getting some clarity farm style

life's a bit busy right now, gardening, farming, end of school hoopla, ballet practices and performances, hockey winding down/playoffs for the menfolk, lots of watering due to extremely dry conditions,  birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, friends experiencing death and divorce, then there is always cooking, cleaning, laundry, children, grandchildren, grown children, family that doesn't live here(traveling), animals(lots of them) fostering, projects due, straightening up(my full time job) and i know i am not alone in this but sometimes it feels that way.

there are plenty of other things that could also go on that list (replacing toilet paper in the bathrooms, my other full-time job)....but you get the picture and most of you are experiencing it or have experienced it in the recent past.

SOME DAYS i just want to do what i want to do but alas the needs are still there when i return from my mental escapes.  which includes photographing, painting, taking care of the animals, planting an edible garden...much less having dinner or time with grownup friends including my hubby.

don't get me wrong i love being a mother, wife, grandmother, gardener,  cook, farmgirl etc, etc. i am just no good at prioritizing.   i want to do or have it all.


some days just come together perfectly and i flow through the days like i am on a cloud whisking me around with perfect timing and such.  but more often there are the other days...forgetting to pack lunch, not making the deadlines for projects, late answering emails that were imperative, didn't take something out for dinner or no dinner at all, planting something only to see it wither away for lack of attention, letting the kids bedrooms look like a tornado landed there, leaving dirty dishes stacked neatly waiting to be washed(something i never did when all six kids lived at home), dirty paw paths in every-room.

more and more i need recuperative moments which makes me look the other way for the stuff listed above.

then there is the mind...that never lets up.  do this, get to this, why haven't you done this?   don't you think you should cook dinner?  blah, blah blah.  SHHHHHH!

then i put myself in my place...you aren't a superhero/mom. you can only do what you can do...more blah blah blah.  

i realize that breathing is something that takes purposeful thoughts about it.   long slow breaths.  slowing down takes saying to yourself....SLOW DOWN.

life is a bit busy(vast understatement) but i am still going to take time to have some fresh cut flowers in a vase, take photographs of an unfurling flower, smell the gardenias, paint a picture,  have a swing on the front porch, stroke the kitty, preserve memories by daydreaming, read that book with dust on the front cover, cook lavish meals that take hours, watch a sunset until it fads into stars,  find new music and just sit and listen to it, stare at the birds flitting about, and lay in the hammock with my hubby, girl, and as many dogs as can fit on there with us.

life is full of things some are "glorious" others not so much but all in all life is full to the brim and i love it.