~thankful thursday~ celebrating bigger

Posted on November 11, 2022 by marybethrew

~30 days of gratitude~ day 4

11/4/22

I have felt grateful quite a bit in 2022. One thing that happened to me this year is I got hired to a permanent position doing what I’ve been doing for decades, contract to contract, grant to grant, lab to lab, with some lapses. Biologists do this all the time, but it’s a horrific system, and should be phased out, and I’m not shy about holding this opinion. It would be difficult to overstate the amount of relief brought on by this development, after all these years. Even the tiny auto loan I took out ten years ago to buy my 2002 Dodge Neon required payments that stretched, at that time, beyond the end of my one-year job contract. And a one-year contract is a good one, often the best there is. And sometimes they get renewed, like that one did, that year, so I paid off the Neon after all.

Side note: I’m grateful for my little Neon, with its little second engine that could, that I still drive to my job, which is now a permanent job I can keep until I’m done with all the car payments I may ever want to make.

I like fish, and I’m grateful to get to work with them, and I like the people who work on the fish with me. I’m grateful to be needed and valued enough for my skills that a whole job, with benefits, was bestowed on me.

~30 days of gratitude~ day 5

11/5/22

I’m so grateful for all the congrats on the job, wow, thanks everyone! To follow on gratitude for my job, another big thing happened in 2022 that I am also super grateful for. Rich and I closed on our house that we’ve been hoping to buy since we moved into it six years ago. A strong sense of providence and a heaping scoop of divine glitter sparkles pervaded the timing of the job-house combination. See my previous post about payments that extend past the end of contract durations if you want to understand why. Two mortgage payments in, and a lot more to go, these two big adulting milestones feel like they just had to go hand in hand.

I have not made Facebook posts or told many people about these huge life events in real time (July for the job, September for the house) and I know now that I was falling into the silence-will-protect-me trap. I have feared that knowledge of my successes would lead my coparent to strike out, but either these new developments made it to him despite having kept my celebrations small, or here’s an idea, maybe it’s not me or anything I have control over that makes him play dirty.

So I am celebrating now. I am so grateful to have a home with a wood stove that my husband has been keeping warm through the last few weeks as the weather got chilly. I am grateful for the well-insulated walls and the sturdy roof and the quirky backsplash and the big front window. I am grateful for our good well and our septic tank and our driveway covered in a blanket of needles. I am grateful for comfy spots to snuggle our kitties and my borrowed fairy dog. I am grateful for the acre and a quarter sloping gently to the slough-bayou, with giant beautiful redwood, port orford and western red cedar, hemlock, and spruce trees lining the trail we have walked into being and Rich has maintained with his power tools for our daily walks. I am grateful for a couple of redwood trees in particular, the wedding trees we stood in front of when we said our vows five years ago, and so grateful we don’t have to move away from them.

~30 days of gratitude~ day 6

11/6/22

I’m grateful for a day full of real and satisfying work of filling our pantry. I have been attending the fill-your-pantry market since its early days, back when Rew was still my last name, before I even met Rich. When they can’t find my pre-order filed under “H” I know to ask them to look under “R”. When I was a kid eating meat and potatoes on the farm, Dad would exasperate me by telling me the name of the cow I was eating. I usually made a big scene and stomped away from the table, but I have come around to appreciate that close knowledge of where our food came from. I did not ask the nice farm family today the names of the cow, chickens, and pig we will be eating this winter, but I am sure they knew. They also radiated gratitude for our purchase, for supporting their farm, and said it was fine to haul our chickens, sausage, and roasts out to our car in their cooler and bring it back in when we were done.

I am also grateful for a new four-gallon bucket of honey because there is something so wealthy about all that gold.

I forgot my camera, but luckily I always have an abundance of local food photos up my sleeve.

P.S. Happy nacho day!

~30 days of gratitude~ day 7

11/7/22

As I try not to be devastated that the sun is down when I leave work, I am grateful to get a very nifty glimpse of the moon while driving home. The top half was obscured under a periwinkle dusk cloud, which made the moon look like a big whale eye (not the first time I’ve seen whales in the sky). I didn’t capture that image but when I got home I watched it rise up through the trees and then went inside where there was soup in the crock pot.

