Demolition- What I Can Destroy With Just a......Metaphor?

Destruction is cathartic. When we finally got rid of the strippey couches and I decided I could not ethically burn them (pollution and all, they were really, horribly gross), we stood and cheered when the garbage truck crushed them in its giant, powerful jaws and crusher. Oh happy day.

We were not just crushing fabric and wood and mouse nest, no, we were destroying what it meant to take on couches I hated because I had to leave the gorgeous, lovely ones that I picked out and paid for behind. While owning these strippey ones, I had been friends with less considerate people. My kids had vomited on them. I sat on them with Isaac (covered) upright so he would not aspirate on spit up breast milk while wrapped in a billiruben light blanket. I was sitting on these couches when the neurologist called with Isaac's diagnoses.

That era was over. Now we were able to at least buy a second hand couch, one that I picked out, and these could just go. Go, they did.

So, today, I was feeling again like I had to destroy some of the disappointment and aggravation that the farmhouse still holds for me.

Cue music of doom. Actually. This song works too.

Atom and His Package - I'm Down Right Amazed At What I Can Destroy With Just A Hammer 

 

So. This bathroom. It has/had a plastic shower that was glued on to the wall. It leaked. It got grungy. It is the downstairs bathroom that visitors use. It is HORRIBLE. When I tried to clean it, the gross stuff multiplied and fought back. Norwex? Fought and LOST. It got so bad that I refused to even let muddy kids use it. Ugh.

Bonus? The pipes all freeze. All the time. To the point that I sometimes have to stay home on pipe duty instead of leaving the farm for kid lessons and my friend time. Well played bathroom from hell, well played.

 So. Jessica and I got the crow bar out. Actually she also used the screw gun and took apart the fixtures. Let's not go too crazy here.

See all that water damage? Good thing it isn't that old. The bathroom was an addition in the last 10 years.

Here we go, down to studs!

Not really. The fake plastic shower was glued to a fake plastic wall. Good grief.

Holly helped. She got her fixer boots on and dove in.

Destruction is so cathartic. Try it. (I also threw out a lot of damaged clothing and toys this week and one particularly emotional piece of clothing (all cotton) went into the wood stove). Some things I just want out of my life for ever. I don't want them lingering in the landfill of my emotional landscape. I want them gone.

That's what purging is all about. It isn't just making room for more. I am welcoming in different energy and purpose. Making more time for creative process. Less laundry and dishes= less time working on laundry and dishes= more time for playing, creating, and writing! Win!

A new tile in the bathroom? Less time battling the cracked, deteriorating science experiment of a plastic box that pig farmers and children wash farmyard compost off themselves in.

What can you banish from your life that is fighting you back? I've got my hammer and crow bar and I am making a list. I am not even checking it twice, I am just diving in.

I will post progress as we go with this bathroom. It may take a while, we have zero budget and have to get creative.

The Spirit of the Season

This is a deep sea squid. It lives where the water pressure would kill a human being.
I am a squid.

I meant to do the 12 days of Christmas for the Holiday Spoon Club series but then our drains had a major crisis at the farm and the weather turned to freezing and then a member of our close 22q community got her angel wings. Keeping up a post a day was about all I could manage with food pictures and cute moments with my children. I was in tears so much of the time from both ends of the emotional spectrum. I don't do well in December usually, so this was past my breaking point.

Blessed I am to have friends that recognised this and were there for me. Even more, Chad recognised that I needed more from him, even though he was spending time in the mucky basement thawing the clogged pipes and doing field chores and building fences. He took the time to do dishes more than his usual turns (basically giving me a pass on dishes so far this month. Wow. He also helped me with organisation and some huge purging that we've been pretty intense with lately.

December makes me sad. It isn't just the waning daylight, the lack of fresh vegetables, that my extended family lives so farm away, that my aunt died without me ever getting to tell her how much her encouragement meant to me, or a million other things that all pile up into an emotional train wreck and leave me exhausted and on the verge of a near constant panic attack. I just want to break and smash things and sit alone in the dark with nothing but the feedback loop of self pity.

You know? Many of you do actually. That is what I am finding. So many people feel the same way, so overwhelmed and alone. What is it they say to Harry Potter? He's easier to defeat if he thinks he is alone. That.

I am not alone. I don't just mean my family or friends either. Since I began this journey back in May to reboot this blog and start writing again, (not just blogging, but to pick up poetry again too,) an amazing community of creative people have come into my life. Getting to know and having these folks cheer me on, lift my spirits, allow me to be part of their circle has been so invigorating. I feel refreshed instead of recycled. There are others who feel like small potatoes, others who are afraid to really express their inner forces, and still more who are just afraid to make the time and say this part of me is important, I am an artist. 

So this season, as we count down to Christmas and New Years, take time for your art each day. Sometimes for me that is cooking, sometimes writing, and sometimes visual arts. You know, it is also an art to just be present in the moment and that is a craft I am still working on, for the sake of my children.If I plug into the creative forces at least once a day, I feel like I can make it through the season. The writer's mind is slowly being nurtured and keeping me company through the day instead of the white noise of negative self talk.

Do go out there. Make a list of the things you meant to do- start a blog? Join Pinterest? Paint the bathroom? The dishes can wait. Create and get messy.  (Then pretty please share it here! Link in the comments!)

*The bathroom re-do starts tomorrow!

Real Christmas Trees

For folks who worry about carbon as a pollutant, disposed of correctly (such as using it for structure in the bottom of our large farm pond), the tree is a net gain for the environment in many ways. You are actually sequestering carbon, contributing to a habitat for animals in the form of the tree farm (instead of it being corn or some such), and helping the local economy.

If you heat your home with wood, burning it will be a net gain as well since there will be less pollutants than heating via coal which is probably where your electric comes from. Even if not, there are very few good technologies producing electricity for large utilities - the more localised the better.

If you have no other use for the wood, burying it would be the next best option since it will eventually break down into soil, but even sending it to a landfill would sequester the carbon in the trunk and branches, and eventually return it to the soil instead of the atmosphere. -Chad


And now for the part from Danelle-
Real tree doesn't just mean the tree part to us. It means everything, from top down. I used to go nuts with our 10 foot tall artificial tree, Nutcracker theme, 200 glass balls in 9 different colours, 10 strands of lights, everything placed just so......and then I had children. Ha.

At first I tried to compromise- the 200 glass balls went to storage and were replaced with plastic balls. That worked mostly, but 1 year in storage and they all started to smell like urine. Ew. So out those went. Then went the fake garlands and the lights burned out.

In 2009 we moved to the farm. Our first Christmas here I NEEDED a real tree. We had lived on the farm almost one year and, magically, living here cured my 30 year old chronic sinus infection that flared especially at the holidays and would turn into bronchitis too. So, maybe a real tree would no longer kill me slowly? Maybe? 

Local tree farm, for the win!

I survived. Not even a sniffle. By then we had 3 house/farm cats and a just walking 18 month old. Yikes. So no glass balls still. So many broken things. I replaced the lights with just 2 strands of LED lights. Lily and Holly started making ornaments for the tree. This has turned into something extraordinary. Now, every ornament on our tree is heirloom, a gift, or handmade by my children or someone we know. I love it like I never thought I would. Handmade doesn't always mean pipe cleaners and goggle eyes either. Look at what my 9 year old Lily made this year!

Here is our 2013 tree: From plastic balls to jingle bells and evergreens, the magic of the holiday is transforming more than what is on our tree. Our values are changing as well.

My Helper at Sample Sunday