365 Inspirations—153: Slowing Down and Paying Attention

Blooming Camellia in my front yard

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished."—Lao Tzu

When I have many things to do, my usual tendency is to speed up, but for some reason I s—l—o—w—e—d way down today.

I would do one thing and then stop and just sit there with absolutely no thoughts. This doesn't usually happen to me. Normally when I have a lot to do, I'm on to the next thing before the first is even finished.

I started noticing things I hadn't noticed before. I mowed the lawn in the backyard and noticed that our new roof that we got last summer has very interesting little black boxes on one side. I have no idea what these are for. While attentively raking the grass into small piles, I would take rests and watch the trees in our backyard sway in the breeze as huge bumble bees got their fill of pollen from the flowers overhead. I closed my eyes and felt the sun on my shoulders. I listened to the leaves speak. 

I sat down on the front step. Everything was blossoming, blooming, and buzzing. Everything was alive. 

My heart seemed to beat to the drip of the outdoor tap. I stepped behind the bushes, in close to the house, to tighten the faucet and then returned to my place on the step.

I felt full of everything. I felt alive with all that was around me.

I don't know how long I sat there.

Amazingly, I got everything done that I needed to do. I gardened, checked half the tests for one of my classes, made dinner for my husband, cleaned out the fridge, did the laundry and now I'm typing this post. 

I felt like each activity I did was new. I was so curious about each step in the process. I felt like a baby who feels grass between her toes or hears the sound of birds for the very first time. I'm not sure why this day was different than any other day, but I like this new pace.

I'm going to go slowly more often, especially when I feel the need to speed up.

Do you remember the activities you did today? Were you aware of each step in the process? Do remember all the sights, sounds, smells and tastes around you?

365 Inspirations—152: Gardening and Beethoven

Irises in our front yard

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life."—Ludwig van Beethoven

I had hoped to take a crack at the 75 plus tests I have to grade over the weekend, but gardening and Beethoven took over.

After a long walk at Discovery Park in Seattle, I came home and mowed the lawn and Yoon put our new weed wacker together and got to work. We even weeded the circular flower bed in the front yard and then we were pooped. We have a small fenced yard in the front and a HUGE backyard that we never even got to today. It was very rewarding to spruce up the front yard, but it left me exhausted. I like gardening, but I don't do it often enough and can only do it if it is in small spurts and not for hours and hours.

After a couple hours of work on the front yard, we cleaned ourselves up and got ready for a concert at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. Yoon bought tickets last night online, but one of his yoga students ended up comping him tickets right in the orchestra section because she plays in the symphony!

He gave the extra tickets to two friends for a good price!

The concert was excellent. We got to see a violin solo by Alina Ibragimova. She was fantastic.

Anyway, It's now 11:30pm and I'm going to hit the hay with the sound of Beethoven still ringing in my ears! Before the weekend started, I did not plan to do either of these things, but sometimes what we didn't expect to do turns out to be the weekend's highlights!

Did you do anything spontaneous this weekend?

365 Inspirations—137: Going Electric

"When you use a manual push mower, you're "cutting" down on pollution and the only thing in danger of running out of gas is you!"—Grey Livingston

We have a push mower. I tried to use it once and it took me three hours to do a four by four patch of grass. That simply is not going to work. So I bought the next best thing today—An ELECTRIC mower!

Right before we left for our 10th year anniversary to Las Vegas, we had two defunct gas mowers in the garage (hand-me-downs circa 1970s probably) and an old weed wacker. My husband tried to weed wack our  entire back yard, which is no easy feat, since our back yard in Seattle is quite large. He got half-way through the project and the thing caught fire, sputtered and died right there on the lawn. I could barely see his face through the white cloud of smoke that was between us. At that point I thought about tearing out the lawn completely. Actually, half of our front yard has now been converted to a stone Zen garden and it's not too shabby.

Anyway, we left the rest of the yard half finished and went off on our trip. Then life took over and before we knew it, the grass was practically up to our knees and we were becoming those neighbors that people whisper about. We were the eyesore of the block.

