Krista | ramblingtart

Rest and Hope

by Krista | Jun 25, 2019 | Winter

It’s cold and blustery this morning, winter winds howling through the trees and sending us scurrying for flannels and slippers the moment we wake up. Boeuf Bourguignon and Chicken Curry are warming our bones on these frigid days even as they fill our tiny house with wonderful smells and make everything feel cosy and homey.

I’m so happy to be home. So happy. I’ve been here a full week after spending 27 days in the hospital while a team of doctors tested and consulted, trying to figure out what was making me so sick. 12 days ago they gathered solemnly around my bed to let me know that they believed I had something incurable, untreatable, and that I would be in the hospital indefinitely. I was devastated, scared, and so sad.

But that wasn’t to be the end of my story.

The next day my friend Farina came to spend the day with me and advocated for me fiercely. Within a few hours, a visiting neurologist who specializes in seizures agreed to see me. After a series of tests, he explained that I did not have the incurable, untreatable, stuck-in-hospital indefinitely thing. Instead, I had a severe virus that had attacked my neurological system causing seizures and all sorts of mayhem, but he had every confidence that with rest, patience, and continued care through an out-patient clinic, I would recover fully.

By the end of the day, we had an accurate diagnosis, a treatment plan in place, and within 5 days I was home again, recovering in the place I love best with my Bear, our animals, and most restorative views of trees, fields, and gardens.

Recovery is slow but steady, and we’re celebrating every little bit of progress, from being able to walk unaided and driving again, to going grocery shopping for the first time and getting to pick out all my favourite things I missed while in hospital.

It’s been a big lifestyle shift for me in so many ways. I know I will get back to full health and strength, but in the meantime, I’m learning to ask for and receive help, embrace consistent self-care routines that support my healing, and learn contentment and happiness in a much slower way of life. Bear is steadfast support to me, making meals, feeding animals, accompanying me on walks to rebuild my strength and endurance. I’m so grateful for him.

I’m also deeply grateful for the support and care of the dear folks who have visited, called, texted, brought food, flowers, and books, and showered us with love and care. My friend Molly set up a GoFundMe account, and I cried and laughed and cried again, so thankful for the kindness and thoughtfulness that enables me to truly rest and recover while our bills are paid for, animals fed, and fridge filled. Thank you. XOXO

The wind is really picking up now, howling around the eaves. Fezzik is curled up on the floor, toddling over often to check on me and get a scratch and a cuddle. It’s time for a bowl of hot curry, a cup of tea, and maybe an old movie to make us laugh. xo

How to Make A Vision Board

by Krista | Jan 8, 2019 | Summer

Learning to make a vision board is simple and fun and a wonderfully creative way to set goals and dreams.

But it is also a deeply personal process that requires self-awareness, courage to display the truth about ourselves, and the strength to prioritize what is meaningful to us.

What is a Vision Board?

A vision board is a visual reminder of what we value, a gentle nudge to our subconscious to look for ways to bring our values to fruition.

It can keep us focused on goals, help us stay true to who we are, and inspire us to reach for Big Things by taking tiny steps in the right direction.

Physically, it is a board (cork, foam, cardboard, or wood) covered with a hodgepodge of images, words, and various pieces of detritus that remind us what we value, what we want to experience, and what we want to do, make, acquire, learn, etc.

Vision Boards are reminders of what is most important to us.

How to Make a Vision Board

Choose the right setting for you

Making a vision board is a personal project. The images, words, and items you curate will be meaningful to you and you alone. It’s not about shoulds and musts and have-tos. It’s about quieting your mind and environment and letting your innermost wishes, dreams, hopes, quirks, and fancies bob up to the surface. No judgment, no coercion, no raised eyebrows, tsk-tsks, or doubts.

This is the time to let your inner child do the creating, giving full flight to whatever delights you. This is the time to trust your gut, your intuition, that inner voice that says, “YES!!! I LOVE this!!!”

I like to make my vision board by myself and not show it to anyone until I’m done. This allows me to answer only to myself and not let my vision board be colored by the opinions and ideas of others.

Other people thrive on making them with others, enjoying the collaborative process. If you do make your vision board with others, just make sure that they are supportive cheerleaders who will affirm and delight in whatever hair-brained idea you stick on your board.

Collect, Collect, Collect

To make a vision board, you need images, words, and little things that can easily be affixed to your board.

