Moving along.

After the hawk incident, I found myself once again, trying to get my brain wrapped around the idea that you cannot control everything.

At the end of my brainstorming all the options, which I have done before, it came down to one thing:

"Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me, and can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake.

Unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world, as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

Yes, you have heard me say this before, for a good reason, because it is the truth.

I cannot keep my chickens from getting killed by predators on occasion.   What I can do is every possible thing to minimize that probability.  So far, they have an automatic door, a solar chicken run, rocks all around the bottom of the  fenced in yard, electric wire all around the top.  I lock them in at sunset, every night.

So today, I took my $8 purchase of aluminum cake tins, some wire, some cord, scissors, a hammer, some nails, and I put up a hawk deterrent.

I also have an 18" tall  owl with a bobble head coming from Tractor Supply, as an added

item that hawks do not like.  Predators beware, I'm on a mission.

I did not travel to have Christmas with my daughters.  I erred on the side of caution, and stayed home.  To keep myself from feeling emotional about it, and getting maudlin, I cleaned.  And cleaned.  And organized.  My Overstock dealbuster rug came, and I put it down in the studio.  Naya and Willie will love it.

I moved magazines  and books from shelves down near the floor, to shelves that are more easily accessible.

I dusted and I attacked every surface.

Sometimes the simplest fixes make me happy.

I have a few more areas that are on my list.......I figure I'll have my spring cleaning done before spring gets here.

I have found myself thinking of my mother, who lived in England during the depression, and was in the English women's army, the ATS, through WWII.  Her family was poor, and the cardboard in her shoes as a child, led her to be obsessed with shoes later on in life.   

Until the day she died, eggs, and potatoes were her favorite foods.  And butter.  Lots of butter.  Things they couldn't get in tough times.

I imagine what she would say about all that's going on today.  I think she would make tea and say, hold the line, this is a hard time, but it's not forever.

So I'm going with that.  Think I'll go put the kettle on.