Both trees are having an easier time this year with leaf munching insects. I remembered to spray with insecticidal soap fairly early on. Unfortunately both trees are having problems with Cedar-Apple Rust. The Fuji is having a worse time of it than the Pink Lady which follows what this table of apple tree susceptibility to cedar-apple rust shows. I imagine the lack of air flow due to all the vertical growth on that tree doesn’t help. I’ll have to rake up the leaves when they fall, do better about spraying and work harder at my branch training.

Only 1-2 more years till my apple trees ought to start bearing!

Hi!

Today I made bread. Technically I started yesterday. I’ve finally (over a year later) gotten around to trying out Cheap Like Me’s most excellent bread baking method. It’s not that I don’t like my existing favorite bread recipe. It’s quite tasty. Kneading is fun, now that I’ve got the hang of it. I even enjoy the time it takes, as it keeps me close to home on baking day and encourages me to finish up those little odds and ends of the zillion projects I always having going on. But if I want to eat my own bread more often, and keep up with my part-time job, my health and various and sundry other interests, I really can’t devote a whole day every week to baking (and it takes a whole day in my cool/cold kitchen). It’s just not practical for me.

I’ve looked through a variety of no-knead bread books. I didn’t like the use of sugar in the Kneadlessly Simple base recipe (I’m trying to cut down on my sugar intake to please my doctor and my body). I’ve had trouble with the method described in Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. For one thing, I’m a clutz. Slipping a gently shaped loaf of dough from its floured resting place onto a hot baking stone tends to result in dough landing on my floor or oven door at best. I also always seem to wind up with dough that is too wet or not quite cloaked right, in that my resting dough grows outwards, not up. My Bread perhaps comes closest to what I’d like to be able to do with bread. I appreciate the smaller amount of yeast used (both for cost and for health reasons), the book itself was a real interesting read and I’m curious about the baking concepts it describes, but I wasn’t sure about the extra dark crust. I still have too many childhood picky food issues that I’m working on. Dark crusts are one of ‘em. Its silly, I know. But I like a lighter, slightly softer crust.

Cheap Like Me’s method seems to take the recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day and use some methods similar to My Bread’s. And dumping dough into a pot – that I can do without needing a major clean-up effort after (plus, her crust looked nicely browned but not quite so dark as the My Bread crusts, points out the stubborn child in me). I started yesterday mixing together the dough. Had to wait a while for my super cold filtered fridge water to come up to lukewarm temp, but otherwise it was the same easy mixing I’d experienced before with Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day recipe. I let it rise and stuck it in the chest fridge after it leveled off.

This afternoon, while doing far too many other things, I decided to bake. I cloaked the bread, turned it out, floured it some more (because my dough is usually too wet) and shaped it as best I could (gently and quickly working in some of the flour). As always, while resting, my dough took on the shape of a Frisbee and I started to get sad. Flat bread is tasty, but not what I wanted. I preheated the oven with the dutch oven in it (belatedly wondering if I ought to have greased the pot, too late now) and tried to ignore my ever flattening dough. When the time came I dumped my dough in the pot (a set of oven mitts and pot holders, that thing is HOT!) set the timer and went back to making dinner, doing laundry and fixing up our bikes’ new home. By the time the bread’s first 30 minutes were up I’d made peace with my flat bread. It’s still bread after all, and still tasty. But when I took off the lid for the bread’s uncovered 20 minutes of baking – Surprise! Big bread! Tall bread! Bread you could use for a proper sandwich! Clearly, the dutch oven fixes all my little, not quite right, dough flaws.

I’ll definitely be making this bread again. Thanks Cheap!

I’m still sick though, nine years later, and today is one of those days where, even in remission, the illness dictates what I can or cannot do. I just can’t find the energy to get my thoughts in order today. Much less take my dog for a walk, or shower,  or play in my garden even for a few minutes. So I’m going to leave you with a couple links that might help you understand, if you’re curious, what life is like with CFIDS and Fibromyalgia.