~30 days of gratitude~ day 8

11/8/22

Today I’m grateful I got to leave work on time before dark, and that it wasn’t raining, or even very windy, and I stopped by the beach. I’m grateful I thought of it this morning, so I had my camera with me. I’m grateful I arrived in time for sunset, and that sunset was quirky and unique. I’m grateful I started my day by turning in my final thirty-page creative writing packet of my third semester of the MFA program I’ve been semi-secretly enrolled in. Twelve thirty-page packets since last June means I’m about to be a thesis student. I’m grateful to be quitting this business of staying small and keeping it all under wraps. Also grateful for my vote and to all who vote for women not to have to stay small.

~30 days of gratitude~ day 9

11/9/22

I’m grateful for an ordinary day of hard work, kitties and woodstove fires, husband hugs, and nachos. (And falling asleep in my chair before posting a gratitude post, apparently!)

~30 days of gratitude~ day 10

11/10/22

Today I’m grateful for sunshine.

banner day

Posted on September 7, 2022 by marybethrew

This kind human is a sophomore. He spent our labor day hike dispersing dandelion seeds because, “every living thing deserves a chance to grow.” I made a wish on each seed, in similar words, but my wishes were all about him.

Also, today we sign closing papers to buy the dragon house. A long-held dream comes true.

Honorable mentions:

I am halfway through semester three of my program, and still loving every 4am writing session. On a sunny day back in January, I typed one of my essays on Great Grandma Rew’s typewriter and submitted it to a zine called Selkie, and I recently received word that they’ve published it! I will share how to get copies when they become available. My first published essay, hurray! In a zine named for mythical females who zip in and out of sea-suits to live in both realms, on the theme of “disobedience.” Sounds about right!

I started my permanent job in July. I’ve filled out what could be the last round of new hire paperwork, for the last set of changing benefits, and the waves of relief are still washing over me, and I expect that will keep going for some time. Three pay periods in, I went to Kodiak, Alaska, for field work. A new place to fall in love with. (They have otters there!!!)

rock greenling

penpoint gunnel

giant Pacific octopus

humpback!

uh-oh

Salmon for breakfast, and second breakfast.

Sending love to all the mama bears out there with cubs snuggled close and the otter mamas with their pups swimming off and away.

~thankful thursday~ stoking the gratitude fire

Posted on November 23, 2017 by marybethrew

11/16/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 16

i am thankful for dragons. we have fondly referred to our house as the dragon house since quinn was about 5 years old. all three of us love dragons. like many households in oregon, there is a head on the wall as part of our interior décor, but in our case, it’s a sculpted glittering dragon, not an elk.

a friend commented on my post for days 11-13 about edges, that dragons used to be drawn on the edges of maps by cartographers who had reached the limit of their geographical knowledge. it took me until just now to put that together with my dragon loving husband who likes to drive off the edges of maps for fun (which i mentioned on day 9).

my friend also mentioned how dragons traditionally guard treasures of rare and unsurpassed value, and i think that in retrospect, this makes them a very fitting guardian of our household. dragons also stood guard over our wedding!

quinn knows that all the best stories contain dragons. he had a dragon theme for his 8^th birthday party, and is often to be found playing video games that involve dragons, reading the wings of fire series about dragons, or creating characters and landscapes for dungeons and, yep, you guessed it, dragons.

there is so much to love. their mystery, their magical capabilities, their indomitable spirit. their ability to wield fire.

fire dragons can be protectors, exhibiting strength and courage. i also think of them having enthusiasm and energy, ready to overcome obstacles in the path.

water dragons might be more concerned with connection, depth, transformation, peace, compassion, healing. but that doesn’t mean they lack courage and passion.

