Garden highlights - 2017

Heirloom tomatoes

This year's garden was about compromise.  Work and studies left me little time to nurture seeds from start to transplant, so I opted for heirloom seedlings from online sources and the local nursery.  I was pleasantly surprised that the selection wasn't as narrow as I had feared.   Happily, I was still able to stock the freezer with tomatoes of about half a dozen varieties for making soups and stews over the winter, and there was usually something available for harvest fresh from the garden on most days.  Sadly, the basil was ready for harvest as I studied for a final and then was away on vacation.  Because of this, I didn't get to stock up on homemade pesto this year, but I think the neighbors enjoyed the windfall.  Another casualty to this year's weather was the garlic, which only yielded a few scrawny bulbs at harvest.  On the plus side, I was able to deter the deer that like to nibble our green bean plants.  This time, I tucked the bean seeds among the prickly leaves of zucchini plants, which the deer avoid.  This seemed to have made our garden no longer on the equivalent of the deer's Zagat guide of best places to eat because they seemed to have been frequenting our neighbor's flowering bush instead.  This year's gardening experience was certainly a bit pared down over the last few; however, I'll take it over not having one at all.  The seed catalogs have arrived in the mail just as we're settling in for a couple of weeks of below freezing winter weather, so it's time to snuggle up to the fireplace and start planning for next spring.

Although I didn't get to share the progress throughout the growing season, I did manage to capture it in photos.  Here are some of the highlights from the garden this year.

Flowers in an urn, a raised bed, a fig tree, zucchini and yellow squash

Daily harvests

Some of the flowers from this summer

Swiss chard, Italian eggplant, tomatoes ripening on the vine, strawberries

Highlights from 2016

Farm view - Rural Retreat, VA

Well, they say it's better late than never...so, I'm finally getting to complete this post started many months ago.  For me, 2016 was shadowed by my sadness over my mother's passing away in February of last year.  I spent much of the rest of the year just taking things as they came as I realized that I wasn't going to be in control of things the way I usually like to be.  As I incorporated the responsibilities of settling an estate into an already busy schedule, I had to come to grips with the reality that grief makes you move at a slower pace through life.  I had to let some activities go in order to cope.  Despite that, there was still plenty to celebrate during the year.  The year was also filled with plenty of personal reflection, and I marked the end of the year by doing a look back to celebrate the highlights from 2016, picking a word and setting goals for 2017 as I have been doing over the past 10 years or so.

Here are some of the highlights from 2016:

I started and completed 1/4 of the coursework in a graduate school program in transpersonal psychology.  This partial stack of school books in the photo below kept me busy during the year.  My coursework has a large experiential component requiring a great deal of inner work.  My personal meditation practice has become even more consistent as I explored a variety of both Eastern and Western techniques.  I delved into a journey of self-discovery uncovering the mythologies of childhood and culture that are influencing me today, and immersed myself in discovering the science behind the powers of the human mind and the the mysteries of our dreams.  I've included a resource list of some of the books I explored in class and some others just for fun in case you are looking for something to add to your reading list.

Because of my studies, the garden didn't get as much of my attention as I would have liked to have given it.  However, the harvests still offered an abundance of fruits and vegetables plus beautiful flowers for bouquets.

I attended a weekend program on intuition and dreams at a farmhouse called the Big House in Rural Retreat, VA.  In addition to gaining new knowledge, it was a weekend of much needed rejuvenation, beautiful scenery, and making connections with a like-minded community.  After the program, the road trip continued with visits to family in Kentucky and Indiana before heading home and back to work and my studies.

The Big House in Rural Retreat, VA

Other highlights for the year included:

spending time with my brother and his family

a photography workshop with my favorite zen master

high tea at an historic inn with some of the ladies in the neighborhood

a fun summer evening at a traveling carnival with a girlfriend and her family

performing dance at a charity function

a special night at the 10-year anniversary celebration of  the release of Hip Tranquil Chick

my husband taking me to a performance of Love Letters by Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal

a beautiful local Christmas light display

monthly volunteering with my son at the local food bank

As I have done for many years, I completed Susannah Conway's Unravelling exercise of reflection for the year past and set aspirations for the year ahead.  Last year's word was IMMERSION, and that came about when I dove into my studies and also coped with being unexpectedly immersed in grief.  For 2017, I have chosen AUTHENTIC as my word to explore as my knowledge and worldview expand with my studies.  I'm looking forward to watching the rest of 2017 unfold and the adventures it might bring.