The first is The Spoon Theory a great way of explaining life with chronic illness. The second is an essay On Pain. Both are feeling rather appropriate as pain is winning today and I’ve been recklessly using up my spoons for the last several weeks as I’ve enjoyed letting someone new into my life. Who knew dating took such energy?! Its been well worth the trade (and I’d make the same choice again in a heartbeat), but I suspect its time I start paying attention to my body again and try to find that balance between ill and well that I’d once found.

I’ve decided, however, that I don’t like this particular coping skill. It might have served me well when I was a child and didn’t know any better. Now, it feels more like hiding from myself than actually coping. I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of fear. I’m tired of secrets. I’m tired of not feeling – and there are so many wonderful things out there to feel!

So I’m (somewhat cautiously I admit) opening metaphorical closet doors and digging up the occasional box. Just to see what’s in there. Just to see which is worse: the anxiety over what might be in the box or what’s actually in there. Its not been too bad so far. Many of the boxes simply make me want to, for example, give 14 year old me a hug and tell her it’ll be ok. Some of them even make me laugh, when I realize I’ve been hiding from such a silly thing for so long.

Sometimes though, I find one, like this week’s – a box that contains a lot of the failed relationship/marriage stuff. There’s so much anger in there! I’m not even sure who most of its for – him or me? Both probably. I don’t really know how to cope with all that anger. It still scares me so much to be around it or feel it myself. The other emotions I do alright with, but anger – that’s the one I almost always go straight to repressing, often without even realizing I’m doing it.

One trick I’m learning is using what I’ve got in my life as a means to let it out. Swimming is good, its meditative and leaves lots of time for thinking while the body moves through the water. That only works if I have an idea what’s wrong though and am at the point where I want to think it through. The peace that follows after getting out of the pool goes nicely with having worked through it as well.

Other times, I’ve gone and repressed the anger so quickly that I don’t really know what’s wrong. All I know is that I feel… off. This is when its time for grass mowing!

You see, I have this old reel mower. Its bright orange, circa 1970-something. It cuts grass reasonably well if you put the effort into it. But its old and cranky. It has trouble with ground that isn’t perfectly level, and grass or weeds of different thicknesses throw it off so that it jams or skids right over without moving the blades. I call it my acoustic mower. It also turns out to be the perfect tool for getting unstuck when dealing with (or rather avoiding dealing with) anger. The trick seems to be to do it purposefully and with a certain amount of awareness. This allows the mower and grass to become a nice safe trigger for the release of the anger, while providing me with a mindless task to perform while working through it.

I’m sure my neighbors think I’m crazy. I don’t care though. I opened a box I’d been avoiding. Faced the contents. Dealt with it in a way that not only left me feeling better, but also got my stupid grass mowed.

I know what it was like from my perspective. The superficial parts of what I wanted or needed seemed to change so rapidly and drastically from one moment to another. Sometimes I wanted to be distracted, so that I could pretend I’d be able to forget for a while. Sometimes I needed to be allowed to be angry or miserable or sad, so I could let it out without thinking about reasons or solutions. Other times I needed to read and research and study, trying to figure out those reasons or causes and look for solutions. Often, I just wanted to live what life I had. With CFIDS. In spite of CFIDS.

Sometimes I wanted my ex to try to understand what it was like. Sometimes I got exasperated when he did try – how could someone who hasn’t experienced this hell possibly understand what it was like? Often I needed his help for simple tasks. Even more often I didn’t want that help even when I knew I needed it. Sometimes I need him to let me test my limits, even if we both knew I’d pay dearly for it. Sometimes, I needed an arm to help my balance or a hand to comfort. I needed him to want to make plans that included me, and yet know that those plans would most likely fall through (and not get mad at me when they did).

Always though, I remember longing so deeply to feel even just a tiny bit less alone. At the time, I didn’t know how to give voice to what I meant by that. Looking back now, I know. I didn’t need my ex to suddenly understanding what I was going through, or find some magic new way to help, nor protect me from the hurt of it – I simply needed him to be present with me while I went through what I had to go through. Nothing more than that. and not as easy to do as it might sound.

The grief of those losses, all piled up on the heels of each other, used to be overwhelming. The beautiful (and disturbing) thing about time though, is that you forget – not the thing itself, but some of how it felt. These days, the wound only hurts if I purposefully re-open it or if it accidentally gets opened for me (little glimpses that send shivers of fear down my spine at the thought of going back to that existence).  The knowledge of how fleeting all of those things we take for granted are, has become simply a part of the fabric of my being.

