No Coyotes; Eating Like a Bird; Summer Exercise; Computers

Where did all the coyotes go?

A couple winters ago, I was awaken one night by the sound of a pack of coyotes chasing something…probably a deer. There hasn’t been much in the way of wild life around here until this spring.

We now have a family of rabbits, and the other day I saw a young deer down by the river.

Is it safe to assume something happened to the coyotes?

If you’re eating like a bird you need to go on a diet!

This is a story told in dollars and pounds of birdseed. This winter I bought more birdseed than, probably, the two previous winters combined to the tune of almost $500. Here’s the tally:

120 lbs sunflower hearts

64 lbs safflower seed

198 lbs mixed econo-seed (for the ground feeders)

80 lbs thistle

20 trays of suet

Can’t wait for next winter. Maybe I should start saving up…or take out a loan. Watching the birds gives me a lot of pleasure, so I don’t mind the expense.

Staying out of the gym.

During the growing season, I spend my time out in my little gardens. In the morning I work in the back gardens before the sun comes around. There’s always weeding and I like to keep the ground loose with my garden weasel. And, of course, watering.

Speaking of watering…last summer I went through 5 of those green expanding garden hoses. Every one of them sprung a leak either at the nozzle end or in the hose itself. I was really tired of taking showers in full view of the neighbors. I only bought one hose…I kept bringing them back in exchange for a new one.

So this year, on the suggestion of my neighbor, Mike, I took the last green, leaky hose back to the store and exchanged it for a new, improved, black hose with brass fittings. Guaranteed!

Well, I’m done. No more expanding hoses for me. This one gave me a super shower. It blew like old faithful. I still have one down in the utility room that I use in the back gardens. You can bet I’ll be examining that sucker very closely. If it blows in the finished basement it will be a disaster.

Wish me luck!

OK. So gardening is one way to exercise. I also go bike riding and hiking on wooded trails. That’s it. Nowhere near as exciting as blown garden hoses.

Computers

The computer upon which I type these stories (plus emails and web browsing) was purchased in 2005. It has been upgraded a couple of times. Also has a new battery (that wasn’t cheap!). I love my MacBook, but it’s getting old.

I am at the point where I would need to upgrade my OS in order to upgrade my browser (Safari) in order to look at the latest upgrade of Google Maps. I can’t see some things on YouTube, and other sites tell me I need to upgrade my browser if I want to look at them. Grrrrrr!

There is a new MacBook in my future. It has to have a disc drive slot and I need a new version of Microsoft Office. The MacBook comes with Apple software, but I want Microsoft in addition. Depending on the price, maybe I’ll add a new printer. I would like to have my computer and iPad talk to the printer wirelessly. I want the whole enchilada! I’m putting it out to the Universe and going for it.

Don’t wish me luck…wish me a new computer. 

Letting Go

Last month I wrote about change bringing on chaos. And, here I am, making another change with its own form of chaos. This time I needed to let go of stuff. I like stuff. It gives me comfort to look at it…to know I have it…and have had it for ever so long.

In the 1980s, my kids and I were living in an old farmhouse when I started getting the “message” that I was going to be traveling light. It was this feeling, over and over again, that I had to get rid of a lot of my stuff, because I would be traveling light. At that point I didn’t know if it was Light (Illumination) or light (unburdened).

I had a tag sale. Put lots of stuff out on the lawn and traumatized my kids. They thought I was terminally ill, and was not telling them. I mean, I never got rid of stuff, so if that’s what I was doing, I must have been sick. Once I reassured them I was fine, but following a feeling I had, we all had a good laugh. This just illustrates the fact that I don’t get rid of stuff easily or readily.

The laughing stopped when I got the notice that my lease would not be renewed. The owner figured he could get my amount of rent (for the whole house) per room if he made it into a rooming house. Of the four kids only one was still living at home.

Twenty some odd years later, when I was getting ready to move from a house into a condo, I was having anxiety attacks (really) over what to keep and what to get rid of…in just one storage closet. My oldest daughter had to help me sort things out. She had no attachment to any of the stuff and was able to help me decide: keep, donate, toss.

And, now we come to yesterday. I do know what came over me. I’ve been doing a lot of internal work on anger I didn’t realize I was holding on to, so I’ve been getting rid of a lot of emotional issues. I guess the next step was to rid myself of material stuff.

When the inner starts feeling cluttered, look to the outer.

I went through my bedroom closets, where I had already stacked a lot of things destined to be donated…like they had been stacked there for a couple years. One shelf of one closet was piled high with bedding items I no longer needed/wanted. Then I went through the bureau drawers in the spare room. There were tons of old sheets and pillow cases. I filled one plastic bag with clothing and another with bedding. There was also a comforter set (stuffed back into its original plastic carrying bag) I had bought and decided I didn’t like after one season.

Just look at my closets now! And the bureau drawers!

While I was in the midst of doing this, my hips started to ache, especially my right hip, which really hurt. I figured out what was going on, so I talked to my right hip. I explained that the clothes no longer fit or were out of style, and the bedding was no longer needed and that all this stuff would go to people who really needed it. The hips stopped aching.

This morning I took everything to a charity in town that hires developmentally handicapped people (not that I could tell). They helped me unload my car and gave me a receipt.

I feel so much Lighter and lighter.