Thanks for reading!

Reading list:

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Personal Mythology: Using Ritual, Dreams, and Imagination to Discover Your Inner Story
Dream Solutions! Dream Realizations: The Original Dream Quest Guidebook
Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind
Meditation for Beginners
Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation in Everyday Life
When the Soul Awakens: The Path to Spiritual Evolution and a New World Era
The Secret History of Dreaming
The Essential Edgar Cayce
Succulent Wild Woman - Dancing With Your Wonder-full Self!
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

   Rose in full bloom in my garden

Mother's Day

My mother's Julia Child yellow rose blooming in my garden

As I contemplate Mother’s Day this year, it is with a bit of sadness as it is the first one since my mother’s passing a few months ago.   I still reach for my phone to text her ,“Mom, you won’t believe what I just saw!” or to send a photo of an art project I’ve been working on or show her the progress in the garden. 

 My lovely neighbor gave me a beautiful yellow rose bush named after Julia Child for my garden to commemorate my mother’s life.  She gave it to me because my mother liked yellow roses.  She had no idea that my mother and I watched Julia’s cooking show on PBS together for years when I was growing up or that I endlessly watched the cooking channel with her the last time I saw her when she could no longer get out of bed as cancer had sapped her strength.   Any time I start to miss her, I only have to look out the window and see the pretty yellow blooms open to the sunshine to make me smile.  I smile at the thoughtfulness of my neighbor giving me a beautiful reminder of my mother.  I smile at the memory of my father giving my mother roses often: for Valentine’s Day, anniversaries and just because.  I smile for the times she and I spent enjoying Julia Child’s cooking shows and sharing our love of culinary adventures in the kitchen and at the table. 

Although I can't call her this year to wish her a Happy Mother's Day, in my heart my mother is forever holding my hand and encouraging me through the journey of life.   

Me and my mom on a stroll in Hof, Germany

2015 in review

Annual year end review workbook 

I can't believe that 2015 is over.  It feels as though it went by in a whirlwind.  In my annual tradition, I am ending the year with a look back to acknowledge the year's accomplishments and evaluate the misses and then set intentions for the new year.  I find that the busyness of life means I don't always get to savor some of the accomplishments as they happen or don't take enough time to take a look at what didn't work and why so I can make corrections or be at peace with letting go.  I know this doesn't work for everyone, but taking just a few hours for this makes me feel as though I am setting myself up to make the most of the coming year.  This process helps me put things into perspective and it's interesting and rewarding to see what I was able to accomplish and how differently some things turned out from what I imagined.

Last year's word was embodiment and I dug deeper into a few topics and projects that I had been dabbling in for awhile to see where they might lead.  I enjoyed my explorations which are leading to more changes ahead and my word for 2016 which is transformation.  This is just the beginning of the changes to come, and I look forward to sharing them with you.

Here are a few highlights from 2015:

Volunteering at the DC Food Bank 
My son and I usually volunteer at the DC Food Book once a month and we were able to make 8 times last year.

1.  Sorting food into bins  2.  View into the warehouse

Road trip to an ancient forest

A day trip to Beall Woods State Park in Illinois which is a forested area that has not been logged or altered and remains today pretty much as it was hundreds of years ago. 

Fall Craft Cornucopia with Hyattsville Aging in Place
A great day of demonstrations and teaching crafts along with some of my neighbors who are also crafters and artists.  I enjoyed teaching the participants how to make collaged gift tags.

Starting in the upper left:  1.  weaving demo, 2.  felting wool, 3.  some of the seniors group working on their needlework and sharing stories, 4.  my table with supplies for making tags, 5.  upcycled old t-shirt, 6.  origami instruction, 7.  wool for felting projects, 8.  origami examples, 9.  reclaimed t-shirts cut into strips ready for weaving, 10.  weaving on t-shirt strips on a stick loom, 11.  t-shirt weaving examples

Garden adventures
Lots of hard work in the garden yielded abundant harvests and filled our freezer for the winter.

Art exhibition at the Popcorn Gallery
Two pieces of my mixed media collage were chosen for an exhibition using reclaimed materials.

