Quote of the Week

Local and Regional food systems are about opportunity.

                                --Tom Vilsack

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Wordless Wednesday

Quote of the Week

Our food system belongs in the hands of many family farmers, not under the control of a handful of corporations.

                      -Willie Nelson

#agreenhaven, #food systems #food quotes, #Willie Nelson

Joy Came in the Morning

 Thursday morning, I sat in my driveway, waiting to take my eldest daughter to a job; my mind and fingers were cobbling together my words for a text to my team lead, to quit! Leaving this job has crossed my mind throughout my training, but I kept trying to swim against the current, and the exhaustion kicked in, immediately, but I kept going when I should've left earlier when the loss of appetite set in, but no, I kept pushing on, and in turn, my appetite came back, but I began having severe headaches every time I was near or at my computer and desk(also, I worked from home), after work, I had no energy to do anything else afterwards.

I would clock out and head to my bedroom to wind down with a list of tv shows or movies to watch, but I never got the chance to watch them because I would always fall asleep. The only way I could stay up after work was whenever, I got the chance to talk to my sister on the phone. We would stay on the phone for hours and just laugh and enjoy each others company. But the falling asleep immediately after work was real and seemed so weird because the job was a customer service job for a large well known Insurance Company( I worked as a third party rep), so actually I was employed by the third party company, but anyways, I didn't feel like I had an easy comfortable work at home job; I actually felt like I ran a marathon everyday and unload a tractor trailer load of large boxes. 

I've worked at two other customer service jobs in my lifetime and neither one of them made me feel this exhausted and physically sick, either. However, both of them actually gave me some type of confidence in my ability to do the job during training. We all know that the actual learning and knowledge of the job comes when you start taking calls, and for me the training was lacking with this company---many technical issues and the majority of the training environment(where we had to practice writing policies) didn't work---that's a big problem. 

So, the unpreparedness and tiredness just compounded, but I continued on, hoping and praying that it'll get better the more I do it. But how long can I continue to not really live? Is a decent paycheck really worth my physical/mental health? Even though I did one day of taking phone calls, in nesting, I continued fighting with myself about the job and giving it one more chance because the members were great, and I got great feedback about my interactions with the callers, but----I didn't feel good about my experience on the job. So, at 9:50 a.m.(10 minutes before my shift started) on Thursday morning, I sent my resignation text, and just like that, my headache was gone, and joy suddenly came to me that morning.

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday was a Good Day

Sunday was the only day I had to myself to do what I want which could've been binge watching any one of the streaming services: Hulu, Prime, Disney+ or Netflix, in which my day would be filled with unique storytelling, classics or a wacky reality TV show---which I don't watch as much as I used to, I can't stand the drama, which comes across as fake with some of these shows. When it comes to reality TV, I still have favorites, just not so many.

Where I'm at in my life right now, is surrounding myself with peace, opportunities to learn or expand on skills, slowing down to enjoy the little things in life, setting and meeting financial goals for myself, and Sunday was the perfect day to hit many of those targets while in the garden.

The two hours spent in the garden spreading out cardboard, emptying compost bins and dumping bins of leaves on a mild winter afternoon was so peaceful. Whenever I start to feel like, life is just happening and I'm just going through the motions, the garden always seems to allow me the time to stop, reflect, find myself and truly live.

-Shelly

#agreenhaven #gardening #peace #slow living #backyardgardener

Quote of the Week

photo by Eva Bronzini, found on Pexels 

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.

-May Sarton

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