Movin' On Up!

We've moved! My website (itsthesimplethings.com) and blog have become one. Please click on this link to find us on WordPress and then sign up on my website's home page to continue to receive my blog delivered to your email!

Thanks for all your support. Hope to see you at the new place!

Peace.

644,000,000 and Counting!

A lawn couch, found via stumbleupon & saved to pinterest

Six hundred and forty four million...that's the approximate number of websites out there, as of March 2012 (according to  Netcraft). Gadzooks, that's a lot of information! Assuming there are things at both ends of the spectrum that I'm not interested in, there's still so much stuff in the middle that could be interesting or funny if I only knew it existed!

My most-favorite way to explore the web is stumbleupon.com. Stumbleupon allows you to choose categories that interest you (for me it's things like books, crafts, cooking, fine arts, gardening, etc.). Once you've chosen the categories, click the "Stumble" button and you're off on an adventure! To fine-tune your likes/dislikes, the folks at stumbleupon provide a thumbs-up and thumbs-down button. If you use this to rate the page they've sent to you, the program will consider those likes and dislikes before it sends you on another adventure. I don't want the system deciding what I want to see too much, so I usually only use the thumbs up/down for total-misses, or bullseyes.  I have found so many things that inspire me, make me laugh, or make me go "hmm"!

If you give a page a thumbs-up, stumbleupon will save it for you in a list, which is not organized enough for me. That's why I use pinterest.com when I find (and want to save) a bit of inspiration or beauty or the newest best-brownie-recipe-on-earth. I haven't seen a better way to organize web content than pinterest. I can set up boards (categories) however I choose and "pin" a website to that board with a simple click. When I'm short on inspiration for dinner or a new craft project, I can go to my boards and see what sparked my interest yesterday, last week or last year.

Making a purse from an old book

Take the picture at the top of this post. I stumbled across this at readymade.com Will I ever decide to "sprout a couch"? Probably not. But the idea that someone thought to do it, did it and then posted the directions for the whole world to have, makes me happy and it's worth pinning just to remind me to think outside the box!

Here's a fun idea that I found on curbly.com. This idea of making a purse from an old book looks liked something I might actually get around to doing one of these days!

There's so much fun and inspiration on the internet. Taking a little time to find what moves me is so worth it and it's a simple thing to do. I hope this has moved you to explore a little more!

Here's a link to my pinterest account if you're curious about what I find worth saving. Let me know if you set up a board or two...I'd love to see what moves you, too!

Peace,

Llama-Poo Tea and Rose-Colored Glasses

Calamity Jane up front; Rosie in the background

One reason my gardens are bursting with flowers and berries and veggies this year is because I'm treating them to a regular dose of llama-poo tea. Yep, you read right...llama-poo tea! We have three llamas; Calamity Jane (who fell out of a moving trailer when she was young...thus her name), Rosie (Calamity's daughter), and Zoe (who sometimes feels like the third wheel...I can tell). The girls aren't particularly personable, unless it's the middle of winter and you have a pocket full of alfalfa pellets, but they keep some of the fields mowed down with their grazing, they're fun to watch, and they keep our sheep (Ben & Jerry) safe from coyotes (llamas hate dogs they don't know).

Llamas (and alpacas) are unique among grazing animals in that they dedicate a spot or two in the fields as their bathroom. As time marches on, lovely, black piles of fertilizer begin to mound up in the fields, making collection very, very easy!  Thank you, girls, for being so accommodating!

Rather than sprinkling the pellets directly on the garden beds (where they take a surprisingly long time to decompose), I've discovered that using llama-poo tea to water my plants gets the good stuff to the roots much quicker.

Llama-poo tea is made pretty much like any other tea. My "cup" is a five-gallon bucket and my tea is a shovelful of llama poo. It steeps for a day or two and is ready to use on the next watering day. I guess the difference between real tea and llama-poo tea is here...I would strain out loose-leaf tea before using, but I want all the llama poo in my garden tea, so I just use a stick to stir it really good, dip a pitcher in to fill it and pour the liquid gold (okay, dark brown) at the base of a plant. I repeat the whole stir-dip-pour until the bucket's nearly out of water. I refill the bucket and carry on until I've used up all the llama poo. Then I just throw another shovelful in the bucket, add water and let it sit a day or two until I'm ready to water again!

It's hard to be glamorous standing over a bucket of poo, trying not to breathe while stirring, but it's worth it when I see how the fertilizer is making my soil richer. The other day, while I was stirring, I realized that my llama-poo-to-liquid-gold is a good analogy for life. Crap happens; there's no getting around it. It's what we do with the bad/negative things that matter.

My glass is pretty much always half full. I feel guilty admitting it because I know plenty of people who live in a world littered with half-empty or empty glasses and I just don't get it! Why choose to see things in a negative light if there is any possibility of turning it around? My prayers always begin with thanks but sometimes all I can muster is to thank Him that things aren't worse. That's okay though, because just that glimmer of positivity helps me see things in a different light.

A life full of possibilities is so much more meaningful and joyous than a life full of limitations. I hope the next time you're faced with a pile of crap (be it a bad day, lost job, or broken heart) you take a moment, thank Him that things aren't worse and then consider the possibility that the pile of crap dumped at your feet might be just the fertilizer you need to make your life richer!

I challenge you to see everything through rose-colored glasses today! What have you got to lose?

Peace,
Chris