Thank you for reading and wishing you all the best in 2016!


Resources:
Unravelling the Year Ahead
Zen Habits: The Practice of Year-end Reflection

Sunflowers in the garden

Tidying Up

Mixed media play from my current sketchbook

“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.”   Don Williams, Jr.

Spring is here with its promise of new beginnings.  Changes brought on by a new job have turned my routine upside down, and I've been having a difficult time finding a new rhythm.  My discombobulated schedule has really thrown me for a loop with not enough time to write blog posts, experiment as much in the kitchen or dabble in other creative endeavors.  However, it has been good for me to take a step back and take a good look at my lifestyle and do a bit of an overhaul. 

While growing up, we moved nearly every two years with my father's work  in the military.  To ensure that we wouldn't go over our allotted shipping allowance for household goods, pre-move, my mother made sure we went through drawers, closets and shelves to evaluate if each of our possessions would come with us to our new home.  Was it still useful to us, had we outgrown it, was it in good working order or a prized possession with deep sentimental attachment?    I was always happy to put things in the donate pile because I hoped that someone new would be getting as much joy out of each item as I had in the past.  In the same way, our move would necessitate having to evaluate if an activity that I had been engaged in at our previous residence still held enough interest to get me to seek out a group or teacher in the new location.    

This cycle of moves and purges continued even into my adulthood until it stopped 15 years ago when my husband and I bought a Victorian house that needed lots of love and care in a suburb of Washington, DC.  Although I still do a spring and fall house cleaning and am considered to be fairly neat and organized, it's not quite the same.  I've held onto some things in case I might need it for some project that I often never seem to get to or continued on in an activity out of habit whereas if I were doing a physical move, I undoubtedly wouldn't have held on to either. 

As our renovation work continues in our old house, my husband informed me that our guest bedroom a.k.a. my craft supply/dance costume storage/off-season clothes space had to be emptied so he can began work on it this summer.  It took me a few minutes (okay, days…oh, alright, a couple of weeks) to wrap my head around how I was going to make my nicely organized things fit into other areas of the house without making everything look a cluttered mess.   To help with my dilemma, to  my rescue came a book club pick from my favorite creative lifestyle blog:  Tranquility du Jour:

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. 

The concept is simple - pull out everything you own, one category at a time and reflect on each item.  If it brings you joy, it still has a place in your life, if not, then let it go.  Taken as a whole, it seems a dauntingly overwhelming task, but done as prescribed in the book, it is manageable and enjoyable once you start to see the outcome.  Over several weeks, I have spent an hour or so on weeknight evenings:  one night it was socks, another it was workout wear, etc.  I have whittled down my wardrobe and folded it as prescribe to all fit in my closet and drawers with room to spare for my displaced items from the soon to be under construction room.  So far, I've donated  about 10 large bags of clothes, craft supplies, kitchen and household items, 9 boxes of books and magazines and shredded a stack of old paperwork that was 3 feet high.  I still have to complete going through a few more categories including the more sentimental items like photos and my dance costumes, but I can feel the effects of what I've accomplished so far.  Things are easily visible and accessible so I can enjoy them plus there is space when I decide to add something new. 

With the physical clutter much reduced, I surprisingly feel less mental clutter and the creativity block that had settled over me starting to loosen.  Now I am ready to tackle crafting a new routine that allows me time to pursue the creative endeavors that still bring me joy plus enough room to cultivate new passions.    

Thanks for reading!

Rhubarb leaf buds

Zen photography

Under the shade of a canopy of trees at the US National Arboretum

This spring, I took a 4-week workshop called Zen Photography that blended mindfulness and the art of photography.  Our zen master, Tuan Pham, is an award winning amateur photographer.  He used meditation and exercises such as one-eye seeing and relaxed awareness to teach us wise attention so we could look at the world around us with awakened awareness.  Our classes included drawing and other creative exercises along with time spent taking photos in the US National Arboretum.  Each class ended with a slide show of our best shots from the previous week.   The course ended with a family day where everyone got to participate in mindfulness and creative exercises to see what we had been up to.  There was a final exhibition of all of our favorite photos taken over the weeks.

