Desk

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

This post was actually started and abandoned many days ago during a relatively calm moment in a chaotic day. It was abandoned until now. The view outside that window is quite different…snow is piled up on the porch and icicles drip down from the window. I am in Central Texas and we are celebrating that the temperature is 19 degrees and the electricity has stayed on all day! Housebound, there is time to catch-up on things that have been neglected (like this blog). Change is afoot here at FaithAcre Studio. I am trying to figure some things out and move in a forward direction. Last year was tough – even without the pandemic…stories to follow, but for now I am completing this post and then getting back under a blanket with a mug of hot tea.

Right now – in this moment – I am at my desk.

It is not a serene and simple place to rest.

It is a reflection of my real life…a jumbled, chaotic mess of things to do and things undone.

It is also a place of hope and intention and change.

A place to get things done.

Where I am now is not the place I am going.

This new year I didn’t pick a phrase to define the year or set ordinary resolutions as I have done in the past.

I set an “intention”.

As last year concluded, I realized that I often felt like I had been riding in a leaky boat without a sail or an oar in hand in tumultuous, uncharted waters.

That was not a good feeling for someone like me.

This year I intend to do the best I can with what I have and extend grace to myself for I what don’t get done.

That’s it.

Simple & Intentional

I’m not going to completely renovate our house and get out of debt and become a famous artist and lose 75 pounds and get rid of my hypertension with exercise and …

I’m going to try and get rid of the stuff we don’t need and keep the house relatively tidy & comfortable most days.

I’m going to try and get our finances in better shape and know where the money is going.

I’m going to try and make some art because it makes me happy.

I’m going to walk a little bit most days and be more aware of when I’m stuffing food in my face because I’m stressed.

And right now, I’m going to put the pens on my desk in the pen holder.

The time feels right to think and dream and make plans that are subject to change.

Always change.

Advertisement

what happened?

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

what happened?

where have I been?

Those are good questions.

And I have some answers, but not nearly all the answers.

Let’s keep it simple…

Life happened.

Messy, glorious, heart-breaking life in all it’s wonder.

Right now, I am sitting here attempting to write, but mostly watching my flock of chickens scratch in the falling leaves outside my window.

It occurs to me that it might be easier to be a chicken. Their lives are definitely less complicated than human ones.

The complications can be challenging and sometimes even soul-crushing. Life can beat you down until you just don’t think you can handle one more thing.

Your brain is filled to bursting with things to do and things to solve and things to figure out and your heart is empty because you are all used up.

That, my friends is anxiety and depression in a nutshell.

There is too much and not enough at the same time.

So you just quit living everyday life and start reacting to this thing and the next thing.

And living the life of a chicken starts looking pretty good.

But, deep down I know that I don’t want to be a chicken.

I want to tough it out and live my life.

I want to live through the pain and know that the joy is coming.

I want to find gratitude in the midst of things its hard to be grateful for. I know it’s there…somewhere.

I want to figure things out and find the solution and not let the problem defeat me.

This has been a really, really hard year in a lot of ways (and I’m not even factoring all the stuff going on out there in the world)

It’s tempting to focus on the hard stuff and conclude that this is a “bad” year.

This has been a really, really good year in a lot of way…

Today, I wrote a list of all the good stuff that has happened this year and I realized that this is just a year…like all years are.

Years can’t be bad or good. They just are. A chronological succession of day that come and go…

The list included the “good” and the “bad”.

I found that most of the good was a direct result of the bad.

The “bad” stuff prompted me (and my family) to:

focus on simplifying our life by decluttering

spend less money and redefine our spending habits…our needs versus our wants

grow closer to extended family that we didn’t make time for before

build a closer immediate family unit

get better about asking for help for problem solving rather than going it alone

spend less time with outside distractions by limiting our information inflow (news, etc.)

spend way more time outside gardening and walking or just sitting and talking

It’s taken a lot of work to find gratitude in the midst of some pretty serious crap going on in my life and I’m sure that the work is not nearly done. I’m sure there will be a significant number of reactionary days rather the more productive and healthy “action” days.