Throughout the year I pick up beautiful old issues of magazines from thrift stores or library sales. I go through them at my leisure, cutting out pictures that do one of the following:

conjure up a feeling I want to feel.
depict a skill I want to acquire.
display a place I want to go.
remind me of a topic I want to study.
convey an experience I want to experience.
showcase something I want for my home/farm/life.
contain words that capture something I value or want to develop.
advertise classes or workshops I’d like to take.

I also collect other little things and keep them in a special drawer, box, or big glass jar:

found objects from nature: rocks, feathers, seeds, dried flowers, shells, bark, etc.
mementos from travel that remind me of places I want to go or return to: flags, key rings, postcards, brochures.
things that remind me of craft projects I want to tackle: bits of fabric, ribbon, buttons, wool, or string.
colorful paper prints.
recipes or techniques I want to try.

Collect Your Supplies

To make a vision board, you will need the following:

a large board (cork, foam, wood, cardboard, etc)
images/words/things to represent what you love.
scissors
tape, thumbtacks, pins, small nails, whatever you need to stick things to your board.

Take Your Time

Making a vision board is not a quick project, at least not for me. As I rifle through the stacks of images, quotes, and bits and pieces I’ve collected, I find that things I valued 12 months ago have altered significantly or disappeared altogether. I like to sort through those collections and get rid of anything that doesn’t resonate with Now Me.

I lay everything out first, shifting and replacing as needed, and then start pinning/taping things into place.

I like to leave some blank spaces, or fill them in with colored bits of paper that can be replaced by new images/words that I find over time. Know that you can change your board at any time to suit any changes in your belief system, worldview, career, or relationships.

Be Gentle

Sometimes the process can be quite emotional as different images trigger memories from the past, or the mere process highlights what you have lost, broken, or missed out on. Sometimes I need to take time to grieve, to forgive myself or someone else, to admit I’ve strayed from what matters to me or put precious energies into things that don’t matter one bit. It’s all OK, and part of a lovely process that can lead from regret to unabashed joy as you refocus on the things you treasure most.

Have Fun and Dream Big

This is dream time, hope time, what-would-I-do-if-I-could-do-anything time. You may not know how you’re going to do it or if you even can, but that’s not the point. If it makes your heart swell, stick that baby up on the board.

If you’re flat broke and barely making ends meet, but the thought of going to Italy or France makes you giddy, put up an image of the Eiffel Tower or the Amalfi Coast.

If you can’t draw to save your life, but the sight of an image of paints and paintbrushes elicits a happy sigh, stick it on.

If you want to learn Russian or wood-carving, take a self-defense course or make cheese, study Viking runes or make croissants from scratch, put those things on your vision board.

Place Your Vision Board

Your vision board is YOUR work of art, a visual representation of your dearest wishes, greatest goals, and quirkiest delights. Put it in a place of honor, a spot where you can see it every day and be reminded of what you’re working towards and planning for. As you ruminate on what you DO love and value, the other things will drift away, making more room for the things that truly matter to you.

I have mine on my bedside table, leaning against the wall next to my reading lamp, polished stones and sparkling crystals, flickering candle, and a little bird figurine. I see it every morning when I wake up, every night when I go to bed, and each time I see it, something else stands out and strengthens my resolve and restores my hope.

The images and bits and bobs mean nothing to anyone else, but they are precious to me. I’m the only one who knows what they represent and what they’re guiding me towards. When I get overwhelmed and stressed, it does me much good to sit awhile with my vision board and remember what I love.

What is one thing you would like to put on your vision board? xo

Learning to Ask for Help

by Krista | Jan 3, 2019 | Summer

It’s a gorgeous summer morning, clear and sunny, quiet and still, baby goats and lambs running and leaping about like adorable but demented marionettes before the sun comes up and they make a beeline for the shade. The cuckoo clock is ticking steadily and the fan is whirring gently as I make my first cuppa of the day. I love these peaceful moments before it’s time to feed animals and start the to-do list.

The drought continues here, but, thanks to Bear’s foresight in putting in a bore and extra rainwater tanks, we are OK.

I put extra drip hoses in my gardens this year, and they’ve been amazing, keeping things alive when there’s not a lick of rain for weeks on end. Even in drought we have fat leeks, abundant tomatillos, and beetroots the size of softballs. Rainbow silverbeet, tomatoes, and fresh dill add colour and deliciousness to our scrambled eggs in the mornings, and mounds of pineapple sage, lemon balm, and spearmint make the most refreshing and nourishing iced teas. These things cheer my soul as we watch the grass shrivel and dry.