my relationship with fire has been long and not always peaceful. i loved helping my dad “fix the fire” in our cellar wood-burning furnace when i was little, shoving sticks into its bright orange mouth. and of course nothing was better than summer campfires at fish creek campground. however, when our heifer barn burned down, i was only four, and i think a touch of irrational fear of fire stuck with me after that. as a person who tends to feel chilly, i do love wood stove heat in the house, and the handsome fellow who fixes that fire for me daily, and seems to be able to handle flaming hunks of wood bare-handed, is a welding fire building fiery guy. all that hotness is hard to live with, but i manage somehow. (on my tour of the manifold pictured in last night’s post, so he could show me the rainbows, i hung on his every word about how “you have to get the heat right to get the color.” did you know colorful welds are strongest? just as i would have suspected.)

but i digress. about my husband. as usual.

anyway, we’re keeping the gratitude fire stoked at the dragon house.

11/17/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 17

jumping for joy and full of gratitude to have my dragon boy home at the dragon house.

11/18/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 18

i am thankful for my great aunt margie. i attempted to write how i feel about her in a post a few weeks after she passed away, and just a few weeks before rich and i got married this summer. today a small memorial was held for her, and many of her loved ones were not included in that, but in a way, i can hear her saying, “i don’t want a fuss.” i don’t know the story behind why it was kept small and all but secret, but i decided instead to focus on my own grieving of her death/celebrating of her life right here, and it’s easy to feel immense gratitude for the unparalleled impact she had on my life. of course, tied up in that is incredible sadness and a gaping hole in my heart. exhausted from selling organic brussels sprouts and cauliflower and butternut squashes all day, i laid down for a while and read back through that post, and shed some more tears. after that, there was only one thing to do. so i got up and made nachos for dinner.

11/19/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 19

i am thankful for my dog ruby. i don’t actually have my own dog, but at the same time, ruby and i both know we are human-dog soul mates. she’s only the second dog in the world i have felt that way about. i am far from a dog person, and certainly don’t love all dogs across the board. some of them are smelly and some of them are scary, and a little one bit me one time for no reason. but ruby is my doggy love. i am her fairy dog mother when her real family goes out of town or especially when they go camping. she favors comfy chairs over campgrounds. one of our favorite times to be together is for thanksgiving. her family is vegetarian, and the week she spends here while i’m cooking turkey, ham, sausage, and lots of gravy, her mom says is like a dog spa retreat. she is asleep on my lap as i type this. she may eschew camping, but she does love long walks on the beach, just one more reason we are meant to be together, once in a while, which is all i can handle of the responsibility for a canine life. quinn is thrilled to have her for the week, they also have a special bond, and to give our kitties their usual sleeping space with us, ruby gets to sleep in quinn’s room, and he loves the company. borrowing ruby is the perfect arrangement, everyone wins, especially me.

11/20/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 20

i am grateful that although i would pretty much rather gouge out my eyeballs than play the game risk, the folks at hasbro at least made it rainbow-rific to look at. also, i am thankful my son wants me to play games with him, and thankful for the tip from my friend to serve honeybush tea with honey and heavy cream at bedtime. thankful for drinking in sweetness as the theme of this gratitude-enriched season. and also for parsnips.

11/21 and 11/22/17

~30 days of gratitude~ days 21 and 22

i am thankful for today, the penultimate dorkaversary before we celebrate six years together! rich and i have now been married for 4 months, and celebrate like goofballs when we realize any given day is a significant one (namely, the 22^nd of any month), or when it’s not and we’re just happy to see each other after a long day of work. looking around on a day like this, prepping for a big feast, it’s easy to feel gratitude for all the abundance surrounding us. the food is bountiful and fresh, the boy cranking the apple slicer has grown into a competent helper, loved ones are close at hand, and a kitty is in the empty ham box. the borrowed pup is sprawled on her blanket on the couch, nose pointed towards the wood stove in worship. tomorrow the man i love will shut off the alarm and we won’t get out of bed any earlier than we want to, and we’ll be so grateful for the extra sleep.