The course focused not so much on the technical aspect of taking photographs, but on how we see things and how our thinking minds influence how we see.  We were challenged to try things to get out of our comfort level and stretch ourselves.  I experimented with taking some photos that were outside of my usual style and was pleasantly surprised by the results.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Reflection - one of my classmates during a moment of stillness before going off to take photos

Water series - reflections in the water

The inside of an iris growing in a neighbor's garden

Close up of the ice cubes in a glass of iced tea

The end - a dog enjoying a rest in the shade at the arboretum

I really enjoyed the course and feel that it helped me view my surroundings in a slightly different way than before.  It is being offered again this fall and I've signed up to take it so that I can expand on what I've already learned and to apply it to my photography as well as all my other creative endeavors.

I hope you pause from time to time to take in the scene around you with fresh eyes and enjoy the beauty in the everyday.

Thanks for reading!

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An afternoon of baking - some new culinary resources

The results of an afternoon of baking

This week was one that allowed plenty of time for reflection during some down time because of the inclement weather.  In setting some aspirations and goals for this year, I renewed my commitment to a holistic mindful approach to health and fitness after a bit of indulging over the holidays.  I was not nearly as ambitious as my fellow Zen Gypsies partner, Aurora in my undertakings for the new year (see her story about her new year's efforts here).   I used a 21-day raw vegan challenge, a vision board and a few newly found resources for recipes to help inspire me to get me back on track.

My vision board to inspire me to healthy eating

This weekend offered an opportunity to spend a fun afternoon baking with my son so we could stock up on nutritious, all natural whole grain goodness to round out our meals of colorful, hearty warm salads and warm soups that are our staples for the winter months.  We checked out a new music playlist he created for me to review as possibilities for dance events like the upcoming Return of the Light - a dance celebration.  The music inspired me to dance around the kitchen while we waited for the bread to bake so I managed to combine baking and fitness into one experience!  I'm hoping that I burned enough calories to cancel out at least one of my samplings of the finished products.

The recipes we used are inspired by the cookbooks listed below:

Cookbooks

Traditional Vegetarian Cooking:  Recipes from Europe's Famous Crank's Restaurant  David & Kay Canter, Daphne Swann (this provided inspiration for the whole wheat dark chocolate chip cookies and the two granary loaves pictured above)

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day Jeff Hertzerg, MD and Zoe Francois (the whole wheat pitas pictured above came from this cookbook)

Ani's Raw Food Kitchen:  Easy, Delectable Raw Food Recipes, Ani Phyo (donut holes recipe that makes little nuggets of goodness great for snacking and giving a little boost of energy anytime during the day)

Websites, blogs and vlogs:

Raw. Vegan. Not Gross, with Laura Miller of Sidesaddle Kitchen - check out the link on her website to her videos on the Tastemade YouTube channel

Bondi Harvest - a great resource for simple, fresh recipes and videos from the land down under that will appeal equally to vegans, vegetarians and omnivores alike

Sweet Potato Soul:  The Nourishing Vegan blog - simple vegan recipe videos

I hope you are inspired to spend some time creating nourishing meals in the kitchen.

Scene from a winter walk

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Whole wheat sandwich rolls

Cornbread

Vegetable soup with saffron tomato broth

What I've been up to lately

Green smoothie

The new year has started off cold and blustery here, so I've been doing plenty of indoor activities and a little nesting to stay busy.  I sat down this morning with my green smoothie (kale, cucumber, pineapple and lime juice blended with banana, mango and green power) to take stock of what's been happening over the last week or so.  Here are some of the highlights of what I've been up to lately:

Penned happy new years greetings to friends and family that I don't hear from often on cards featuring sunny photos from out garden and included some tea for sipping

Penned velvety meyer lemon pudding recipe post to the blog

To get the good energy flowing in the new year, an energetic reading via Skype with Shamanic practictioner Rebecca Singer whom I met in Costa Rica years ago

Completed my personal year end review using Unravelling 2014

Attended an 8 hour advanced meditation seminar 

Afternoon of vision board crafting for Zen Gypsies with Aurora

Applied to the Main Street Vegan Academy certification program and ordered the 10+ books (yikes!) on the reading list 

Here are some things I hope to get accomplished in the week or so ahead:

Crafting personal vision boards for the year

Prepping for the upcoming Zen Gypsies Tea and Journaling workshop

 (come join us if you're local to the DC metro area)

Exploring the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh style of meditation in an upcoming workshop 

Nia dance class with fellow Zen Gypsy Aurora and another good friend

Start reading my incoming stack of books!