I’ve been harvesting a lot of seeds from the garden this week: dill and Romaine lettuce, sweet white onions and sweet peas. I’m steadily filling glass jars with our own seeds to use for cooking and planting and preserving, adding them to kitchen shelves already lined with home cured olives, pickled cherries, and innumerable jars of chili sauce. It never fails to give me a thrill to see something I made or grew all by myself. I feel like a little kid waving a hand-drawn picture as I proudly show Bear a jar of this or bottle of that.

I spent most of the holidays in self-care mode. I was exhausted, burnt out, run down, all the descriptors of “please don’t make me move” that you can think of. It was a dickens of a year with so many of those moments that felt like, “This, this will be the one that does me in.” To my utter astonishment, they didn’t. I got to Christmas bedraggled and battered but very much alive, with a glow in my soul that comes from battles fought and battles miraculously won.

Self-care was the thing that got me through that whole ghastly year. Five minutes here, an hour there, they made all the difference in getting me from one day, one moment to the next. As Christmas loomed ahead of me, I knew I just needed to get there, I just needed to finish, and all would be well.

And I did. And it was.

I slept. I napped. I sat like a zombie. I went to my healer and talked with Bear and read good books and wrote and painted and drew and made smudge sticks, then slept, napped, and zombied some more. And slowly my body relaxed, my mind calmed, and that long-dampened spark inside started flickering, stronger and stronger until it was glowing like the sun.

I started work again yesterday with such incredible joy and excitement because I did something I didn’t realize I was allowed to do: I asked for help. I don’t know where I got such a fool notion that I had to do it all by myself, but it nearly did me in.

Not anymore. Now I have help.

I have 3 sub-contractors who are smart as whips and jolly and kind to boot. I have an accountant who dazzles me with her skills and has taken my financial fumblings and made them sleek and manageable. I found a lawyer who is amazing at drafting the documentation, terms and conditions, and contracts I need to run an excellent business, and a business coach who is helping me build the processes, emotional intelligence, and support systems I need to run a business peacefully, happily, and successfully.

Help. It makes me teary every time I think of it.

There are moments I wish I could’ve learned this 20 years ago, but then I forgive myself, again, for not knowing what I didn’t know.

I know it now, and I’m flourishing in the knowing. xo

Making Smudge Sticks for the New Year

by Krista | Dec 28, 2018 | Summer

I gave a lot of thought to what I wanted to experience over the holidays this year, and narrowed things down to three goals:

maintain my childlike spirit
be true to my heart
heighten my vitality

I’ve never done this before, never laid out what I really wanted my holidays to be like for me, but I want to do this every year now, for it’s been the loveliest holiday I’ve ever had. Bear and I have looked at each other so many times over this break and grinned in sheer happiness and peace because we’d built a holiday around what we really needed and wanted.

We met up with people we love and who love us back, and visited happily over Christmas cookies in the kitchen and cold drinks at the beach.

We had together time, going to op shops and watching movies, chatting over cuppas on the veranda and on long drives through the mountains.

We had alone time, reading books and writing poetry, painting pictures and polishing knives, doing whatever popped into our heads that sounded like something we would enjoy.

I loved it. So much.

We have 4 1/4 days of holiday left, and it’s so great to wake up every morning and ask excitedly, “So, what are you going to do today?

Today I wanted to do sketching and watercolouring, make Caesar salad, and gather herbs from my garden to make smudge sticks for the new year.

I filled my basket with sage and pineapple sage, flowering oregano, yarrow, lemon thyme, and rosemary. They smelled so good still warm from the morning sun.

I found a shady spot on the veranda, and trimmed each bundle to size with my trusty knife before binding them tightly with twine into sturdy batons of herbal goodness.

What are smudge sticks?

Smudge sticks are simply bundles of fresh herbs tied tightly together and dried thoroughly. They can then be lit with a match and the smoke allowed to fill an enclosed space such as a bedroom, office, or entire home. In ancient times it was believed that the smoke from burning medicinal herbs such as sage, rosemary, and thyme would either remove evil spirits from a space or connect with good spirits to provide balance and harmony to the inhabitants.

Does smudging work?

Well, I don’t know about ousting evil spirits, but a scientific paper published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology revealed that studies have found that burning medicinal herbs in an enclosed space eliminated airborne bacteria by 94%. Tests conducted a day later found the space still disinfected, and a month later most of the bacteria was still gone.

I think that’s amazing.

I’ll be burning my smudge sticks in the new year, not just to cleanse the air in our home, but also because I love the physical act of burning out the harmful and welcoming in the good.

