Latest Cob Crushes

I think I will have to learn how to build my own door.

Gratitude

A sweet day, sometimes bittersweet. Last year I spent Thanksgiving  with someone that I didn't know would be gone by New Year's day. There were memories of that dinner and family.

This year the dinner was even tastier, I think. The company was lovable. My kid's uncle who is always dear and gentle. My son who never ceases to brighten my moments with his gentleness and beauty. His other mom never looked so gorgeous and is a particularly gracious hostess. Her partner is wonderful and makes H's eyes shine. And grandma... her last words as she's walking down to her car, "I always try to keep doing the things that I can." She's probably almost 90.

We went around the table to speak of the things we felt thankful for. Our dear tradition. Me? I just feel blessed for all the wonderful people in my life, my health, my beautiful son, and all the possibilities that life has to offer. The Universe is truly conspiring to shower us with blessings. Thank you.

Practice

There are so many things I love about this city. Still, I need to go. Not too far away. So here and there I'm leaving me in little crevices with my practice. Walking along and letting the stones that want to be balanced speak to me. It's the sweetest feeling when they settle into each other. Sometimes just the drops of rain tumble them. But it doesn't matter does it? The stones don't seem to mind.

This Place Of Knowing

This Place of Knowing - -Morgan Brig

James is a fisherman and he needs to go back to New England. A kid that's acting out, a father that is too old to take care of himself now, a girlfriend that's now gone forever, the kind of reasons we sometimes find in our lives that head us back in the direction we came from.

He has a 1982 Ford Econoline Camper van for really cheap. Runs really good, smells a little like paint, needs a good airing and vacuuming, and has only 45k miles on a rebuilt engine with all the paperwork from mechanical maintenance.

Me? I will need a place to live while I build my house and maybe even live in something like this so I can quit paying oodles of dinero for all the spaces I now use. Oh, and there's still a few things in the house I'll be selling so I will be renting a storage space, 50% OFF YOUR FIRST MONTH AND ONLY A $10 ADMINISTRATION FEE, which means I could put my 425 sf of cave stuff in that until I'm done with work. 

Mantra for many years now.... I always have enough. Step by step there is a letting go of needing to control all the outcomes. Step by step my, whatever it is, I think of "them" as angels or just the Universe, show me everything I need to know and they keep me going in the direction of remembering who I truly am.

If the title that James never got into his own name turns out to be something that is transferable to me, then this particular step will be taken. I hope it works. I love the idea of helping James get back home. Home for me is on the Horizon however it goes with James. 

This Week's Story People

http://www.storypeople.com/

Jon Stewart

This guy has written and directed his first film, Rosewater, about a journalist in Iran. Looks really, really good. And I love the intelligence and the heart of Jon Stewart. I went looking for interviews with him about the movie and found this clip. He's a genius at witnessing absurdities and them to the public eye.

North Carolina

There's a place in NC where they teach you how to make straw bale structures. I don't know why I start to cry when I see these places but my heart is so in love with them and there is something that reaches inside of me and it's like recognizing something you never knew you had missed. These are some pictures of the places they have built.       Muddaubers website

Straw Bale

As I'm researching this new insight for myself I find that my heart is beating a little faster and I have to catch my breath. There is something so freakin' exciting about this concept. I have signed up for newsletters and following blogs but wow, this would be a beautiful home. Small, crafted, environmentally wonderful, affordable, and beyond delightful.


I remember when I was doing some renovations on the house I'm preparing to sell, I wanted to put alcoves in the walls. It would have taken more money that I had at the time to tear down the walls and frame for them, so instead, and I'm not sure why this satisfied the alcove need for the moment, I used plaster over the entire bedroom wall with designs from my bare hands.

A straw bale house will give me opportunity make my home a piece of art. And today I found out, through a new blog that the International Residential Code (IRC), which is the basis for virtually every jurisdiction in the U.S, is going to amend it's code to allow straw bale construction.

The awareness that there was even something like a house made from straw bales came yesterday when I visited Sun Ray in Sedro Woolley to check out a mobile tiny home he had for sale. To my amazement what I found was a huge house made from straw and cob. The entire house was a work of art. I took some pictures but they didn't come out very well so I found some others online. If you click on them they'll be bigger.

Step by step the way unfolds before me. Seriously, I find myself filled with joy when I see these houses and imagine my own.

Tiny House Family

Gypsy Wagon

Today I was on my way to see this baby but turns out I was supposed to be at my job. Details. I can't wait to see her in person.

This Is Where I Leave You

Another movie about family, their dysfunctions, their humanity, and the way we all just keep on "growing up". Jason Bateman sorta plays the same guy in each movie he's in. In this one, which is threaded with quiet humor but not really a comedy because there's so much family drama in it, he's pretty sweet, just as he is. But there's this one scene where he's lying on the ice in a rink with Rose Byrne and she said something to him, and to me, that made me stop and write this down.

JB-I've spent my entire life playing it safe just to avoid being exactly where I am right now.

RB- You know, where you are right now is in a cool rink on a hot day listening to a Cyndi Lauper classic, underneath disco lights. Cut yourself some slack, Jake. Anything can happen. Anything happens all the time.

Like tonight when I went to take a hot tub in my emptied house and realized that the electricity is turned off and finding out the "children" thought they had paid the electric bill but paid the water by mistake. Like realizing that I thought the whole city hall shenanigans around my lot line adjustment were over but found out it's only the beginning of the end at the bank getting 3 drawings notarized with my neighbors.

With all the "hurry up and wait", I am so many different people these days. The one getting all her ducks in a row. The one relentlessly romantic by herself. The frustrated one. The one who cries sometimes alone at night but laughs at and talks to playful beautiful crows in the day. The impatient Aries who is often the oblivious one. The older woman watching everything unfold. Still, there's this one that sits with my Self more constantly these days. The me that understands that all the moments, the dilemmas, the wrong turns, the traffic, the joys.... all the ways and the "ones" that I am, they are all blessings. She's the grateful one who continues to teach me about who we all really are with lessons on the source of happiness.

And then, of course, there is the one that will digress regularly.

Another really good part of it is where Deborah Monk and Jane Fonda come out to the entire neighborhood and family with a luscious kiss!!