I hope you week is filled with adventures that feed your soul.

Hibiscus from last summer

Winter garden: photos and a podcast interview

Bok choy

This past weekend just after the winter solstice, we experienced amazingly balmy temperatures in the 70 degrees F range breaking records for the high for the day all over the Washington, DC area that were set nearly 100 years ago.  I took advantage of this rare opportunity to spend time outside in shirt sleeves and finish some end of the season maintenance that I never quite go around to earlier including: removing the expired fall peas along with their supports and garden cover, pulling out a few remaining stumps from my first crop of sorghum and tending to the compost heap.   

I also took a peek under the covered tunnels to see how things were making out and snapped a few photos to share below.  Serendipitously, a podcast interview on gardening I did with Kimberly Wilson for Tranquility du Jour earlier in the fall was aired this weekend on her site.  Kimberly is so creatively inspirational and I'm honored that she asked me to talk about one of my favorite pastimes. Give a listen and also check out all her other sparkly musings.  

Rainbow Swiss chard on track for spring harvest

Brussels sprouts also in progress for spring harvest

Carrots ready for harvest

Thanks for reading!

Christmas cactus

Human rights prize ceremony offers inspiration

Dr. Tomicah Tillemann, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Madeleine K. Albright at the awards ceremony

(photo courtesy of the Lantos Foundation)

Each year we have the opportunity to attend the Lantos Foundation Human Rights Prize award ceremony which recognizes individuals who are committed to fighting for justice across the globe.  The prize, in its fifth year, has previously been awarded to His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Nobel Peace Prize winner), Professor Elie Wiesel (Nobel Peace Prize winner, holocaust survivor, professor and author of 57 books), Paul Rusesabagina (Rwandan hotel manager whose humanitarian actions are the basis for the movie Hotel Rwanda) and Chen Guangcheng (a blind Chinese civil rights activist known as the "barefoot lawyer" who was jailed for challenging China's one-child policy).  This year the recipient was Hillary Rodham Clinton for her work with women's rights and promoting Internet freedom.

Through one of those convoluted family trees, my husband and I are related by marriage to the former Congressman Tom Lantos who is the namesake of the foundation and the award (which explains our inclusion on the invitation list).  We try to make it anytime the event is held in the Washington, DC area. The event is so inspirational because of the opportunity to not only hear from the prize recipient and presenters, but to meet other attendees who are active in the fight for democracy, decency, dignity, freedom and justice.  

In the introduction of her friend Hillary, before the award of the prize, another former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, said that "I have always believed there is a special place in hell for women who don't help each other." which brought a rousing round of applause and cheering from the unusually large number of women in the audience.  You could feel the energy and sense of community as women looked around, nodding and smiling to each other while they clapped.  I think the men might have been a little perplexed by the sudden shift in energy in the room, but by the looks on people's faces, almost everyone felt it.  

I left the event feeling energized and inspired to share that sense of community with others.  This feeling carried me through to the weekend where Aurora and I hosted our first community building event as the Zen Gypsies.  I hope that you find inspiration to find ways to share your unique voice with those around you.  

Thanks for reading!

Mementos and chocolates commemorating the event

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Creative Inspiration for the Week

Extraordinary...a visit to southern Indiana

On the road from Washington, DC to Washington, IN 

(photo courtesy of Will Parkhurst)

During Thanksgiving week, I traveled to Washington, IN to visit family for the holiday.  It isn't "home" for me as I never lived there during our travels as a military family, but it is where my brother and his family settled and later my parents followed after retirement.  It is a very sleepy town in rural southern Indiana; a place one might conjure up when you think of the term Americana.  

My good friend and business partner, Aurora, asked if I was going to write a post about my adventures on the trip for our blog at Zen Gypsies.  I told her that it was a quiet week and nothing extraordinary happened so I wasn't sure if there was anything exciting to share.  That comment kept creeping into my thoughts from time to time during the day because it obviously didn't sit comfortably in my mind.  As often happens, these things swirl around in my head while I sleep and I woke up with a flood of thoughts about,  "What is extraordinary anyway?"

