{"id":2980,"date":"2012-01-04T13:19:04","date_gmt":"2012-01-04T18:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/?p=2980"},"modified":"2012-01-04T13:19:04","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T18:19:04","slug":"cow-spotting-garden-opoly-a-girl-a-dog-reasons-to-forgo-new-years-resolutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/2012\/01\/cow-spotting-garden-opoly-a-girl-a-dog-reasons-to-forgo-new-years-resolutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Cow-Spotting, Garden-opoly, A Girl, & A Dog–Reasons to Forgo New Year’s Resolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Lately I\u2019ve been accomplishing nothing and enjoying everything. This may seem like a small matter, but for me it is a big deal. For years I rushed from one thing to the next; I couldn\u2019t stay still long enough to appreciate and experience the good stuff right in front of me. I thought being goal-oriented was a good thing; now I think that strategy is flawed. That\u2019s why I don\u2019t make so called \u201cNew-Year\u2019s Resolutions\u201d which I think we forcefully and awkwardly impose on ourselves to manufacture some sort of tangible (usually physical) benefit, while we leave our inner selves untended to. My only real goal these days is to stay present in my life. This means slowing down, being patient, and listening to what the universe is trying to tell me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This weekend that meant watching a little girl grow. We picked Libby up and brought her out to the Island on Thursday and returned her to Falmouth Monday night. Roy is working hard on a house renovation, so Libby (and Farmer, aka The Black Rider) and I set out to have a good time together during the day while Roy worked. By the end of the holiday, it wasn\u2019t just the physical time spent with Libby that I enjoyed so much\u2014it was the surreal sense I got of watching her personality forming, her confidence building, her creativity exploding, that made my spine tingle. Never could I have been a witness to this in my old life; I believe that\u2019s why Libby showed up in my life when she did.<\/p>\n

We played four rounds of our new board game, Garden-opoly, a thoughtful gift from my sister Eleanor. And this is just uncanny: Libby won almost every time, just like she does when we play Monopoly. (I thought maybe I stood a chance with this game; when we played with Roy on New Year\u2019s Eve, I was in the lead before we went to bed. That was the best I did all weekend.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Many people would find endless hours of board games and <\/em>being beaten by a nine-year-old hard to take, but the giggles and smiles and gleeful squirming were just priceless. Plus, there\u2019s a whole improvisational story line that arises when someone\u2019s hot\u2014we started calling Libby \u201cMiss Gardenopolis.\u201d Watching her organize her properties (her favorites, not surprisingly, were Tomato Terrace, Green Bean Bypass, and Strawberry Fields), stack her money, and build her \u201cgreenhouses\u201d (aka hotels) made us proud. (It makes me think she\u2019ll make good financial decisions when she grows up! Her biggest strategy is to hide one of her $500 bills under the board until late in the game. She doesn\u2019t buy every property she lands on, either\u2014how can that be?!) And seeing her exercise a bit of charity and kindness was gratifying too\u2014she would occasionally offer to lend me some money or overlook a debt, and she chastised me when I passed up an opportunity to visit the \u201cFree Compost\u201d corner, where hundreds of dollars awaited. Libby\u2019s prowess at Garden-opoly also makes me realize that I made a good decision to add a \u201cLibby\u201d section to the new expanded vegetable garden this year. I\u2019m sure it will prosper.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On Friday, Farmer and Libby and I went cow-spotting down at the FARM Institute, taking along our cameras (Libby got one for Christmas) to photograph the interesting beef cattle lolling around. (Fortunately, Libby is crazy about animals\u2014probably even more than I am, so farm trips are easy entertainment for us.) Afterwards, we went shopping for the ingredients for home-made pizza (her favorite\u2014she is chief \u201cdecorator”) for Friday night and roast chicken and make-your-own-brownie sundaes for New Year\u2019s Eve. (Fabulous brownie recipe here<\/a>. Pizza recipe coming in new book.)<\/p>\n

Probably the most fascinating thing for me was seeing how Libby entertained herself during those times when I did need to do a little desk work or a few house chores. One morning, she built an elaborate \u201ccondo\u201d out of leftover Christmas boxes and home-made confetti for her collection of little toy lizards. There was also a larger toy dragon protecting the kingdom from intruders. (And an entire narrative to go along with this.) But I especially loved watching the games she devised to play with Farmer. Often a dish towel or a kitchen apron would make it into the\u00a0 mix\u2014either used to dress up Farmer, who doesn\u2019t seem to mind a bonnet or a skirt\u2014or as a bullfighter\u2019s cape. (Toro! Toro!) Ring-Around-the-Rosie was popular\u2026though noisy. (Everything shakes when these two race around the downstairs of this tiny farm house, which literally has only three rooms\u2014not including the mudroom\u2014on the first floor, and also has terribly uneven floors.) Hide-and-seek was popular, too. And occasionally, Libby (who is tiny for her age) would actually get on top of Farmer and ride him like a horse. Amazingly, this dog thinks there is nothing more fun. (He\u2019s been a total nut since she left.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Since Farmer and Libby wear each other out, eventually Farmer climbs up on the couch and passes out. Then Libby, in her feetsy-pajamas, lays down next to him and rests her head on his chest. Roy smiles and I just sigh. Watching these two befriend each other is a hoot. And spending time with Libby isn\u2019t just rewarding\u2014it\u2019s a whole lot of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately I\u2019ve been accomplishing nothing and enjoying everything. This may seem like a small matter, but for me it is a big deal. For years I rushed from one thing to the next; I couldn\u2019t stay still long enough to appreciate and experience the good stuff right in front of me. I thought being goal-oriented […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[103,1],"tags":[104],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2980"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3008,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980\/revisions\/3008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}