouldn’t want to be wearing in a car accident, boxes of old business documents, a Halloween decoration that never decorated this Halloween, and more than 500 emails.  I know that the emails are not technically things, but they were most definitely clutter. In working through the email I also unsubscribed to a lot.  That will help my inbox stay more relevant and hopefully help me keep up.

And there was fun around here yesterday.  This is what happens when you have a college senior home for the weekend who is tired of being in school and is trying to avoid writing one of several papers due early in the week.  She talks her little sister into this:IMAG1100 (1)IMAG1104Yep, they painted some of our chickens’ “toenails”.  If you aren’t familiar with chickens, they definitely have personalities and expressive faces.  This one’s expression is not saying, “I am feeling glamorous and enjoying this experience immensely.”IMAG1105

The best news of the day?  Our first egg.  We’ve been anxiously waiting and checking for weeks now. It’s finally here.  You have to raise chickens to understand the excitement of this moment.  It’s just one.  It’s small, but it’s a start.  This is as close to living off the land as I’m likely to get.  I love my chickens!

Now, I’m off to live another day.  Cleaning, teaching, loving, de-cluttering, art-making, smiling, struggling, hugging, washing, and dealing with each challenge as it comes along.

It’s going to be a good day.

Rest

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

Friday night I was tired.  Not really sleepy – just tired – the I don’t want to think, make a decision, or accomplish one more single thing kind of tired.

I ended up sitting on the sofa, re-re-watching a movie, eating popcorn and sharing it with my dog.  A movie where the good guys win and the bad guys lose and there is no doubt which is which.

There were things undone on my list and a million more that could be on the list, BUT…

We have accomplished so much around here lately.  Things are getting done that I had given up on doing.  The time spent together is more intentional.  All in all, life is good and better than it has been for awhile.  Not perfect, not “done”, but moving along towards a goal…a dream.  That’s all good stuff.

BUT…sitting and resting is good stuff too…and I tend to forget that.  I usually keep striving and going, thinking that I will rest when it’s done.  That’s a misstep on my part.   There are limits to my ability to “do”.  It will never all be “done”.  I am somewhat of a perfectionist after all.

If I don’t pause every now and then, there is really no sense to all the doing.  There is no appreciation of the progress and no realization of the accomplishment.  There is no joy.

So, today I will rest some.  There is a part-time job that has to be done.  But if it doesn’t have to be done today, I’m not going to do it.  I’m not going to look for projects.  I’m not going to look for things that need to be done.  I’m not even going to proof this blog.

I’m going to sit and look at what has been done and enjoy.

Rest.