11/23/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 23

happy thanksgiving! it’s been a great big gratitude day here at the dragon house, stuffed with goodness and topped with gravy. i’m feeling thankful for amazon prime getting my new oven element to me on tuesday, because when it gave out on the friday before thanksgiving, it could have presented a minor source of stress (if, you know, there wanted to be anything baked for said holiday). i am thankful for a relaxing morning after a busy night of making pies, and time to play skip-bo with quinn and listen to him read to me about the ice cow goddess audhumla of norse mythology from whose udder flowed four rivers of milk, and about the rainbow bridge bifrost connecting asgard to middle earth, all from one of his library books. i am thankful for how my son’s pursuits inspire me to learn new things; i have so many questions about this cow! i am very thankful for cows, i know i mentioned growing up on a dairy farm during last year’s gratitude posts, and riding around in the passenger seat next to rich, he is used to me mooing out the windows whenever i see a pasture full of cows. i had no idea, until today, that such a cow featured in creation mythology, and i’m thoroughly intrigued. cows are the quintessence of birthing energy in my experience, which includes years of observational and participatory cow midwifery, and this choice of motherly cow likeness licking the father of norse gods (buri) into being, brings me joy. and then we can talk about rainbows some more! you can imagine my delight at having these things brought to my attention through the voice of the son i birthed into being while channeling all of my inner cow mojo over ten years ago. i am thankful for this family i am blessed to be a part of, the wonderful surprises life brings, pie crust confidence, libraries, friends, rainbows, and cows today.

~rainbow mondays~ stop and smell the roses

Posted on May 9, 2016 by marybethrew

and now, back to our regularly scheduled monday program.

not sure what color to name it, but it seemed like a good way to begin the week.

red: busy times. but you gotta make sure you stop and smell the roses.

orange: watch cat awaiting our return.

yellow: vacation lilies and dragon roses (they smell like a rose fruit salad!).

green: spring grasses

green: kids these days

green: selfie

blue: longer days with bluer skies. my type of season.

purple: of course i always like purple in my sky, too.

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday morning

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

~rainbow mondays~ happy surprises and love everywhere i look

Posted on April 25, 2016 by marybethrew

just 23 of my favorite images from the past few busy weeks.

red: seeing the vacation house spring blooms appearing is a happy side effect of living there 2 or 3 seasons longer than we originally anticipated. it has continued to be a haven of beautiful wonders to behold, you gotta love providence.

red: last night quinn tagged along with me on a market training and tour of the farm i work for every other saturday. we were csa customers for years and have toured there several times, but never before in this early spring season. i am so glad i brought my camera along.

orange: the farm stand restaurant is another haven of beauty, with so many details creating a feast for all senses, not just the tongue.

orange: i love to be involved with this farm, because a little part of me will always be homesick for the farm i grew up on, and although it’s 3000 miles away and not a dairy, this farm has a lot of little reminders… an antique manure spreader and a silage chopper, bending like an old dinosaur reaching to munch on some of the nearby vegetation, could easily be spotted at either farm.

yellow: sunset over the apple blossoms at the vacation house.

yellow: another old farm equipment photo for my dad, i love the way there are some vivid yellow lichens growing on the hood, as if to match the truck’s original paint job.

green: farm stand in the afternoon sunlight.

green: reflection ussie.

green: even better reflection, like something out of a dream of mine.

green: i don’t even really need a special lens anymore to see hearts everywhere i go.

green: april showers.

green: lemon balm, a happy surprise growing next to my doorstep at the new dragon house.

blue: lots of happy surprises there, as we discover little secrets in every corner of the yard. my mom was reminding me that i have always loved forget-me-nots, and they were also one of nana’s favorites, which makes them extra special to have around my new home.

blue: opting out of the compost tour, he decided to chill on the flatbed truck and listen to sparkle stories.

blue: see what i mean? love is all over the place.

blue: if you have to do homework, at least you can do it outside on the front porch.

purple (and green!): one of these things is not like the others….

purple (and green!): lilacs of the dragon house. oh so happy about this.

purple (and green): these are in the stone flower bed in front of the dragon house. one more happy surprise!

vacation house… this azalea’s blooms got pinker, though i had been calling it purple. file under: red violet.

pink: vacation house apple blossoms

pink: the earliest rhodie at the dragon house is in full bloom, a lovely vanilla ice cream with a hint of strawberries.

i hope you are taking many moments to enjoy the feast for the senses spring is bringing you, wherever you may be planted!