Instead I see, most every day, new things.  There’s such a world full of wonders out there, right out my front door. I’ve experienced such a tiny fragment of them. Along with those new things are bits of myself returning to me, like long lost friends. One thing I missed most, without really knowing it was gone – my smile. I noticed it missing when I started working at the library. Greeting patrons, the closest I could often come was somewhat more akin to a grimace. Or as I practiced and was able to shape it a bit more like an actual smile, it was still so superficial that even I didn’t buy it. Lately though, its back and oh suddenly I realize how much I’ve missed it! That genuine sort of smile that practically dances right out of your eyes and feels like sunshine inside. Welcome back old friend.

Its an odd thing this divorce process. Not the legal aspect, as much press as that gets – its fairly cut and dry. I mean the process of separating yourself from this person who was such a huge part of your world, going through the stages of grief almost as if one of you had died, learning to identify yourself as an individual again, and most likely trying to figure out who that individual is – what you like about them and what you don’t. Then deciding what to do about it.

Its an amazing period of growth. Or it can be, if you’re willing to take a serious look at why you ended up how you did. Not his part, or her part – your part. What did you do to bring yourself to this point, and what do you think of those actions or in-actions now? I’m not advocating divorce or anything, believe me its something I never wanted to experience (so much so that I vowed as a small child never to marry in the first place, specifically to avoid this particular experience). Its just that, as hard as I tried to avoid this experience, its a rather incredible one.

This journey has been challenging as hell. Some days I’d have rather not gotten out of bed, or preferred to lose myself in a bottle of wine. Other days (most days now) have brought such joy at this rediscovering of self. I still get surprised now and then, little moments mourning a long friendship lost – like watching movie previews in a dark theater and turning to whisper your thoughts, only to find that person no longer sitting next to you.

Last year at this time I would have been rather melancholy. I was rather melancholy. This year though, I’m eager to see what other aspects of my old self resurface or what new parts there are to this self I thought I knew. So I started off this new year by doing something my old self would not have done. I wrote a long overdue letter, facing my demons – acknowledging and accepting responsibility for the hurt I’d caused (without, as my old self would have done, hiding it in excuses and blame, though there was plenty to go around that wasn’t the point). Spring is here after all, the world around me is coming back to life, filling itself with color and birdsong. Much to my surprise, I feel myself moving into a new phase of my life – one I want to enter with a clear conscience.

I still don’t know where I’m going. I’m still learning who I am and what I want. I’m still just doing whatever comes next. But I’m looking forward to the journey, rather than just getting through it. Its a nice change.

I’ve been reading, recently, some of Sharon Astyk’s blog Casaubon’s Book and today’s post titled “Adapting In Place – And When Not To” got me thinking. Actually that’s a fairly common occurrence with the posts on Casaubon’s Book – making me think. Its one of the reasons I keep going back for more. This particular post hits on something that’s been nagging at me though.

When I bought this house, in this old mill village on the river, surrounded by working farms, I did so with a fair amount of forethought. Some of my reasons were personal. I wanted to be near water because that need for water (lakes and rivers, more than sea) is something that’s part of me, something I strongly felt the loss of those years in the NC Sandhills, surrounded by a beautiful yet dry sea of whispering pines. I wanted to be near working farms because there are things I want to learn from them, things I want to ty my hand at that don’t seem conducive to life downtown wedged in a nook of forest between one highway and one interstate. I chose a hundred year old (or more) village with close-knit neighborhoods, both because I’ve been growing interested in history and because, while I wanted out of the crushing crowds of larger towns, I like living in an active community. I also know if I isolate myself on some farm in the country or cabin in the woods, my introverted side will happily try to turn me into a hermit. Tempting sometimes, but no thanks.

Some of my reasons were practical. After years in my forested house, I wanted a place I could garden. A small house, with decent solar positioning, and a yard that had room for the garden and the dog. A solidly built, older house that made the best use of its  features, cutting my heating and cooling needs.