Life in southern Indiana is at a much slower pace than my normal full tilt Tasmanian devil, breakneck mode of being.  Looking back over the week, I realize that I really had experienced some things that were quite extraordinary from my normal everyday life.

Some adventures I had during the week included:

Basketball excitement (photo courtesy of Will Parkhurst)

- watching my nephew play basketball.  Being in the "Hoosier" state and near the hometown of the famous basketball player, Larry Bird, basketball games have the fervor reserved for football where I went to high school in Texas. I got caught up in the excitement and apparently am a little rowdier than the locals as even my nephew gave me a smile from the court at my wild cheering after he scored a basket.  We live so far away from the area, that it is definitely extraordinary to get to attend an event to see my niece or nephews in action chasing their passions.

- going to a cancer survivors support group meeting with my mother and meeting all the wonderfully warm and incredibly humorous members including a twinkling eyed 90+ year old.  They all shared stories about themselves and the local culture and asked about my life on the East Coast as some had never lived anywhere other than the local area.  The amazing nurse who runs the program even surprised the group with a Thanksgiving meal, which was delivered from a local grocery store deli, fully cooked...however, solidly frozen, which they failed to mention when she ordered it.  A local restaurant saved the day by preparing individual take-out dinners for everyone in the group in short order.  This story will be retold for years to come, I'm sure.  It was extraordinary to spend time with such tenacious spirits. 

- visiting some new and old favorite second hand bookstores, Book Nook in Newburgh and Used Book Warehouse(UBW) in Evansville and giggling like school girls with my mom in the extensive romance novel section in the Book Nook.  Our experience with romance novels is pretty limited although we do have a dear family friend who is a writer who has published a recent novel and is working on a few others to come.  Pretty soon we had the shopkeeper chuckling along with us as we tried to find just the right books for an aunt in her youthful 80s who enjoys the genre and will soon be snowed in for a lot of the winter in western Pennsylvania.  There is nothing like a good stack of books and a cup of tea to chase away the winter chill. Getting to spend girlfriend time with one's mom who lives half way across the country is definitely extraordinary.  

Beautiful tea service at Cafe Arazu in Newburgh, IN

- finding vegetarian fare can be a challenge in rural areas, but we found just the perfect place in a Persian restaurant with a view of the Ohio River.  Cafe Arazu in Newburgh, IN was richly decorated with colorful vintage textiles which was a warm welcome from the bitterly cold winds.  The temperatures may have been in the 20's outside, but we enjoyed a long, leisurely lunch with the prettiest tea service for our Moroccan mint tea.

My husband keeping me entertained on the long trip to and from Indiana

So looking back over the trip, I realize that there were lots of extraordinary moments that would have slipped by without my acknowledgment if I hadn't been prompted to take a few moments to reflect on the time I spent this week in person, online and by phone with family and friends near and far. (Thanks, Aurora for keeping me on my toes!)  So this moment of reflection has been a perfect end to my extraordinary Thanksgiving holiday week,

Thanks for reading!

Our dog Noah resting at home after our adventures in Indiana

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Road trip to Tenneessee

A trip to summer camp

Scenes from Tranquility Summer Camp

I recently returned from Tranquility Summer Camp - a creativity and yoga retreat in West Virginia.  I had a chance to refill the well of inspiration during yoga, a hike in the woods that led to meditation on a mountaintop, art sessions, journaling and campfire time in the evenings.  My creativity bug was tickled during a mixed media art workshop with Mary Catherine Starr, hand-tied mala making with Carol Meyers and conversations with the other campers and hosts.   We all had great resources to share so here are some for you to explore:

Keeping life organized:

If you love lists the way I do, you’ll find Trello helpful in keeping you and your projects on track.  It’s like having an electronic whiteboard.  I use it just for myself, but you can also have multiple people use it for group or family projects.  I use it as a complement to Evernote (an electronic filing cabinet) which I mentioned in a previous post.

To read:

This was my reading selection for my free time during the retreat. 

The Art of Non-Conformity:  Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World

Being mindful:

We watched this video during the retreat:

For the next month or so, my creativity will be channeled into preserving produce from the garden for it is full-blown harvest season.  If you have any family favorite recipes that call for tomatoes, send them my way.

Thanks for reading!

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Summer harvest

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Resources
Preserving the harvest