Category: The Life

Eating the Frog, Christmas Music, and My Three Depression Lists

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“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

This advice is popularly attributed to Mark Twain, the folksy sage of American literature.  Essentially, it’s an argument for getting the most unpleasant part of your day out of the way first thing.  Client you don’t want to talk to?  Eat the frog.  Chore you don’t want to do?  Eat the frog.  Student papers you aren’t excited to grade?  Put the ones you know will be subpar on top.

I laid in bed yesterday thinking about eating the frog.

“Eat the Frog, Cherity.  Just eat the freaking frog.”

Yesterday, though, my first frog was just getting out of bed.  When that happens, it’s a pretty good indicator that my depression is creeping back in. Continue reading “Eating the Frog, Christmas Music, and My Three Depression Lists” →

The one about the duckling I hid in my cleavage.

Published on by almostfarmgirl

You know that moment?

The one that comes when you are trying desperately to be professional?

To pass for a calm, cool, collected businessperson?  Perhaps while you’re at a bank, finishing a nearing six-figure aircraft deal, providing closing instructions to a banker on behalf of your client?

And then the wild duckling that you have hidden in your cleavage starts peeping?

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That’s us.  In the bank.

Don’t you just hate that? Continue reading “The one about the duckling I hid in my cleavage.” →

Why I Paid an Artist to Cut My Wedding Dress into Pieces.

Published on by almostfarmgirl10 Comments

I spent part of this evening cleaning up around the house.

As usual, I couldn’t really stay on task.  I wandered.  Washing sheets from one room.  Picking up in another.  I clean like an ADHD squirrel, bouncing from room to room, lacking cohesion and getting distracted by each new corner.  I once set out to dust my bedroom and wound up reorganizing the entire contents of my walk-in hallway closet instead.  The bedroom went undusted.  The closet turned out wonderfully, and I’m still not sure how that happened.

All of this to say, I didn’t set out to throw away wedding memorabilia today, but somewhere in the process of cleaning up my guest room, I stumbled upon my one-time treasures and decided that it was time that they stop taking up space…in my home and in my life.  Unity candles are a lovely metaphor, and you never expect to see the day come that you toss them aside, but their meaning is lessened once the pair they unified sever all the ties the flame represented.   I took out the ceremonial objects and unceremoniously dumped them into my trash outside next to the dirty cat litter. Continue reading “Why I Paid an Artist to Cut My Wedding Dress into Pieces.” →

Take Me Home Country Roads

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My commute to the office usually takes about twenty-five minutes.  It’s two-lane, country driving the entire way along one of the Illinois’ River Roads.  My landmarks as I drive are a railroad crossing, a bald eagle nest, and a couple of roadside picnic benches.  There usually isn’t much traffic, but you do have to watch for deer.  Especially during the rut.

This time of year, I watch for turtles.  So far, I’ve stopped and given a crossing assist to five of them, parking along the roadside with my hazards flashing.  (Only one peed on me…but that’s a different story.) Continue reading “Take Me Home Country Roads” →

On Shearing and Doing Hard Things

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This is me.

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This is me on an almost 90 degree day, after shearing nine of my llamas over the course of about two hours.

This is me sweaty and exhausted.  Covered in tiny bits of wool.  Thoroughly uncomfortable

And thrilled that my animals were cool again. Continue reading “On Shearing and Doing Hard Things” →

Befores and Afters

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I read a book once that pointed out that life tends to divide itself into befores and afters.

It’s true, when you think about it.  Some are obvious milestones: Before high school.  After high school.  Before college.  After college.  Before and after your first job.  Births.  Deaths.  We, all of us, all our lives, are just a mess of befores and afters and how they changed us from one version of ourselves to the next.  We have ceremonies to celebrate or mourn the changes.  Matriculation.  Funerals.  Christenings.

Marriages.

Divorces.

Sometimes, even though one day you’re a person of before and the next day a person of after, it feels like little has changed.  Some befores and afters fade into one another like the colors of the sunset meld from one to the next, and suddenly the sky has gone from blue to orange to purple without you noticing.  The easy changes are like that.  You don’t realize things are changing until they have, and then, before you know it, you’ve made your way from a before to an after.

Other changes fall like a sledgehammer.  No matter the slope into it, no matter the warning or preparation, the change will always be abrupt.

Like death.

Hopefully followed by rebirth. Continue reading “Befores and Afters” →

On Dating.

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Swipe Right.

“So, what are you looking for?”

It’s a straightforward enough question really, and one that comes up a lot when you foray into the world of online dating, but it’s one that I sometimes have a hard time answering.

What am I looking for…?

The truth is, it’s hard to know what you’re looking for in a place that you’ve found yourself by accident. Continue reading “On Dating.” →

Sitting in the Sacred

Published on by almostfarmgirl18 Comments

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

It’s still warm enough for crickets to chirp their song at the end of the day, but only just.  Our fall colors are still flirting with the green of summer.  Fall happens slowly here.  You almost miss it, sandwiched between our Midwestern summers and winters which compete every year to be fiercer than the other.  Fall is quiet.  Unlike the famous colors out east, our colors don’t come all at once.   We entertain shades of gold and green and red in the same moment.  Oranges like pumpkins.  Scarlet like the lips of emboldened women.  Yellow leaves reminiscent of gold jewelry worn to be noticed and envied.  All of this beside the slow trees that cling to their chlorophyll, still green into November.  Even lovelier for their slow and steady, almost cautious, pace.

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Continue reading “Sitting in the Sacred” →

The Anniversary that Wasn’t: Why I Wish I had just “Thrown Away” my Marriage.

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I was scrolling through the calendar on my phone, looking for an appointment I couldn’t remember making, when I scrolled across a repeating reminder.

“Anniversary”


It made my stomach drop to be honest, and I flashed to memories of a lacy white dress, yellow roses on white tablecloths, and promises that were supposed to last forever.

“For better or for worse.”

“For richer or for poorer.”

“Forsaking all others…”

“Anniversary…” plugged in to my phone because I’ve always had a hell of a time with dates, even important ones, and I need reminders.    And there it was, my reminder, set to repeat into infinity, because when you get married you promise each other forever, and you can’t imagine a world where you won’t need a reminder for that date.

I deleted the reminder–I wouldn’t need it anymore–but the word hung like a shadow for the rest of the day.  It would have been seven years this year, and, even though I’ve honestly gotten to the place where I feel pretty damn lucky that the marriage ended, the reminder still tagged along with me for the rest of the day. Continue reading “The Anniversary that Wasn’t: Why I Wish I had just “Thrown Away” my Marriage.” →

I get by with a little help from my friends.

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My ex didn’t want the farm.

Actually, he did, until he didn’t anymore, but that’s a little beside the point.

That day last summer, the day that he yelled over the phone that the farm would kill me, that it was too much for me to do on my own, he was pretty clear on not wanting the farm.

I stood between my barns, acutely aware of everything that was broken or undone.  Everything that required my time and my energy and my money.  Everything that needed to be done that I didn’t know how to do.  Tears ran down my cheeks, because his words left me with no future. Continue reading “I get by with a little help from my friends.” →