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday morning

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

woodstove prayer

Posted on December 31, 2015 by marybethrew

back on the home hunt, i am reminded of our peculiar set of non-negotiables in a house we might buy.

hers: bathtub

his: woodstove

i claim that he has more criteria than i do, including high ceilings, a garage and/or a basement he can use as a workshop, and generally, more space. i have some yard requirements, though, so it’s good if someone is prioritizing the inside of the house. it’s probably wise to buy a spacious house for tall people, since we are both of taller than average stature, and quinn could very likely exceed us both in height in a few short years, and at the rate he’s going, will likely have a sizeable pack of friends. not to mention that we’re hoping to lure our pancakes back to this part of the country before too long as well, so space is good. if you know me, you know i crave something more like bag-end than the boxes we americans call houses, but i will do my best to make all the rooms in whatever box we buy feel round and womb-like, suggestive of a hobbit home. but without that claustrophobic feeling gandalf has when he visits bilbo and bumps his head at every turn.

at the rate we’re going, it might be faster to have quinn build dragon house 2.0 out of legos.

i have enjoyed our lovely stay in the vacation house, and there are days we think of approaching the owner about buying it, but it lacks criteria number one on rich’s list. no woodstove, which would mean a remodel right away to install one, putting the house essentially back to how it was before they took one out and enclosed the middle of the house as a laundry room. we would reverse that decision, put laundry back in the basement, and restore the hearth to the center of the house, where we feel it belongs. which is all fine to say, but is logistically challenging and expensive to do.

meanwhile, 2 of the 4 houses we liked when we started looking again now have sales pending. but we’re keeping hope alive.

i should admit that lack of a woodstove is really a deal-breaker for me as well, even though i keep attributing it to “his” list. i am very much looking forward to having a home heated with wood once again. one thing that has been different about living here in vacation land, is that rich doesn’t have any man jobs to do around this house. it’s not ours, and not even our rental (we are sub-letting, technically), and it doesn’t require anything of him, other than an occasional lightbulb change or shower drain plunge. there is electric heat, which requires no hauling, sawing, or splitting of logs, and definitely no lighting of fires. it’s not that i want him to have a bunch more chores to do, the guy already works hard all day doing backbreaking labor beside which my own work day pales in comparison, but i can see that the lack of purpose in his own home is existentially uncomfortable for him (he will say i am overthinking this, whereas i’m just thankful he still has litter boxes to keep him out of trouble). he’s a lot like my dad (and his own dad), who finds tasks for himself when he comes to visit me on “vacation,” lest he fade away into oblivion. only, this isn’t a one week vacation, and there were a finite number of tasks. for me, it’s an active mindfulness practice to steer clear of resentment when we both come home from a full day of work, and i proceed to stand up for hours more, making and cleaning up from dinner, while my partner is sitting and reading or petting cats or relaxing. it is much easier to keep that perilous brain chatter at a minimum when one’s partner is also busy, in his case, at the task of making the home we share warm and toasty, chopping wood while i am chopping veggies, bringing forth a crackling fire on a chilly evening while i am scrubbing all the dishes.

back when i was doing woodstove salutations, trying to distract myself from preparing my ask-rich-out speech in the mirror, i could be found wielding my own chainsaw, because around here one can get a forest service permit to cut firewood for a small fraction of the price that can be paid for a cord of firewood that is already cut. it was a matter of pride to me that as a woman, i not only could, but made a point to, operate my chainsaw and splitting maul as the sole means of heating my house in the winter, by which i saved money during a time when money was more scarce, and empowered myself to be independent after too long living codependently.