Others of my reasons: I can imagine a day when having access to a large body of water, working farms within walking distance, a home that is bearable to live in with little to no reliance on electricity, natural gas, or other public services  may be useful things to have. I’ve felt a substantial change coming for so many years now. Its an interesting thing trying to prepare for a change when you don’t know what it might look like, when it may come, or even where that unbearable sense of urgency, six to eight years ago, originated. Was it only to do with my own need for personal change? Was it something else? I still don’t know for sure, though while the urgency’s lessened, the feeling is still there. I don’t think I’d put myself in the doomer category, after all while I do feel that change coming and worry over how it will take shape, I’ve too much hope for what it might bring with it. Change brings hardship with it, but also growth and strength and new found joys.

The part of the Adapting In Place – And When Not To post that nags at me are the other things I was looking for when I bought this house. The things that couldn’t be managed whether due to constraints of money, job, competing interests, lack of thought in that area, or general unwillingness on my part. A major one was the desire to be closer to my brother’s family. To be more a part of their lives. They’re in a place that’s good for them – and I’m glad of that. Its me who couldn’t bear to move to the city, just to be close. Me who wasn’t quite ready to take the risk of an entirely new place by giving up my job and heading for the foothills that feel so much like home and bring me within a four hour drive of family.

Then there’s the family an hour to the south. Family who will over the next twenty years need care and assistance, though neither are, I imagine (and can entirely understand), ready to think about such things (I’m rather surprised I’m thinking of such things) . Will I be able to give the help that is needed from this distance? Or my brother from his even greater distance? Would my family be willing to move when the time comes? Would I? Or what if I headed for those foothills as I’d intended. Home – the same mountains, same lakes, same flora and fauna, just further south and closer to my brother and his family. Would my mother and my aunt follow? They might. More chance of that than either of them considering coming here. There isn’t anything to draw them here but me and the possible necessity of helping each other. The foothills though, they speak loudly of home to all of us.

Did I miss my chance? Was it worth it to stay in this area for a job that I love, knowing it may disappear as things change. Already its more than I can afford to go visit my brother. Already house’s aren’t selling anymore, and not just out here in the country. They just sit and wait. Wait for things to go back to the way they were. Thing is, I don’t believe things will go back to the way they were nor should wait for them to. I believe we must live now as if we are going forward, hoping and working to shape the change into something eventually good – even if we don’t yet know how that might look.

I’ve come home with three rectangular containers. Each clear plastic, with a lid, very stack-able. They’ll mostly fill up the bottom portion of my small chest fridge, leaving just enough room for some taller condiments around the edges.  The first two are about four inches tall and will serve as veggie crisper and meats and cheeses drawer. The third is seven inches tall and will house a number of the shorter condiment jars – bbq sauce, salsa, horseradish, sour cream and the like. Juice, the water filter pitcher, my little jug of half & half, and eventually my slow rising bread dough will live on the compressor shelf with the all too frequently used Parmesan cheese.

I started out with my meats and cheeses container on the bottom of the freezer. Partly thinking the cooler temperature in the bottom of the freezer would help its contents last longer. Partly because I’m a cheese addict and wanted to see if I could force myself into better food choices by putting what I desire most underneath the condiments, with the healthy veggie crisper topmost. I’ve since revised this, as I’m quickly growing annoyed at having to pull out all three containers every time I want a nibble of cheese. Hey, I said I was a cheese addict. I guess I’ll leave the food related mind games for later, after I’ve adapted to the chest fridge a little more.

Other than the three containers and the compressor shelf, I also have the hanging, sliding basket that came with the freezer. It is the keeper of my most used items. Eggs, butter, bread, mustard and such. The trouble I’m having with the sliding basket is that its metal. In shifting things around, I find I sometimes forget to slide the basket back over and allow it to sit touching the external thermostat’s sensor bulb. This makes the sensor bulb think my chest fridge is cooler than it really is. So far it hasn’t been disastrous, but I did leave me wondering for a while why my chest fridge was suddenly having trouble getting down to temperature. I might swap this metal basket for the plastic basket out of the older, soon to be sold freezer. Just in case I get forgetful again.