I woke up early Saturday morning with a goal: swap out a loquat tree I’d given a friend with another one. It was the perfect time in the lunar cycle, it rains every day and both trees have a good, tight root ball.  I tossed shovels in the car, tarp, trees, it took me 10 minutes exactly.

“He came out into the entrance court and contemplated his bonsai. Early sun gold-frosted the horizontal upper foliage of the old tree and brought its gnarled limbs into sharp relief, tough brown-gray and crevices of velvet. Only the companion of a bonsai (there are owners of bonsai, but they are a lesser breed) fully understands the relationship, There is an exclusive and individual treeness to the tree because it is a living thing, and living things change, and there are definite ways in which the tree desires to change. A man sees the tree and in his mind makes certain extensions and extrapolations of what he sees, and sets about making them happen. The tree in turn will do only what a tree can do, will resist to the death any attempt to do what it cannot do, or to do it in less time than it needs. The shaping of a bonsai is therefore always a compromise and always a cooperation.  Continue reading →

I think we just had an argument but there was so much laughter and rough housing throughout I cannot really be sure… How can you be sure? I am such a tomboy I think the only way to work it out is to wrestle it out. It worked at 16 and it works at 61.

So what do you with a boyfriend who is always freshly showered, smelling like soap and toothpaste? Doesn’t it make ya want to get him all sweaty and feed him onions?

A cornucopia of fresh veggies to choose from for roasting later in the new convection oven: Japanese eggplant, peppers: red, orange, yellow and green; yellow squash, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, a fat onion and… wait for it… brussels sprouts!  I cut everything about the same size and drizzle it well with a good olive oil.  I add dried basil, mustard seed and tarragon with fresh springs of thyme and rosemary, and a lemon cut into 6-8 wedges.With rice in the rice cooker and hummus already made, dinner will be a breeze.  And a feast!

A killer roasted veggies and vegetarian wine mushroom gravy recipe here

When I entered menopause at age 42, my sleeping patterns began to change.  Like everyone else, at first I fought it and tried everything to keep me asleep for my previous 8 hours at a stretch.  Years later I thought, let me just go with it instead of fighting it, and see what my sleeping patterns morph into.  Now I use the occasional sleeplessness to do a few hours of mindful nostril breathing for breath meditation, creative visualization and prepaving for future projects.  That time I say I never have? This is when the Universe is giving me extra time! Or you can always contact Gary Leggett the hypnotist who got me to sleep.  See links below for more sleep info.   Continue reading →

A week ago, I got a new computer with Windows 8 on it. I’d heard the horror stories about how hard Windows 8 was to learn and navigate and I discovered that it was not.  The same thing happened this week as my iPad updated itself to the new operating system IOS7. I saw several complaints on Facebook about the system, yet as soon as I saw it had a different look about it, I Googled for articles that explained it.  I immediately went into my settings, gave it a dark wallpaper, and moved off the main screen the icons I never use.  It took all of 20 minutes, about as long as it took me to get used to Windows 8.  I’ve learned the more I embrace change, the easier and more fun my transitions can be.  And I’m all about easy and fun!

I took the rare weekend off.  Friday night I craved Applebee’s oriental chicken salad and learned they have a yummy off-menu veggie patch pizza on a toasted tortilla, made vegan by omitting the cheese. Their single portions make two full meals.  I took a walk around the yard for the first time in a week, and saw that the bamboo has been going crazy growing in the rain, last week knee high, this week 20 feet tall.  Don’t tell me you can’t hear bamboo grow, it is right outside my bedroom window.   Continue reading →