when rich and i began our long conversation in the laundromat, one of the things i remember him telling me was about how he had been up early the previous sunday morning, and had watched the sun rising as he had set out to fill his forest service firewood quota. he had me at hello, but lumberjacking at sunrise? head over heels. sweet nothings involving manual labor surrounded by beautiful natural phenomena: there is really nothing that can top this.

i have rambled before about how i have sold out as a feminist and given myself completely over to the very traditional division of labor roles that at one point i strongly rejected. i’m still a feminist, just like i am still an unschooler, though i fit neatly into neither of those boxes. i am glad to have trained myself (and pestered my dad to teach me) to be able to do the typically male jobs, but i am overjoyed that i no longer have to do them unless i want to, that a big strong man is more than happy to swing an axe for me, and i am more than happy to fix his meals for him, and i think we embrace this crazy tradeoff more than i would ever have imagined possible. there is such a world of wonderful difference between codependency and healthy interdependence, and i have been granted the lucky gift of being able to appreciate the one i’ve got in my life now, thanks to the perspective i gained from years in the trenches of the other one.

(dear grammy and grampy – quinn loves his treasure island legos from you, and found a perfect “habitat” for them on the grammy quilt from several christmases ago!)

and let’s face it. wood heat is just so much warmer (it’s not just about over-analyzed relationship dynamics, it is about actual heat as well). for those of us who have thermoregulation challenges, a woodstove is a must. i can’t get these cold bones to any semblance of warmth with electricity. maybe it is the aries in me, but i require fire. or to be submerged in scalding liquid, which is impractical outside of one hour per day.

and so, i would like to send a special prayer out about that woodstove we will one day soon be filling up with firewood (and when i say we, i mean he). because we are looking for you, woodstove, and we are hoping to find you very soon. we hope you won’t mind us (me) cooking beans and boiling the teakettle on your surface, because we tend to maximize the functions of our woodstove, and we hope you are up for the task. we are eager to meet you and get to know your idiosyncrasies, to learn to fine tune your flue damper and your air intake, to let our home life revolve around you through the winter months, and bask in your glow. you will be central to our household, in more ways than we can describe. to us, no other appliance, and not even the bathtub, is more central to what we think of as home – there’s a reason for the phrase “hearth and home.” while we are looking for the latter, we are just as fervently searching for the former.

a fond farewell to dragon house 1.0

Posted on July 29, 2015 by marybethrew

we have moved! we had to bid a fond farewell to dragon house 1.0, however, we are taking our dragons, and our memories, with us. dragon vacation house is a comfortable stopover on our way to dragon house 2.0!

a little photo stroll down memory lane…

There’s a house on my block
that’s abandoned and cold
Folks moved out of it a
long time ago
and they took all their things
and they never came back
Looks like it’s haunted
with the windows all cracked
and everyone calls it
the house, the house where
nobody lives.

Once it held laughter
Once it held dreams
Did they throw it away
Did they know what it means
Did someone’s heart break
or did someone do somebody wrong?

Well the paint was all cracked
It was peeled off of the wood
Papers were stacked on the porch
where I stood
and the weeds had grown up
just as high as the door
There were birds in the chimney
and an old chest of drawers
Looks like no one will ever
come back to the
House where nobody lives

Once it held laughter
Once it held dreams
Did they throw it away
Did they know what it means
Did someone’s heart break
or did someone do somebody wrong?
So if you find someone
someone to have, someone to hold
Don’t trade it for silver
Don’t trade it for gold
I have all of life’s treasures
and they are fine and they are good
They remind me that houses
Are just made of wood
What makes a house grand
Ain’t the roof or the doors
If there’s love in a house
It’s a palace for sure
Without love
It ain’t nothin but a house
A house where nobody lives
Without love it ain’t nothin
But a house, A house where
Nobody lives.

~tom waits

“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.” ~l.m. montgomery, anne of avonlea

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” ~l. frank baum

After you leave home, you may find yourself feeling homesick, even if you have a new home that has nicer wallpaper and a more efficient dishwasher than the home in which you grew up. ~lemony snicket

The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. ~maya angelou

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. ~charles dickens