I couldn't take it anymore, so I bit the bullet and drove down to Sears today to look at mowers. My goodness, Sears had a lot of mowers. There were riders, side blowers, ones with Honda motors, mowers with attached catchers, mowers with gears, self-prepelled mowers—you name it.

All of these mowers the sales clerk showed me required gas with a special kind of gas stabilizer. Suddenly I recalled the fumes and white smoke from our weed wacker that exploded not too long ago and found myself saying, "Can you show me the electric ones?"

Off in a corner sat a rather large battery operated mower and one smaller one that required an extension cord. The price was right, but our sales clerk was surprised we were even looking at it. It was like we had entered a Harley shop and all we really wanted was the electric bicycle in the corner.

I didn't care. I was tired of white smoke, gas, yanking my arm out of the socket practically to start the darn thing. I wanted something simple, environmentally friendly, smooth and easy.

The best things about this new little mower are:

1. It's good for the environment
2. It is quiet, yet powerful
3. No need to pull any cord to start it, just plug it in and push the lever
4.  It's inexpensive
5. It did a pretty good job on our knee-deep lawn

I ended up buying an electric weed wacker too, but ran out of zap at the end, so my husband said he'd try and weed wack later. He has really bad allergies, so I'm doing most of the mowing these days. Good thing this little machine is a snap to use! Here's a photo of our spruced up house. I love that it is in the city, but has so much foliage and trees around it:

Do you do your part for the environment? Have you worked in your yard or garden lately?

365 Inspirations—95: Cooking for a Party I'm Hosting

"We labor to make a house a home, then every time we're expecting visitors, we rush to turn it back into a house."—Robert Brault

Today was an extremely busy day. A friend I hadn't seen in a long time suddenly appeared at my front door this morning, so we had tea together and chatted. I also met a friend for lunch!

I went to the grocery store to get ready for a party I'm hosting for a friend tomorrow. I meant to clean the house today, but got sidetracked and gardened instead.

It felt good to get my hands dirty and dig up weeds and tidy up the garden. I tried to mow the lawn with the push mower, but my husband came home and did a more thorough job with the lawn mower. We have this huge camellia tree in our front yard and it's dropping bright pink petals everywhere. They are so beautiful that I didn't really want to rake them up, but they were starting to form a huge pile at our front door.

After hanging out in the yard for quite some time, I finally ventured into the kitchen and began cooking. I made a spicy lentil and sausage soup, two quiches, a fruit salad and I sliced veggies for a veggie and dip tray. While I was cooking, I also cleaned out the fridge.

Needless to say, I'm now pooped, but haven't really cleaned yet for the event. People are coming over at 12:00pm tomorrow, so I guess I'd better get up a little earlier than I usually do and get to work ^_^!

I like having people over because it gives me a reason to clean my yard and house, otherwise I tend to get lazy about it and put it off. Hosting a dinner or party is a great way to get things in order!

Do you ever have a party at your house or people over for dinner? Do you think it helps you to get organized?

365 Inspirations—81: Gardens

"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden."—Thomas Jefferson

Hilo is a place that bursting with life in the garden area. It's hard to contain all the sights and sounds of this place. It's overwhelming at times.

My husband is conducting a yoga retreat on the Big Island of Hawaii. We are in Hilo, Hawaii. Our place is located close to all these amazing thermal snorkeling pools. They are very warm and perfect for swimming!

This afternoon we visited the Botanical Gardens in Hilo. In the 70s, a couple bought a large plot of land that was wild and a bit trashy and, over the course of several years, groomed it into an outstanding botanical park right on the ocean.

Some of the plants simply didn't seem real to me. I felt like I was in a Sci Fi movie walking through the park. Hilo has a primal feeling. It feels like how the earth must have been before humans were introduced.

The gardens here have inspired me to do some gardening myself when I return home, but for now I'm going to enjoy all the sights and sounds of this place!

Do you have a green thumb? Do you like to garden?