I’m going to try and remember that I’m better off being me than being a chicken.

The complications are worth the effort.

the work continues

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

The sub-floor and laminate is down.

The inspector basset hound is testing it out.

Trim work and painting commences.

I know – we’re doing it out of order, but that’s the way things go around here sometimes.

The blind installation and closet build are all that’s left…except for moving very little back in.

I’m tired of stuff…really, really tired of dealing with it.

Almost done!

Changing Spaces

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

It is a season of change at our home

Middle daughter and her family moved into their newly purchased new home over the weekend.

Oldest daughter spent the weekend organizing her new hideaway now that we are no longer using it for storage.

And we are beginning repairs and renovations on the main house…our master bedroom to be specific.

Last night we moved everything out and into the family room recently vacated by middle daughter’s office and stuff.

I had a bit of a meltdown at moving everything and lamenting that all I seem to do is move, rearrange and deal with “things” no matter how hard I’ve tried to declutter and simplify. During the renovation process, I’ll continue to ponder and work on what we have and what we need and what to do about it all…

We’ve live in this manufactured home for over 15 years while raising a family and a lot of life has happened here. It shows. New sub-floor, flooring, wall repair, paint, trim are all in the plan (plus whatever new shows up during the process).

Out with the old.

In with the new.

Here’s to sawdust and paint drips and all things new.

the view from here

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

Monday morning.

The start of a new week – ready to go after a restful weekend!

This is what my Monday looks like…

Not pictured are the soon to arrive 2 year old, the home-school planning I forgot to do for this week, the hungry chickens calling to me, or the myriad of unfinished (and not yet started) projects all around me.

It feels like total chaos.

There was a time when I would have been paralyzed with anxiety over the whole situation.

I’m still not happy about it.

But, I have been working on approaching the whole mess without judgement.

This is the reality of what it is.

I am responsible for it, but the mess is not who I am.

I need to get it cleaned up and dealt with it.

I am not a failure or worthless or incompetent or…

Those labels still bounce around in my head, but I am working on quieting them.

And I am making progress.

There is a lot going on in life right now and I’ll never get it all done.

Life is not a list to be completed.

I’ll put a load of laundry in.

I’ll pick up the trash that my Basset Hound dragged out again. I’ll also pause and rub her belly because she is who she is and going through trash is what she does. If the trash had been taken out, she wouldn’t have waited until I went to sleep to climb up on top of the counter to get to it. Mental note: take out the damn trash before I go to bed.

While my daughter puts up the clean dishes, I’ll schedule her school assignments.

Then I’ll load the dishwasher up again while being grateful that we have food and my husband is essential and employed.

Hopefully, before the kiddo gets here.

When he gets here, we’ll do our morning snuggles and breakfast…because the mess will wait.

We’ll go feed the bok-boks together and check out what’s growing in the new garden beds “we” built. We’ll come in and change his clothes because he is two and it rained recently.

We’ll throw his dirty clothes into the next wash load and he’ll “help” fold laundry.

I’ll do the best that I can and work through it…

while remembering that everyone is worthy of grace and love and kindness…myself included.

I don’t yet know what tomorrow will look like.

I am hopeful that the mess will be lessened somewhat, but I’m sure that there will still be something left to do.

good news

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

I wrote a post yesterday sharing “ten things about me”.

I have three things to share today: good news, a correction, and and a confirmation.

They are all wrapped up in one tiny bit of information…

My wonderful husband informed me last night that I will not be turning 60 on my birthday this week. I will be 59 and that proves that I am absolutely not good at math.

In any case, I am celebrating that I will be gaining another whole year of life due to my husband’s attention to detail (and practiced skill of keeping me on track).

Please do not feel the need to point out that I’ve not actually “gained” any time at all and that this is a wholly illogical point of view.

I’m at peace with my delusion.

Life is good.

Blessings on your Sunday!

