Peace of Mind

We helped out some friends this weekend. Their rental house has a wonderfully landscaped yard, needing some of that springtime attention to help launch the yard on the right path for summer. But, 9 month-pregnant momma-to-be was in early stages of labor. This just would not do. So we went over to their house on Saturday and did the yard work with them. When we left, the grass was mowed and edged, lots of weeds had been pulled. Plants that didn’t survive the winter were removed; some replacements planted. Color spots from the nursery were put in the ground an hanger baskets, and all the winter accumulation of leaves and yard debris from all the storms was taken out. They were ready to enjoy the yard, while concentrating on the new arrival and the parade of family and friends that comes with the baby. They had a noticeably high level of peace-of-mind when we left.

That felt really, really good.

M’s rehearsals have gone well. They’re still on the fence as to whether she’s an understudy or a cast member. Regardless of which she ultimately is, this has already turned out well. We all have a good feeling about that.

R left on Sunday for Outdoor School. Six days of environmental awareness education along the Sandy River east of Portland. He’s going to have a blast. He might just come back a little disappointed once he realizes how much environmental awareness he already possesses.  Even if he’s a little disappointed, he’ll have the validation that he’s knowledgeable and increasingly expert.

The rest of the Typhoon spent Sunday working on our own house. Two different neighbors stopped to say ‘hi’ and to comment that they’re glad we’re back. They can tell we’re back because the yard already looks so nice. They’re thankful for that. We did some landscape planning and some cleanup. I took out the seven small junipers that C has always hated. We’re planning for something new, but we don’t yet know what.

I got the cars washed, too. M helped a little bit. Both got washed on the outside; the Jag got vacuumed out in the cabin and the trunk. Then I washed both sets of floor mats, and sprayed vinyl protectant on the rubber mats … same stuff that makes the tires look all shiny. The mats never looked better. A little protectant on the shielding under the hood, and my car looks showroom new again.

Most of the day, however, was spent on the garage.

See, the garage still is full of ‘stuff’ left over from the move: extra appliances; boxes of tax paperwork old enough to be discarded but still with us; clothes ready for donate/resale/hand-down; and the like.  We managed to get a bunch of stuff onto the shelves, and consolidated/culled a bunch more. We have three loads of stuff to go to donation, and will post the appliances to craigslist this week. Once the donations are gone, and the appliances are sold, we should be able to get one car into the garage. Both cars? Well, that’s a different story. That’ll require phase two of the culling of the contents of the garage.

While we worked on the garage, M shared that she’d like to become a vegetarian. She doesn’t want to eat meat that had to die to make the food. She’s okay with vegetables, fruit and beans. She’s okay with eating eggs and milk because no animal ‘died’. She wants to include bacon and sausage and fish. In other words, she wants to avoid most pork, most poultry and all beef. That’s her idea of vegetarianism. She’s a lacto-ouvo-baco-sauso-pesca-vegetarian. Uh huh…

Well, far be it for us to put that down in any way. While R (the vegephobe) is at Outdoor School, we’ll use this as a family project to explore lacto-ouvo-vegetarian eating habits. M can see for herself how a vegetarian puts together the right foods to make for a balanced diet. This’ll be fun. And it’ll be informative for M. Then, she can decide what she really wants to do, and feel peaceful about her decisions.

So, we feel pretty good about where we are. It was great to be of service to someone else at a valuable and critical time. We spread lots of peace-of-mind this weekend. And for that, we were blessed with peace-of-mind in return.