I’ve found that often new goodness doesn’t have room to fit into our lives because we haven’t gotten rid of the bad and useless. I’m working steadily to remove all that no longer serves my goals in life so that I have abundant room for what I cherish and value. It’s a wonderful way to prepare for this new year and all it holds. xo

How to Make Smudge Sticks

Supplies:

Fresh herbs: sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, yarrow, lavender, etc

Cotton string or twine

Sharp knife or scissors

Directions:

Divide your herbs into even piles with leaves and flowers pointing up, and stems pointing down. Adjust them to make an even thickness down the length of the stick. (Thin sticks will dry quickly and burn quickly, thick ones with take a longer time to dry and burn.)
Grasp one pile by the stems like you would a bouquet, wrap the twine around once or twice and tie a knot to secure it.
Wrap the twine tightly along the length of the stick, double back once you reach the top. When you reach the bottom, tie it tightly in a knot.
Trip the ends of the stems with your knife or scissors.
Repeat steps until all smudge sticks are made. Set in a shady, dry place for 2-3 weeks until dried through. Store in airtight container until ready to use.
When ready to use, close all doors and windows in the room/building you wish to smudge. Light the tip of the smudge stick and set it in a shallow, heatproof container, letting the smoke fill the room. Do not leave unattended. You can also carry it and wave it gently through the space, being careful to catch any ashes or embers that fall.

Magically Mundane

by Krista | Nov 29, 2018 | Spring

This morning started out as most mornings do on our little farm: waking up early and starting the list of things that need to be done each day to keep hearth and home running smoothly. Smoothly-ish.

I wound the cuckoo clock, fed and cuddled the dogs, called the sheep and goats out to pasture, then headed to the gardens to see how they’d fared after the ferocious wind storm we had yesterday.

The winds were both awe-inspiring and scary. Massive gum trees swayed like saplings, leaves, bark, and branches hurtled across the yard, furniture toppled, animals huddled behind walls and water tanks, and the power flickered and died, over and over again. We had to close the house up to keep from choking on the great clouds of dust blown in from out west.

This morning only the gentlest of breezes whispered through the leaves, cooling my skin as I wandered from garden to garden. Some things were worse off than others, leaves withered and drooping, a few branches broken and battered, but everything survived. I knew that a good drink of water would help things bounce back quickly, so I turned on the pump and hooked up hoses and soon water was cascading over the cracked ground and thirsty plants.

And suddenly, just like that, my parched little world became a fairyland that took my breath away.

The rest of my chore list was postponed while I stood there in the early morning light and sighed in sheer happiness at the spectacle of glistening water droplets and shimmering spray.

Such moments are transporting, for they make magic out of the mundane.

Like when the afternoon sun illuminates glass cups in the drying rack and suddenly washing dishes is a golden moment, or a stray sunbeam breaks through the clouds and sets dust motes dancing and suddenly it doesn’t matter that you haven’t dusted in weeks.

I’ve been thinking a lot about magic lately. Not in terms of casting spells or making things disappear, but in how I go through daily life, my mundane, considering ways to make them a bit more magical.

This morning I have two candles burning while I work, one in a teacup made by a dear friend, the other spiced with apples and cinnamon to make my summery Australian world feel a wee bit Christmasy.

I picked a handful of sweet peas and stuck them in an emerald green goblet I found at a thrift store, and it’s sitting on my desk next to a Christmas mug full of rosemary tea to ease the headache I’ve had since all that dust blew in.

My desk is something utterly mundane that to me, is magical. Bear made it for me. It’s a lap desk made of simple pine plywood, nothing flashy or posh, but I love it so very, very much for it allows me to work with ease and comfort.

I can set it up in my armchair so I can hang out with Bear while he watches a movie, or in bed so I can look out at trees and fields while I write articles or work on my next book or manage social media accounts for my clients.

On especially hot days I can take it out onto the breezy veranda, Fezzik curled up beside me, one paw resting on my leg to make sure I don’t go anywhere.

It’s a simple object, but it makes life so much nicer.

One of the best things I’ve done to bring more magic into my life is to work specific hours. Instead of leaping into action at the first hint of something needing to be done, I don’t even think about work (or try not to) until 9 a.m. This gives me 5 whole hours to do simple but lovely things that make me happy.

This morning Bear and I had coffee and a chat on the veranda, I made a batch of elderberry cordial and he made breakfast, I wrote in my journal, rode my bike, picked flowers and herbs, and took pictures of my magical garden. Just little nothing things that make all the difference.

Soon the cuckoo clock will chime 9 o’clock. It’s time to work.

What are ways you bring a bit of magic into your mundane? xo

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