Number Thirteen
Janie
October really snuck up on me. I know you’ve been insanely busy yourself. I hope you’re able to find a few peaceful moments here and there to soak up the beautiful Michigan fall. It’s hard to believe that it was just about two years ago now that Silouan and I came to visit you while we were both nearing the end of our pregnancies with Poppy and Sunny. I was able to sit down and chat with your parents as a somewhat stable adult for the first time. No longer as a “moderately delinquent” teenager as your sister so lovingly described us. And your dad told me that he used to be worried about me, but he doesn’t worry anymore, haha.
I’ve been keeping busy painting more walls in the house, hunting for furniture at estate sales and Facebook Marketplace, selling things on Marketplace, and yard work. I even got stung by a bee for the first time! It made me kinda proud to get strung by a bee on my own land. On a more exciting level, though, I’ve been climbing pretty regularly again! I already feel so much stronger. Having just turned 27, I’ve made it one of my goals to get back into shape this year. I wanna get JACKED. And oddly enough, a long lost friend of mine, who I used to play volleyball with, just moved back into town and we already made plans to start “running” together once a week. That will be very interesting because I hate running and also I can’t run. But we’ll see how it goes. In addition to simply working out and getting jacked, I think it’s really important that the girls observe and even participate with me staying active and exercising. Whether I’m doing palates, lifting weights, or yard work that involves heaving lifting (lately buckets and buckets of rocks) I want them to grow up having a well established foundation of knowing how important movement is. It’s alarming to see how sedentary ours and the next generation is. Even though every day we’re learning more and more about how detrimental it is for your health, especially when you factor in all the screen time and EMFs we’re exposed to. Even though the majority of people know that their lifestyle is either killing them or significantly reducing the quality of their life, most people aren’t willing to make any changes and I’m starting to wonder.. Are some of them even capable of changing at this point? With how many neurotoxins there are floating around in nearly everything, especially tap water that is fed to babies in formula, compounded with the artificial dyes that are intentionally put in children’s snacks and medicine, plus the lead and formaldehyde in children’s toys and clothing and bedding… Sometimes I wonder if the generational damage can be reversed or if it’s just starting to become hard wired in our brains now. It almost feels like a form of MK Ultra on a mass scale.
Well that kinda took a dark turn. Back to my original point..
So far, I’ve been able to take the girls hiking with me a few times. I found a trail that has a very Colorado feel to it. It was fun for them and offered many beautiful views, lots of wildlife, flowers, and railroad tracks to examine as we went along. It had me dreaming about heading west and settling down out there someday. We actually had plans to go to Montana this week, but tickets to Bozeman are very expensive this time of year, so instead we plan to meet up with Lorene in Nevada since it’s much more affordable flying to Vegas. She was already going to be out there to compete in a horse show. We can’t leave soon enough. I’ve been so devastatingly homesick for the southwest. Sometimes I wish there was a way I could force myself to love the Midwest, other than when it’s storming, but I haven’t been able to make any progress there. Except for the occasional nice view at just the right time of day when I can think “well, this isn’t so bad I guess”. At least now that I live a little more south (technically we live in the Ozark mountain range, on the very, very edge) I have these moments of appreciation a little more often.
- Lydia