10 things about me

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

Here are ten things you may or may not know about me…

  1. I am 59 years old and will be turning 60 later this month. I am a work in process and haven’t figured out much about how life works. I have gotten better about faking it though. I’m starting to worry that everybody is faking it and we should all be more honest about it.
  2. I have been married for 37 years (yesterday) to a very patient and understanding guy. Most days we are pretty happy. Some days, not so much. Overall, I consider getting married one of my best grown-up decisions. Our secret to a long marriage was deciding early on that that whoever left, took the kids. It’s kept us together so far.
  3. I have 4 kiddos ranging in age from 30 to 17 and one grandson who it 2 years old. He is going to become a big brother in a couple of months so I’ll soon be a “Nana” to two little boys.
  4. I am a mixed media artist who spent years becoming comfortable with saying “I am an artist” and am now trying to figure out what that means I am supposed to do. I’m working on just making stuff because it’s who I am and letting go of expectations.
  5. I raise earthworms. They live in a bin under my desk. Their favorite food is watermelon, but I’m just guessing because they are pretty quiet and don’t talk to me at all. They seem happy when I give them watermelon though. I don’t really know what an unhappy earthworm looks like so I’m really just making a lot of this up as I go.
  6. I studied Creative Writing and Fine Art at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. I have two Bachelor’s degrees and am 3 hours short of a third in history. I would have happily stayed in college forever. I was a natural student and can fake my way through almost any test or paper…except for math. I’m an idiot when it comes to math.
  7. I moved a lot when I was growing up. I’ve lived in Ohio, Alaska, Florida, Louisiana and every major city in Texas…also quite a few minor ones. I have no idea why we moved so much. My parents’ never chose to share that bit of wisdom with me. I’m sure I’ll forgive them some day. They had their own growing up to do and mistakes to make.
  8. As as result of moving so much as a kid, I’m not the most social creature on the planet. I can fake being an extrovert and have no trouble speaking in front of a group of people…familiar or strangers. One on one, I struggle and often have to “hibernate” to recover after a social event.
  9. I was working towards a calling as an ordained minister at one point in my life and have not been active in a church since that didn’t work out. I have some trouble with calling myself a “Christian” and prefer to consider myself a follower of Jesus. I’m quite spiritual, but don’t talk about it too much and am leery of organized religion.
  10. I have a lot of opinions…some of the quite strong, but overall consider myself to be pretty middle-of-the-road with slight deviations to the right and left depending on the topic. I try to think things through and examine both sides of an issue before making a decision and at this point in my life understand that very few things are clearly black and white…you have to wade through a lot of gray to figure out the truth. It is rare that I will ever embrace confrontation to make a point, but when it does happen it will involve a situation that affects me or my family personally.

I’m going to throw in one more – why I write this blog…

Honest answer; I’m not always sure.

I enjoy the process of stringing words together in an understandable and cohesive manner. It’s like a puzzle to find the right thoughts and words and assemble them to communicate with someone else. I enjoy it.

And sometimes, ideas write themselves in my head and I feel the need to type them out and share them. Every once in a while, someone responds back in a positive way and am glad that I took the time to share. More often, nobody seems to notice, but that’s okay. We don’t always get to know what we’ve accomplished or whether our life has deep meaning. Answering a spiritual calling or sharing what we are good at is the purpose of why we are here.

Affirmation is nice but never promised.

Nobody ever claimed we would get all the answers.

We find our own happiness within ourselves…and by sharing what we have with others.

Blessings on your day!

little things

| Kelly Barrow @ Faithacre Studio

My anxiety continues.

My usual coping mechanisms aren’t helping much.

…but over the weekend an email shows up.

A blogger that I follow posted a song.

I don’t know why she posted it. Maybe she just needed to hear it.

I didn’t know that I needed to hear it, but I’ve been listening to it any time I felt that I was “done with it all”.

It’s been like a little “pause” button for me…a little breathing space in the midst of it all…a centering moment reminding me that I’m not doing it all alone.

And it’s helped me to refocus on those around me instead of dwelling on my circumstances.

Maybe I can do a little something for someone around me.

God knows, there is certainly enough stress and anxiety swirling around..

We need to share little reminders that we aren’t alone.