Thimble Berries

"I'll take those sunglasses, mom."

Bonnie and I have been talking about list making. She asked me if I ever make a global list – one that encompasses everything.

Yes, I do make such lists. 

Recently, I made a new 25 Year List – what I want to do if I live to be 99. I haven’t completely fleshed the list out, but the title is on the page and I have roughed my notes in five year increments.

 ... my pancake won't stay on my fork ...

 ... a raw vegan breakfast ...

In a private email exchange, Kelve, Bonnie, Mary, Rebecca and I have been talking about Weight Management Control, given I attended a six-week course on the subject, have extensive handouts and made copious notes.

 One of the handout pages is entitled, Motivations.


The objective is to find out the reasons I am trying to find my best weight. That was an excellent exercise.

And now I am thinking about how to have the 100 Best Days of My Life.  Although there are no handouts, and no copious notes, I do try to plan for tomorrow and think a bit about how every day has gone in the evenings.

... picking up the wheelbarrow spill ...

I look to the lives of those around me to help me find what is best for me.

For example, I saw a counter-example today. What was not best for Michael and what made his body collapse in a heap was his breakfast, served to him out on the front porch. He was fine for ¾ of the meal and then he started weeping.

“My pancake won’t stay on my fork.”

There is a guy with trouble, which he solved by laying down on the bench beside his pancake, putting his fork into it, and then moving his mouth to the pancake, rather than risking moving the pancake to his mouth.  There is a solution for everything.

... gardening fashion ...
double layers and no skin showing

I wanted to have my own success today.  I started with a wholesale eradication of the salmon berries that line the top of my hill. “Kids can't see over these to the creek,” Wyona told me last year. “Get them out of here and maximize the happiness of your grandchildren.”

Easier said than done.

Even with cutting them down to the root and wiping Roundup on the cut side of the living side of what is left, I can't get rid of them. I should have as much resilience as they do. I cut them early this morning because using those clippers is too inviting for the little gardening boy who follows me around the yard as soon as he wakes up.

I push the wheelbarrow through
the shade that  dapples the hill

I piled the thimble berry branches in my wheelbarrow, only to have a spill before I have walked 3 yards. The second time I got the branches into the wheelbarrow I was more careful with the balance -- not because it was heavy, but becayse it was high.  I ran them down the hill to the stream and then back up by the pear tree and down another hill to the trash pile. Michael rans beside me. Well, not really, he ran ahead of me, did a circle down by the skunk cabbage culvert and then joined me down by the burn pile.

Energy! So wasted on a 2 ½ year old.

What was God thinking!

Still, a day to remember.

Arta