Last week I took a few days off work, then I took another, and then another. Being my own boss is good in that I can make time for everything I need to do, and get the work done as well.   Yes, I also tend to overwork myself and spend way too many hours at the computer, but this year I am working on that.  Really. As witnessed by my taking the entire last week off.  At first it began as me just catching up on sleep, then I began the furniture arranging and housekeeping and gardening.  A few days in to my stay-at-home vacation, I pondered the idea of going somewhere for a few days.  Get out of Dodge for awhile. But there was really nowhere I wanted to go and nothing I particularly wanted to do.  Other than what I was doing already.

I spent the week eating light foods and slept outdoors several nights, watching the full moon cross the nighttime sky through the oak leaves of the tree I was camped beneath.  I cleared a new path through the west woods, cutting through the palmetto fronds, weaving in between the sunlight and the shadows.

I noticed yesterday that my yellow necklace pod bushes, which all got frostburnt in last month’s freeze, now all have tiny buds appearing all over.  My turk’s cap all appears burned to the ground still, but I know it’s too soon to tell.  I know to not prune anything yet.  My loquat trees all have blueberry sized fruits on them, one tree for the first year.  My mulberry tree is heavily dormant since the freeze.  The green overgrowth of wedelia and grapevine everywhere is no more, the brown vines lying limp from tree to tree.  It’s a different landscape for sure.

I enjoy spending time in my yard, no matter what it looks like.  Of course I prefer the lush, overgrown look, but when it’s sparse like now, when I can see into my neighbor’s yards, that’s okay too.  “Love it like it is,” Ma Yoga Shakti says, “wherever you are, make a heaven of it.”  So that’s what I’ve been doing this past week.

And today I go back to work.  And that’s okay too.  So did I get this cool job and this amazing life as my reward for loving it like it is, or did I just attract more to love by loving?

Hmmmm.