To Make

Sometimes we get so focused on the difficulty of our climb that we lose sight of being grateful for simply having a mountain to climb. -- Oprah Winfrey

I've been kind of whiney as of late. I'm not proud of it. I don't like whiney people, and so I really don't like myself when I become one of them. But I whined.

I've been whiney because I've become painfully aware of how many things there are to do each day. So many things to work on, so many things to make, so many things to wash and clean and fold and get ready. And I whined to the hubby about it once last week before I hauled myself up out of the couch to go make dinner.

"I guess I better go make dinner," I said with a big sigh.

"You could always just eat ready-made meals, you know," he said.

And yeah, I know I could. I could stop baking my own bread and buy a few loaves. I could stop making big batches of food for my lunches and packing them away in my own containers to freeze, and I could stop making my own granola bars and muffins and vegetable cups and breakfast smoothies, and just buy it all. It would be easier. Someone else would do it for me.

I was still feeling sorry for myself when I got up this morning and went out for my run. I knew I'd come home to my Sunday list of jobs: making bread, making breakfast smoothies, packing lunches and snacks and whatever. So I ran my scheduled 8 kilometres and came home and ate my cereal and brooded a bit before I showered and got dressed. I walked back down to the kitchen and opened up a recipe book to make these Hummingbird Muffins for the first time as a new weekday snack.

I measured and whisked and mixed and poured and sprinkled and then put them in the oven. I washed bowls, wiped counters, and then got out my blender to make a couple of breakfast smoothies, then chopped up my veggies for my vegetable cups, and then packed my lunchbox for tomorrow. And then the oven timer beeped and I took out the muffins.

Holy sheep, are they good. They are shut-up-and-just-eat-em good.

The hubby was out for most of the day, so I took myself out for lunch, then went for a walk down to the water.

I saw this burned boat, which I vaguely remember hearing about... I can't remember from whom or when they said it, but I wasn't surprised when I saw it. It made me sad, but it was strangely beautiful...

And then I walked down to the marina and took out these two tea towels that I ordered from the artist behind one of my favourite blogs - Lucy King, of The Bowerbird. I just love what she creates.

I even took a muffin with me and a cup of tea from the marina boat house, except I'd had such a good lunch that I couldn't eat the muffin. And then I sat in the sunshine and did some knitting for a while.

It was strange to be there without my Rascal. We often went there together.

And then I went home and made some bread...

... because I realized today that no, I don't have to make these things... but I it's not that I have to. I need to. It's inside of me to make and create... I like tweaking and figuring things out, and the challenge of making a muffin healthier and tastier at the same time, of making a sweater fit, or finding just the right stitch pattern for a skein of yarn I've been holding onto. And it's a privilege that I can choose to do these things, that it is not an obligation or a necessity. It's a choice.

And I choose to make.